ABSTRACT
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and, with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling, one of the representatives of German idealism.
Hegel’s work has a reputation for its difficulty and for the breadth of the topics it attempts to cover. Hegel introduced a dialectic system for understanding the history of philosophy and the world itself, often described as a progression in which each successive movement emerges as a solution to the contradictions inherent in the preceding movement. Churchman (1971) describes Hegel’s dialectic as a three-step process of “Thesis, antithesis, synthesis,” namely that a “thesis” (e.g. the French Revolution) causes the creation of its “antithesis” (e.g. the Reign of Terror that followed), which eventually results in a “synthesis” (e.g. the constitutional state of free citizens).2 Churchman takes Hegel’s view on thesis and antithesis as two different views about a phenomenon, based on different interests and weltanschauungen people may have. To find the truth in such cases is difficult, but most important for the progress of human insight. There are two ways of solving the resulting conflicts (i.e. realizing a synthesis). One way is to appoint a master who decides like a referee; the other is finding a joint resolution. An example here is a court case, in which the lawyer will selectively use the available data to find arguments in favor of his client. This may easily result in a biased view and even in a distorted view of reality. In contrast, the public prosecutor will try to show the errors and distortions the lawyer presents, and may also use selectively other data to demonstrate that the accused must be penalized. In some cases, the judge will not be requested to make a verdict when the two parties are able to settle the dispute (synthesis by resolution), but when this is hard to realize, the judge (or jury) will have to decide (i.e. synthesis by the master).
