Immersion in the Concrete (On Dialectics and Its Interpretation by A. A. Zinoviev)

Abstract

In correlation with the position of A. A. Zinoviev, the peculiarities of dialectics are discussed. The focus is on the philosophical nature of dialectics, its inherent interrelation of the abstract and the concrete, as well as the specificity of dialectical contradiction. The author’s reasoning is built around several pivotal statements. Science can do without dialectics; but philosophy cannot do without dialectics. Dialectical thought does not ascend from the abstract to the concrete, but immerses in the concrete. Dialectical contradiction arises between meanings that are close to the opposite ones, but are not strictly opposite. It is reasonable to distinguish between dialectics of process and dialectics of state and to insist on the irreducibility to the first dialectical paradigm as such. Dialectics is not only a theory and methodology, but, above all, a style.