The laws of dialectics do not function in isolation, but in unity with each other. Realized in the struggle of opposites and the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative differences, development thereby contains as its essential and necessary moment the negation of the old and the emergence of the new. The leading trend in the ongoing qualitative transformations and the connection between various stages of development is determined by the law of negation of negation.
The starting point in the analysis of its content is, of course, the category of negation. Philosophical thought faces the problem of negation, strictly speaking, at its very inception. This is revealed in the interest of ancient scientists in the question of the relationship between being and non-being, existence and destruction. Already in ancient Indian philosophy, for example, such questions were discussed very lively. According to the teachings of the Vaisheshika materialists, various types of non-existence or negation are correlated with being: previous non-existence, the non-existence of a thing as a result of its destruction, the non-existence of one thing as another, etc.
The problem of being and non-being was interpreted from various philosophical positions by ancient thinkers (Heraclitus, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, etc.). And in later times, the question of the essence of negation and its role in the existence and change of things was raised by many philosophers (B. Spinoza, I. Kant, Hegel, etc.). Ultimately, one or another interpretation of negation was associated with an idea of the nature of the changes taking place in Reality, of the development of the world. The dialectical dimension of negation was expressed very precisely by N.G. Chernyshevsky: “Only the power of negation from everything that has passed is the power that creates something new and better” (62. T.1. P.413).
Not all philosophers agreed with this interpretation of negation. Many of them identified it with simply destroying things. From this, conclusions were drawn that in nature and society there is essentially no development towards something new. A very common view in ancient times was that the “golden age” of man was in the past, and subsequent history was a constant movement of society along a downward line, along the path of regression. Thus, the ancient Greek poet Hesiod taught: the age of human happiness, the golden age, is left behind. Evil in life is inevitable, it is “impossible to avoid it in any way.”
Along with similar purely pessimistic ideas about the movement of society backwards, there existed in the past the concept of an eternal cycle of phenomena in the world. This is the teaching of ancient Indian idealism about the reincarnation of souls, about the doom of a person to eternally remain in the cycle of empirical existence and constant rebirth in it in accordance with the nature of actions in previous births. In modern times, the idea of historical movement as an eternal cycle was put forward by the Italian scientist G. Vico. In his view, society seems to go through continuously repeating cycles: the period of childhood, when a religious worldview and despotism dominate; then comes the period of youth with the dominance of aristocracy and chivalry; a period of maturity when science and democracy flourish and when society at the same time goes backwards towards decline. The period of decline is replaced again by the period of childhood, the latter by the period of youth, etc.
The interpretation of reality in the concepts of regression and circulation is one-sided. They ignore the complexity of the process of denial and the diversity of its forms. It is no less mistaken, however, to belittle the “power of negation” and not see its function of destroying the old. Similar metaphysical attitudes are characteristic of various theories of linear progress. According to the teachings of the French sociologist M. Condorcet, history is the path of direct ascent based on the limitless improvement of people's knowledge and abilities. The bourgeois system was proclaimed here as the pinnacle of “reasonableness” and “naturalness.” In addition, capitalism was credited with the ability for limitless progress.
In modern philosophy and sociology, various interpretations of development are found. Many of their representatives adhere, in essence, to the concept of linear progress. It forms the philosophical basis of the doctrines of “post-industrial”, “technotronic”, “computer”, “information”, etc. society. They exclude the problem of social negation, since all changes caused by modern scientific and technological progress occur, according to Western theorists, within the framework of existing capitalist relations.
At the same time, other ideas are now being propagated in the public consciousness: about the collapse of civilization, a crisis of culture, about the coming of a time of nihilism, about the cessation of all progress. Such sentiments of social pessimism (the prophets of which were, in particular, the German thinkers F. Nietzsche and O. Spengler) are reinforced by the ominous shadow of a possible nuclear disaster and the increase in environmental and other global problems. Social thinking is increasingly dominated by the association of the word “denial” with destruction
(public order, morality, religion, family, etc.). Denial is terrorism, immoralism, avant-gardeism, violence, etc. Ideologists of crisis consciousness elevate denial to the defining feature of modern man. To the well-known definitions of a person as “reasonable”, “skillful”, “hoping”, “beautiful” has now been added: homo negans - a person who denies. Denial is often interpreted exclusively in the spirit of the previously mentioned “negative dialectics” with its “great Refusal”, limitless destruction.
Meanwhile, both the sweeping denial and the actual rejection of it in the concepts of the cycle and linear progress are equally metaphysically one-sided. They absolutize some facet, feature, moment of the most complex actual process of development. Development must be understood in all its contradictions. Development, as it were, repeating the stages already passed,” wrote V. I. Lenin, revealing one of the essential features of the dialectical-materialist worldview, “but repeating them differently, on a higher base, the negation of the negation”), development, so to speak, in a spiral, and not in a straight line..." (25. Vol. 26. P. 55). The key to understanding this pattern of development lies in the correct interpretation of the essence of the category of negation.
What does it record? For many philosophers, negation is a purely logical procedure. In materialist dialectics it is one of its most important elements. In fact, during the unfolding of the contradictions of objective reality, their resolution takes place, a qualitative change in phenomena occurs, which means the destruction of some and the emergence of other material structures. Matter is not destroyed, but any state of it is transitory. Thus, everything that exists contains in itself both being and non-being; there is a unity of being and non-being. Non-existence is always the non-existence of something, the non-existence of something specific. In other words, the non-existence of a given thing is its “other being”, and not empty nothingness. In philosophy category of negation means an action as a result of which the process of transforming a thing into something significantly different is carried out due to its inherent internal and (or) external contradictions. Here there is a mutual transition of being and non-being. The role of negation in dialectics is that it completes the change within the old quality and means the formation of a new thing. Without negation (and the leap it presupposes), matter would forever remain in the same forms, without negation there would be no development, there would be no transition from lower to higher. No development can take place in any area without denying its previous forms of existence.
Since contradictions are objective and universal in nature, negation should be considered a necessary and universal moment of development. In inorganic nature, for example, negation is found in the cosmogonic activity of galactic nuclei; explosions, disintegration and formation of stars and stellar associations; in interconversions and annihilation of elementary particles; in the destruction of rocks under the influence of various external factors (water, wind, temperature, etc.); in the decomposition and combination of molecules during chemical reactions, etc. Denial is a necessary moment in the sphere of living nature. In the process of evolution, many organic forms disappeared, giving way to new ones, more adapted to the changed living conditions. And in the development of individual organisms, life is impossible without its opposite, without its negation - death.
Denial is carried out on the basis of unfolding contradictions. Therefore, it is the essence of the self-negation of a thing, a special stage of its own development. The successive change of computer generations constitutes the content of the progress of computer technology. People often ask: “And if a thing is simply destroyed - grain is ground, an insect is crushed, etc., then there is no “self-negation” and, it turns out, there is no dialectics?” However, having called it this way, my “external” negation, the process of “grinding” or “trampling”, if taken not as a separate isolated act, but in a system of objective interconnections of things, is not outside the boundaries of dialectics. Thus, the death of a living organism means the cessation of its individual development, but individual individuals only exist; as elements of species or generic integrity. Complex intraspecific and interspecific connections lead to the fact that the relationships between different life forms, especially food and its consumers, are accompanied by the development of mutual adaptations. In these cases, even if the relationship remains aggressive, the exterminating enemy may become a necessary condition for the existence of the persecuted species. Existence of steppe turf grasses
impossible without trimming them by animals, mainly ungulates. The existence of many species of steppe and meadow herbs is associated with the life of rodents. The same can be said about the relationship between predators and their prey. Predators perform a so-called sanitary role, selectively exterminating weak and sick individuals, which helps improve the health of the prey species and reduces the risk of the spread of destructive infections. In all cases, the result of the struggle for existence, as noted by Academician I.I. Schmalhausen, the selective nature of mortality will appear, i.e. the predominant death of individuals, less protected, less armed in this struggle, and thereby the survival and leaving of offspring by more “adapted” individuals of this type of organism.
This means that “self-negation” and “external negation” differ not at all in that one of them is dialectical, and the second is “non-dialectical”. We just have to admit that in the objective world and in living nature, in particular, the manifestations of denial are varied. They can be reduced to three types.
It is logical to call those negations that were just discussed destruction. During destruction, phenomena occur that are recorded in the language of everyday speech by terms: destruction, decay, death, disappearance, dying, etc. Specifically, destructive denial can be expressed in the replacement of a higher type of integrity with a lower one, in the elimination of any integrity, in the destruction of the structure of system objects, in their disintegration. The destruction of biosystems, for example, is characterized by such features as breaking connections within the structure, isolation and differentiation of the actions of its components, dissipation of energy and matter, limiting the possibilities of accumulating and implementing information, etc.
Along with destruction, in the objective dialectic of nature and society, the processes of the so-called removal. Withdrawal is a special type of negation. This is an action when, when a thing is abolished as a whole, its individual elements and links of structure are preserved. The old state is thus overcome by “retaining the positive.” Negation here directly acts as a moment of connection and development from lower to higher. The new form (system, phenomenon, etc.) that arises as a result of such “retention of the positive” from the negated necessarily appears as a higher and richer stage of forward movement. Thus, a subtraction in the correlation of social, biological, chemical and physical forms of the movement of matter is consistently revealed. At the level of individual spheres of objective reality, removal, for example, appears as the preservation of previously formed electronic layers with further complication of the intra-atomic structure in a number of chemical elements. The development of society is ensured by the continuity of generations of people, productive forces, and social inheritance, which appears in the form of removal.
The third type of negation can be considered such qualitative changes in which there is a transition from one stage of the evolution of a system to another while maintaining its very basis. Oat grains always produce oats, not barley. But within the same “basis” (oat genotype), stages of development of the plant organism that deny each other are distinguished: grain, germination, heading. This kind of denial is called transformation. Child, teenager, youth, young man, mature and old age, old age - these are the stages of transformation of a person as an individual. Each subsequent of these stages of individual life is a negation of the previous one.
The theory of the negation of negation (the law of three negations) is one of the foundations of materialist dialectics. In this way, this school of thought demonstrates and explains the process of development. It is believed that progressive changes in nature and society occur due to the fact that a certain object falls from one state to another, and from that to a third. And each subsequent status denies the previous one. But at the same time, the third state of the object is similar to the primary one, only it goes through this stage at a higher level. It turns out that the principle of “denial of negation” allows us to maintain both continuity and innovation. But formulated by German classical philosophy and then by the founders of dialectical materialism, this concept was already subject to widespread criticism at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Why is it called that?
So, all development is movement. But why is this type of modification of an object or phenomenon in the philosophy of dialectical materialism called “negation of negation”? The fact is that this category refers to the state acquired by an object during development. As a rule, any object changes to such an extent that over time it becomes, as it were, the opposite of itself. This quality is called “denial”. Dialectical philosophy considers this stage inevitable. But if this denial ends in the death (disappearance, destruction) of an object or phenomenon, then such a process can hardly be called development. But when the object continues to change further, a dialectical negation of the negation occurs. 
Spiral movement
Materialistic philosophy believes that development occurs due to the destruction of a certain part of the properties of an object or phenomenon. According to the theory of progress, these are those qualities that cease to be useful or even inhibit further change for the better. The law of “negation of negation” in philosophy tells us that the properties that determine the existence of this object at a given time, or form its new possibilities, are preserved. What happens next? Double negation, at first glance, returns the object back. Every third phase of this process is formally similar to the first. But development and progress lead to the fact that this return is actually a round of movement at a higher stage. Therefore it is often said that the negation of the negation is a modification in a spiral. 
The meaning of development
What role does this law play in the philosophy of dialectical materialism? First of all, it demonstrates the connection between the past and the future. In the process of development, various states of an object or phenomenon fight with each other, and also mutually flow into each other. Every quality is born, plays its role, “grows old” and disappears, giving way to others. The law of negation of negation determines development trends, describing the destruction of past properties that have lost their usefulness and the acquisition of new ones, necessary for further existence, but opposite to the first. This is how the complex appears from the simple. However, this formula itself is difficult to comprehend immediately, since development in a spiral is a very long process. As a law, it is visible only in a more or less completed version, when there are already certain final results. At various stages of this forward movement it can only be identified as a tendency.
Traditions and continuity
In addition, dialectical materialism in the formulation of this law defines categories such as old and new. Everything that slows down the development process, leads it to a dead end or to stagnation, dies out of necessity. In this case, the original state of the entire previous system is destroyed. What is born is something that makes it possible to live and function further, adapt to new circumstances, change and enrich potential. The negation of the negation leads to the resolution of contradictions, which is called “resolution.” In this process, the old is replaced by the new.
Denial and controversy
Dialectical philosophy assumes that in the very object, phenomenon or cognizing subject there is an internal opposite. In the process of activity, it comes to light and begins to deny itself. Any form, result and direction of development demonstrates to us this process, which was already compared above with the image of a spiral. Moreover, it is believed that in such a movement the law of negation of negation determines not only the type, but also the time of change. “Spirality” is directly related to the acceleration of development, the periods of which proceed faster and faster with each new stage. That is, the dialectical concept of “negation” also has a positive meaning. It stores a certain moment of connection between different stages of the process.
Classical dialectics
The law of “negation of negation” was first formulated in philosophy by Hegel. He proved it with examples from the history of thinking. The development of any concept occurs as a movement from the abstract to the concrete. In this process, the internal contradiction of the concept is resolved. It moves to the stage of its otherness, turning into something different than it was before. Then it “returns to itself,” but in the form of a concrete concept, which contains both its former, abstract essence and the new one acquired in the process of self-alienation. In The Science of Logic, Hegel even characterized the law of negation of negation as a universal form of the unity of contradictions (their transition into each other) and the struggle between them (the bifurcation of the whole).
We can say that this is a special form of another dialectical concept. This is a type of law about the unity and struggle of opposites. But the philosopher limited the action of dialectics only to the area of concepts and their formation. After all, for him being and thinking were a single whole, while the first was a derivative of the second. Accordingly, the triad of negations were stages of the development of the world mind.
Engels on denial
Materialist dialectics extended this Hegelian law not only to the development of spirit and thinking, but to nature and society. Its creators even claimed that they had turned the philosophy of the German classic on its head. Friedrich Engels placed the law of the negation of the negation very highly in philosophy. Briefly, we can say that he characterized it as a combination of progression, repetition and spiraling. Engels called it the third law of dialectics. First of all, it is revealed in human cognition. The development of the latter occurs in the process of replacing some theories with others, the birth of new concepts that are more suitable to the changed world and our perception of the universe. But any teaching that denies the past not only criticizes it, but partially includes some amount of its knowledge.
The law of “negation of negation”: examples
Engels proved this dialectical theory with various arguments. He also illustrated it with examples from logic and mathematics. Every statement goes through the following stages of development:
- Something is true.
- This is not true.
- The former statement is false.
It turns out that in this logical chain there is a return to the first sentence. Even Engels, proving the law of “negation of the negation,” cited examples from the field of mathematics. He said that the opposite of a positive number is a minus number. But what happens if we deny it too? Multiplying it by the same number with a “minus”, we get the same value in positive form, but squared (that is, at a higher stage). 
Does this law manifest itself in other areas?
Since materialist dialectics is based on the fact that its principles operate both in cognition and thinking, and in being (including social life), this provision also applies to the law of “negation of negation”. The philosophers who shared it gave examples from life from different fields of science. For example, from biology. The dying and rebirth of blood cells, which occurs every day in our body, represents the negation and rebirth of previous forms. Changes in taste and style preferences in music, art and culture often occur in a spiral, with a return to the old, but at a new level. That's why retro style is so often fashionable. Children are a negation of their parents, and at the same time a continuation of them. In addition, dialectical materialism presupposes a formational approach to the development of society. He proves that the historical process is also spiral-shaped and progressive. A change of formations is both a negation of the previous one and continuity. The “removal” of contradictions can occur through evolution or a violent change of system.
Refutation and comments
The theory of the negation of negation (the law of three negations) became the object of criticism from various philosophers in the twentieth century. The main opponent of this concept was Karl Popper. He was an opponent of the dialectical method even in logic and thinking, not to mention the natural sciences or social trends. First of all, he says that the conceptual apparatus of dialectical materialism is constructed in such a way that it neutralizes any criticism and politicizes it. Proponents of the law of negation of negation interpret its application too arbitrarily, and it is impossible to verify it. These ideas cannot be developed, and this leads to stagnation and stagnation of any philosophical thought.
Why this law is not scientific - criticism of dialectics
Popper says that Marxism as a method was good for the nineteenth century as one of the positivist theories. But when its supporters turned dialectical materialism into dogmatics, it ceased to be a science in the strict sense of the word. Other critics believed that this theory itself constructs its own evidence, and does not take it from experience or the laws of thought. In addition, if the law of three negations made sense to Hegel, since in his concept it determined the development of the spirit (roughly speaking, the evolution of God), and therefore there was goal-setting in this process itself, then among materialists and atheists the inevitability of progress is very strange. It turns out that the “end of history” with the advent of “heaven on earth” is determined in advance and is inevitable. But the reasons for this are completely unclear.
dialectics materialism philosophy
Features of dialectical negation. Having revealed the internal contradictions inherent in things, the cognizing subject traces their development and reveals that it is carried out through the denial of some qualitative states by others, the retention of all the positive of the denied states and the repetition of what has been passed on a new, higher basis.
Negation associated with development is called dialectical. It represents an objective process of destruction of one qualitative state and the formation of another, new one, determined by the struggle of internal opposing forces and tendencies. The most important feature of dialectical negation is also that it represents a connecting link between the lower and the higher. It performs this function due to the fact that it is not just destruction, the destruction of one or another qualitative certainty, but also the creation of a new one.
For example, in the process of negation of some living organisms by others, more perfect ones, everything positive achieved in their previous historical development is preserved and further developed. One more example. In the course of the negation of one socio-economic formation by another, the productive forces created by previous generations are not destroyed. On the contrary, being the basis for the emergence of a new economic system of society, within the framework of the new formation they receive wide scope for their further development. An example of dialectical negation can be the process of perestroika, renewal of all spheres of social life, which is being carried out by the Soviet people at the present time. In the course of it, the task is set of decisively eliminating everything that forms a mechanism of inhibition, inertia, conservatism, and at the same time carefully preserving and further developing that which meets the requirements of the renewal of socialism.
So, the peculiarity of dialectical negation is that it represents a universal form of connection between the lower and the higher, carried out through the preservation and further development of the positive content of the negated in the emerging new material formation.
What has arisen in the process of dialectical negation correlates with the negated state or formation not in an accidental, but in a necessary way; it has the basis of its emergence in it, it is different from it. Moreover, it contains the negated in a sublated form within itself, in its nature.
Dialectical negation is not an external intervention in the natural process, but a form of its internal development.
It is the result of the interaction of internal contradictory tendencies inherent in the object. As a result, there is not only a break in the existence of one or another quality (education), but the denied quality (education) is associated with another that arises, due to which there is not a simple destruction of something, but development - negation with the retention of the positive.
Here it is appropriate to quote the words of V.I. Lenin, revealing the specific essence of dialectical negation: “Not naked negation, not wasted negation, not skeptical negation, hesitation, doubt are characteristic and essential in dialectics - which, undoubtedly, contains an element of negation and Moreover, as its most important element, no, but negation as a moment of connection, as a moment of development, with retention of the positive, that is, without any hesitation, without any eclecticism."
For example, Western philosophers such as M. Bunge and P. Raymond opposed the objectivity of dialectical negation and the law of negation. They declared these provisions unclear and confusing. Negation, in their opinion, operates with statements and their negations, and not with the struggle of ontological (objective) opposites. The concept of "dialectical negation" is vague; the dialectical thesis, which proclaims the “spiral” character of all development, be it in nature, society or thinking, is unclear due to the vagueness of the expression “dialectical negation.”
In Marxist literature, the expression “a thing denies itself” means that the negation of an object occurs on the basis of its internal laws, as a result of the development of its inherent internal contradictory tendencies, and not as a result of the influence of any external forces. Negation is an objective process, a real change, a qualitative transformation of one thing into another, and not the result of some decision of the subject. F. Engels emphasizes: “True - natural, historical and dialectical - negation is precisely... the driving principle of all development: division into opposites, their struggle and resolution, and (in history partly, in thinking completely) on the basis acquired experience, the original starting point is again reached, but at a higher level. - Fruitless negation is a purely subjective, individual negation, which does not represent a stage of development of the object itself, an opinion brought from outside." And in another place: the negation of negation - "a very general and precisely because of this, a very broadly valid and important law of the development of nature, history and thinking...” 2. Statements similar in meaning are also found in the works of V. I. Lenin.
In the process of studying the laws of dialectics, as a rule, difficulty arises in understanding the difference between a leap, dialectical negation and the process of resolving a contradiction. And this is not accidental, because the concepts of “dialectical negation”, “leap” and “resolution of contradiction” refer to the same process - namely the process of transforming one material formation into another material formation. But they reflect different sides of him. The concept of resolving a contradiction reflects the fact that the transformation of one thing into another occurs as a result of the struggle of opposites, their transition into each other and the elimination of a given contradictory unity. The concept of a leap expresses the pattern that this process is carried out through the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones, the transformation of a given qualitative state, a breakthrough in its further existence. The concept of dialectical negation reflects the fact that the transformation of one thing into another is carried out through the destruction of that in a given thing that does not correspond to the changed state and conditions of existence, the preservation and further development in a new material formation that arises on the basis of the negation of the old, everything positive that corresponds to the new conditions and development trends.
In contrast to the concept of “resolution of contradiction”, which, fixing the elimination of one or another contradictory unity, draws attention to the finitude of being, the concept of “dialectical negation”, fixing the destruction of one or another material formation, draws attention to the infinity of being. Further, in contrast to the concept of “leap,” which captures the moment of discontinuity in the existence of a material formation, the concept of “dialectical negation” captures the moment of continuity of being, the moment of connection between the negated and the negating, continuity in development.
The essence of the law of negation of negation. In the course of the dialectical negation of some material formations or qualitative states by others, a moment comes when newly emerging formations or states repeat one or another stage that has already been passed. This repetition is not complete, but partial, not in essence, but rather in form. What is happening is not a real return back, but an ostensible return. What emerges again repeats what has been passed on a new, higher basis.
For example, the establishment of socialist public property during the revolution is, in a certain sense, a repetition of what happened under the primitive communal system. In primitive society, it was public property that dominated. Being, as it were, a repetition of what was in primitive society, socialist property differs in the most significant way from primitive communal property. This difference stems from the fact that the latter is a consequence of the low level of development of the productive forces of society, which excludes the possibility of obtaining the means necessary for people’s lives alone. Socialist property is established when the productive forces outgrow the framework of any form of private property and, for their further development, require its replacement with public property.
Having turned into its opposite, a phenomenon (side, property), in the course of further development, again turns into its opposite and thereby, as it were, returns to its original state, repeats what has been passed, but certainly on a new, higher basis. The question arises: how many negations are necessary for a developing phenomenon to repeat the stage it has passed?
In the simplest cases, returning back, repeating the original qualitative state is carried out through two negations. For example, through two negations a repetition of the initial state in the development of a grain is achieved: the grain is negated by the plant, the plant is again negated by the grain. However, repetition of what has been learned can be carried out through a larger number of negations. This is due to the fact that the transformation of a developing material formation into its opposite does not occur in every negation. Often, in the course of negation, a thing turns not into its opposite, but into its other, that is, into some other qualitative state, different from the original one, but not opposite to it. The transformation into the opposite occurs only ultimately. For example, the transformation of private property into public socialist property, as evidenced by the history of human society, is carried out through three negations: first, slave-owning private property is negated by feudal private property; second, the feudal is negated by the bourgeois; third, bourgeois property is negated by socialist public property, which is the opposite
the falsity of private property. Through six negations, a transition is made from lithium, a chemical element with pronounced metallic properties, to fluorine, an element with pronounced non-metallic properties (through the negation of lithium by beryllium, beryllium by boron, boron by carbon, carbon by nitrogen , nitrogen - oxygen and, finally, oxygen - fluorine). There are cases when repetition occurs through 18 negations (transition from potassium to rubidium), through 32 (transition from cesium to francium).
A characteristic feature of the law of the negation of the negation, therefore, is not a double negation, as some authors think, not a three-stage development (the initial state is its negation - the negation of the negation), but a repetition of what has been passed on a new basis, a return supposedly to the old. It was this pattern that V.I. Lenin noted. The negation of the negation is “development, as if repeating the steps already passed, but repeating them differently, on a higher base...”.
A specific expression of the principle of dialectical negation in relation to the development of scientific theories is the principle of correspondence formulated in 1913 by N. Bohr, according to which theories that explain a particular area of phenomena, with the emergence of new, more general theories, are not eliminated as something false, but are included in the new theory as its limiting or special case and retain their significance for the previous area. The principle of correspondence obliges, when developing a new theory, to pay attention not only to its difference from the old one, but also to its connection with it, to identifying the certain content of the old theory in the content of the new one. The subsequent development of physical theories confirmed the correctness of this position, which is essentially the principle of dialectical negation, and it has become one of the basic principles of modern scientific research.
If going back, repeating what has been accomplished on a new basis is a general pattern of development, then development cannot proceed in a straight line, it is carried out in a spiral, has a spiral-like character.
Negation in logic is the act of refuting a certain statement that does not correspond to reality, which unfolds into a new statement. In philosophy negation is the emergence of the new, canceling and replacing the old. When something new appears, it cancels the old, that is, it denies the reality of the old by the fact of its new existence.
The term “negation” was used in a similar way in philosophy by Hegel, who with its help explained the cyclical nature of the development of reality:
1. Because I myself reality is activity Absolute Idea, then this activity is nothing more than the activity Absolute Mind:
Firstly, the Idea, if it carries out activity, is reasonable, and, therefore, Its activity is the activity of Reason according to its source;
Secondly, the Idea is not material, and, therefore, any of Its activities is the activity of Reason not only in its source, but also in general in its nature.
2. What then is the nature of the activity of any mind, including the Absolute Mind?
The activity of any mind, including the Absolute Mind, consists in the fact that this activity is a process of constant negation (constant cancellation) by the Mind of each of its existing states, its subsequent state, which arises in its depths in the form of an internally matured contradiction.
What is the essence of this contradiction, which matures in Reason and cancels, denies the current state of Reason? Consider this:
the essence of this contradiction internally matured in Reason is that this contradiction is nothing more than Reason’s denial of the current state of affairs in its content. After all, the contradiction that has arisen in Reason is nothing more than the denial of that thought, that concept or that definition that Reason has just posited and affirmed, and now it has to renounce this due to the internal movement of His thinking.
This refusal of Reason from its previous content is the emergence of an internal contradiction in Reason to Itself, and, therefore, this is His first denial of Himself, is the first appearance of something new.
Thus, the contradiction ripening in the Mind is nothing more than His internal rejection of the old content with the simultaneous discovery of a certain necessity for the work of thinking aimed at realizing and solving this situation.
Thus, the first negation is the discovery of a contradiction.
3. And since a contradiction has arisen in the Mind, it begins to stimulate and push towards the processes of its resolution everything in which it has manifested itself. Thinking begins to actively work to remove the contradiction, for which it has to begin to form a new content of Reason, canceling the old one, in which the contradiction was exacerbated.
When the contradiction, sooner or later, is resolved and removed, then a new content of the Mind will arise, a new state will arise, that is, there will be a negation of that state that was the first negation, that is, an aggravation of internal contradiction.
Thus,
If the first negation is the discovery of a contradiction, then the second negation is the resolution of the contradiction.
4. Hence, the negation of the negation is the process of the emergence of a new state of Mind, which is characterized by the aggravation of internal contradictions (the first negation), the resolution of these contradictions (the second negation) and the emergence of a new content of the Mind.
Thus, with the help of these two negations, thinking step by step gradually ascends from simple concepts to complex ones, and Reason gradually increases the complexity of its state and makes a forward movement - this is the essence of Hegel’s dialectical law of negation of negation.
Since the development of world reality, according to Hegel, is the development of the Absolute Idea, then, thus, the development of world reality is the result of internal, one’s own self-development, the self-movement of the Absolute Mind, which occurs cyclically, that is, in the same type of stages and phases.
The main stages in the development of world reality according to Hegel are its three main stages:
1. Thesis. At this stage, there is a positing, the formation of a certain established reality and its approval as an initial reality.
2. Antithesis. At this stage, the initial givenness is opposed to itself, that is, its denial of itself by itself in the form of the growth within it of a certain contradiction that denies its current state and requires movement towards a new state, that is, towards its resolution.
3. Synthesis. The stage of synthesis is the removal, resolution of the internal contradiction of the original given, that is, the negation of its first negation due to the formation of a new state from this given.
Thus, a new state of givenness grows out of its old state, overcoming the disharmony of some existing internal contradiction, and therefore any new state is always more harmonious than the state that it denied.
If we talk about the mind, then this harmony will be expressed in a greater degree of approach to the truth, and if we talk about material phenomena, then this harmony will be expressed in a greater degree of approach to the goal set by the Absolute Idea at the end of the development of the world.
4. Since development is a non-stop process due to the constant formation of internal contradictions, then synthesis stage in this process is dialectical moves into the thesis stage, and everything starts from the beginning.
Thus, development according to Hegel cannot be interpreted as a certain sequence of states of reality, increasing linearly upward, because the synthesis turning into a thesis is a return of reality to its original state, even in a more perfect and newer quality.
That's why, development, according to Hegel, carried out in a spiral - in a constant return after its double negation to the starting position, already at a slightly higher level of development.
The progressive path of development, that is, its direction from lower to higher, is ensured by the fact that each stage of development is richer, more complex and more harmonious in content. This occurs due to the fact that Hegel’s negation itself is dialectical and not metaphysical in nature. What is the essence of the difference between metaphysical negation and dialectical, Hegelian negation? It is that:
Negation in metaphysics is the act of discarding and finally eliminating the old. Negation in metaphysics is the act of the appearance of the new, asserting itself in place of the old simply by the fact of simply replacing it with itself;
- in dialectics same negation is understood as the transition of the old to a new state while preserving all the best that was in it.
Thus, with double negation, there is a constant transfer of the best found in the old into the new. This is how an ever-expanding spiral of development of reality is formed, which constantly discovers a contradiction in itself, denies itself, and then denies this denial, resolving the discovered contradiction, and acquires at each of these stages an increasingly complicated and progressive content.
In general, the dialectical understanding of negation proceeds from the fact that the new does not completely destroy the old, but retains for itself all the best that was in it, processes it, raises it to a new, higher level. That is, the double denial of reality requires each time some kind of progressive innovation, which determines the progressive nature of the entire development of reality.
To summarize the main meaning of the law of negation of negation, we can say that:
As a result of the first negation, one or another contradiction is first discovered and then resolved by the second negation;
As a result of this, the old is destroyed and the new is established;
With the emergence of a new development does not stop, since every new thing does not remain forever frozen new, but a new contradiction is formed in it, that is, negation begins again, etc.;
Development thus appears as a countless number of successive negations, as an endless replacement, the overcoming of the old by the new, the lower by the higher;
Since the new, while denying the old, preserves and develops its positive features, development acquires a progressive character;
Development proceeds in a spiral with the repetition in its new higher stages of individual aspects and features of its lower stages.
Hegel's law of negation of negation, related to the idealistic concept of world development, was used by the philosophical movement of dialectical materialism to form a materialist concept of the development of reality.
From the point of view of the founders of dialectical materialism, Marx and Engels, negation is an integral moment in the development of material reality itself. The development of the earth's crust, for example, went through a series of geological eras, where each new era arose on the basis of the previous one, that is, the new denied the old. In the organic world, each new species of plant or animal, arising on the basis of the old, is at the same time its negation. The history of society is also a chain of negations of old social orders by new ones: primitive society - slave-owning, slave-owning - feudal, feudalism - capitalism.
Negation is also inherent in the development of knowledge and science, since each new scientific theory denies the old one. At the same time, the connection between the old and the new is preserved, and the best of the old is preserved in the new. Thus, higher organisms, denying the lower ones on the basis of which they arose, retained their inherent cellular structure. The new social system, while denying the old one, preserves its economic base, the achievements of science, technology, and culture. In cognition, in science, new knowledge is also based on the best of what was achieved at previous stages of cognition and scientific research.
Thus, in materialist dialectics, the law of negation of negation is considered as the law of the development of nature, society and thinking, determined by the internal properties of matter.
Basic terms
ANTITHESIS- statement of the opposite, opposition.
DIALECTICS- a method of philosophical knowledge based on the idea of self-development of the processes of reality.
METAPHYSICS- a method of philosophical knowledge, based on the assumption of the principles of all things, inaccessible to sensory perception and determining the processes of development of reality.
NEGATION(dialectics ) - transition from old to new, preserving all the best from the old.
NEGATION(logic) - the act of refuting some statement that does not correspond to reality.
NEGATION(metaphysics) - the final discarding of the old and its complete replacement with the new.
NEGATION(philosophy ) - the emergence of the new, canceling and replacing the old.
DEVELOPMENT- a purposeful, natural, progressive and irreversible transition of something to a new quality.
INTELLIGENCE- the ability of thinking to transform intellectual material into various systems of knowledge about reality.
SYNTHESIS(general concept) - the connection of parts, elements into a single whole.
THESIS- statement, belief.
Difficulties
The first difficulty is that it is constantly forgotten that the law of negation of negation describes the activity of the mind as such. Hegel described in this law the nature of the development of the mind and the mechanism of internal reasons for the emergence of new content in it. Then he transferred all this to objective reality, because all objective reality, in his opinion, is the activity of the Absolute Mind. Therefore, if you remember that the logical unfolding of the law of negation of negation relates to the activity of the mind, then the material during preparation is generally assimilated surprisingly easily, and the answer is always given confidently.
The second difficulty is that due to the inertia of studying the Hegelian concept of development, many, moving to dialectical materialism, look for in it the same logicism and correspondence to some initial given. I want beauty in everything. But you shouldn’t do this - it’s a waste of time without benefit. At this stage, all the ideas of dialectical materialism should simply be mechanically learned and memorized.
If we talk about dialectical materialism, then this case very well shows the system of thinking of materialism in general. The general method of materialism for the formation of its concepts is very clearly presented here. Materialism is surprisingly sterile, and everything that is in it is taken from idealistic concepts.
In particular, they take the law of the negation of negation and apply it to reality, and what questions do they seem to have if they do this with the sanction of Hegel himself? Hegel himself did this, and we followed him...
But let us note that this Hegelian law, although applied to objective reality, grows from the internal nature of Consciousness.
What about the materialists? For them, this same law grows from the internal nature of Matter. How? None! There is simply an idealistic concept that can be adapted to materialistic judgments - and why not do this if there is nothing of your own?
This is how materialism works - it did not independently find the law of the negation of negation in matter, it did not deduce it on its own from some internal nature of the processes of matter, did not discover it and did not recognize it. He took this law ready-made in idealism, found there something that connected with matter, and then moved everything that flowed from the law according to the final result of its action into the original causes of the law itself.
Materialism does this always and everywhere. Since ancient times, it has been established in philosophy that true being must be eternal, and matter is immediately declared by materialism to be eternal, as true being. The only thing here is the idea of not going anywhere further than matter. And everything else is hung on matter out of idealism. And no one cares at all that the eternity of true existence in philosophy stems precisely from the inauthenticity of material existence revealed by it. Again, the effect is transferred to the cause, and this is not even some other view of the world, it is simply a method of plagiarism. They say that some creatively powerless composers turn the notes of famous masters upside down and try to find their melody in their reverse order. That's how it is here.
As always in materialism, this is plagiarism, but plagiarism that is unable to even maintain the height of its source. It's like seeing a rocket, admiring it, asking how it works, and then snatching it away, putting a saddle on it and galloping into unknown distances, overcoming steppes and water obstacles.
Therefore, the section on dialectical materialism must, as always, be learned and remembered, without trying to think about its logical legitimacy. This is the section of the material where you should not strain your thinking. There are only declarations here.
And advice in advance - do the same with all other tickets covering Marxist theories. Otherwise there will be failure. They must be memorized, like prose poems, through repetition, and not through a search for the logical necessity of their meaning.
The third difficulty is thesis, antithesis and synthesis. To list the stages of development of reality like this (and they do!) is to distort Hegel’s law of development. Let's remember forever and ever - there are not three, but four stages: thesis, antithesis, synthesis and the transition of synthesis to thesis. This is the meaning of the law - constant and continuous development, since the activity of the mind is constant and continuous, since by its nature the mind knows no stops.
The fourth difficulty is metaphysics and dialectics, which understand negation differently. There is no talk here about the opposition between metaphysics in general and dialectics in general. Dialectics can be part of metaphysics on the basis of a theory that assumes the presence of forces that control the world from the outside. Here we are talking about the divergence of the methods of dialectics from the methods of other theories, just like dialectics included in metaphysics.
The purely metaphysical method, inherent in the overwhelming majority of metaphysical theories, proceeds from the fact that reality is governed by something single, motionless, unchanging, eternal, constituting the true basis of the world, from which the whole world unfolds in one way or another. And in dialectics, the basis of the world is mobile, internally contradictory, and it is the contradictions of the very basis of the world that unfold the events of reality.
When asked - why is the Absolute Spirit, the Absolute Idea, not God? - the answer here is precisely that God is a metaphysical concept, unchanging and completely outside the world, and the Absolute Idea is the world itself, changeable and mobile.
Therefore, the opposition here is not between concepts, because by and large, Hegel’s dialectic is, in a sense, also metaphysics. This is a confrontation of methods - in the main part of the currents of metaphysics, genuine being is motionless and only inauthentic being develops, while in dialectics, genuine being is mobile and develops itself.
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Data from natural and social sciences indicate that at any stage of development a process of denial occurs. Interconversion of elementary particles, change of biological species, forms of social life, types of weapons and methods of armed struggle, etc. - all this is nothing more than the negation of some things, phenomena, processes, states by others.
So, negation is a relationship between two stages of development of a thing, which leads to the destruction of its old and the emergence of a new qualitative state.
Negation is mechanical and dialectical. Mechanical negation is associated with the destruction of the old, without preserving the moment of development. Dialectical negation is self-negation, for each phenomenon contains its own negation of one of the sides of its inherent internal contradiction.
The starting point for understanding the law of negation of negation is the proposition that every development process consists of a sequence of cycles. Cyclicity is the internal basis of any change and development. Each cycle consists of several stages: the initial moment of development; the transformation of objects and phenomena into their opposite, thereby negation - the transformation of a new opposite into their opposite, i.e. the negation of negation. The law of negation of negation shows the features of cyclical development.
The essence of the law of negation of negation is that in the process of development, each higher level denies, abolishes the previous one and at the same time raises it to a new level, preserving everything positive in its content.
What are the main features that reveal the essence and mechanism of action of this law?
First of all, the law of negation of negation reveals the direction of development. Materialist dialectics, without denying the possibility of circular motion and regression, does not absolutize them. It affirms progression as the most important form of development.
One of the features of the law of negation of negation is the repetition at higher stages of development of some lower traits, but on a new, higher basis, i.e. continuity of development. Repeatability acts as a partial reproduction of what has already happened once. The second negation, as it were, repeats the starting point in a “subtracted”, revised form, expressing some of its general features. If the new quality denied everything old, then there would be no development of nature and society.
Continuity is also observed in the development of military affairs. For example, new methods of armed struggle arise within the framework of old methods with the assimilation of the best of them. However, this repetition and continuity in development are internally contradictory. It supposedly involves a return to the old, as if repeating the steps already passed, but on a higher basis. Therefore, the progression of development takes on a spiral shape, in which development occurs in the form of gradually rising, expanding circles, returning to the starting point, but in a higher plane. In this progressive spiral development, the invincibility of the new, progressive is affirmed.
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