Dialectic

The dialectical mode of logic has its strongest roots in the works of G. W. F. Hegel and Karl Marx. Hegel was a dialectical idealist principally concerned with a dialectic of ideas. [Page 200]Marx combined Hegel's sense of dialectical thinking with the materialism of Ludwig Feuerbach to produce dialectical materialism. This shift from a concern with ideas to what many social scientists would consider a more grounded materialistic approach is what makes the dialectical thinking of Marx, not Hegel, most relevant to social theory.

Dialecticians take a relational view of the social world. Their focus is not on any one aspect of that world in isolation, but rather on the relationships among and between various elements, as well as on the totality of social relations and ...