The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: McTaggart - The Changes of Method in Hegel's Dialectic, Part 2
The conclusion reached in the first paper was that the dialectic cannot fully represent in any part of its movement the real and essential nature of pure thought, but obscures this under particulars which are not essential, and so may be regarded as in some degree subjective. The discrepancy arises from the fact that, whereas the true process — which follows the essence of the actual process in time, and which alone is preserved and summed up in the Absolute Idea — is a direct process from one term which exists only in the transition to another; the actual process, on the other hand, is one from contradictory to contradictory, each of which is conceived as possessing some stability and independence. Secondly, it is subjective, because it does not fully express its own meaning, the meaning of the process forwards. The dialectic advance has mixed up with it elements which do not belong to the true advance, but are due to our original ignorance about the latter, of which we only gradually get rid.
Nevertheless, this subjectivity of the dialectic does not lessen its significance or practical importance, for it is a method of arriving at truth. It is of importance that the end should be reached, that we should advance to the Absolute Idea; but the steps by which we reach this may contain mistakes. Again, the element of indirectness which is introduced by the movement from thesis to antithesis diminishes as the dialectic proceeds, and in the ideal type wholly dies away. Confirmation of this view is found by examining the all-including triad given by H. as Logic, Nature, and Spirit. Here we have all the characteristics of the Notion; the second term is to be regarded, not as in opposition to, but as the completion of the first. The transition can be stated in the form which is used of the lower categories, i.e. we may take as thesis pure thought, and for antithesis the element of Immediacy in experience. We see that when the whole ground of the dialectic process is covered in a single triad, either method may be used, which suggests that the two methods are approximate to the two ends of the series which are here united by a single step. The method which H. adopted is the more correct and convenient, yet its use alone, without the knowledge that it does not exclude the concurrent use of the latter as equally legitimate, has led to grave misconceptions of the system. For the method which H. did not adopt has the advantage of bringing out the fact that immediacy is as important and ultimate a factor in reality as Logic is, and one which is irreducible to it. The two terms are exactly on a level. The dialectic system, then, makes no attempt to eliminate the elements of immediacy in experience or to deduce existence from essence, but we learn from it that in the universe is realized the whole of reason and nothing but reason.