ABSTRACT
The Hegelian dialectic is genuinely intelligible only when seen in the larger setting of Hegel's theory of history as the self-realization of God. Spirit's self-realization through cognitive activity is for Hegel a process of the successive transcending of limits. The dialectic may be described as the psychodynamics of Hegelian spirit in its quest to know itself as the Absolute. Hegel contends that his dialectic of the finite discloses the secret of the 'genuine infinite', or proper way of understanding the concept of infinity. The genuine infinite of Hegelian dialectic is a kind of dynamic monism. Hegel's dialectic of the finite is a dynamism of self-aggrandizement. The dialectic is a process of spirit's self-aggrandizement to infinity through the cognitive conquest of the world stage by stage. The discovery of dialectic as inner conflict of the self striving to infinitize itself made Hegel sensitively alive to contradiction everywhere, including society.
