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In this section, I will discuss the influence Hegel’s Idealism had on the philosophers in Britain now known as British Idealists.
Hegel is known for using a dialectical method to determine the Absolute unity in the world. This means, in simple terms, that he takes two different ideas that seem contradictory – for example, space and time as opposed to matter and motion -, and raises these up to get a “synthesis” – the synthesis of time and space as opposed to matter and motion, for instance, is called Free Matter. Through this method, differences are overcome in a way and still retained in some way, by going to a "higher" level.
History takes an important place in Hegelian thought. Hegel says that history is the process of God’s self-realization. Nature and Spirit are very important things in this “evolutionary” process. According to John Raymonds, the combination of Nature and Spirit evolve through the dialectical process to constitute the revelation of God. Thus, Hegel uses the dialectical method to derive the Absolute Spirit of God. (55)
It must be noted here, that, as all ideas can be united with their antitheses to form a synthesis except for the Absolute Idea, which is the most concrete of all ideas, also all ideas can be abstracted into two “lower” ideas – the thesis and antithesis which made up the synthesis which that idea is -, except for the most abstract idea.
Hegel’s Absolute Idealism is known to have had a great influence upon the British Idealists, most of whom are also Absolute Idealists. Essential to this belief, is the idea that matter does not exist independently of mind. As I showed further in section 1.2, most British Idealists tried to find a complex unity in the world. It was largely from Hegel that the British Idealists imported this idea of the complex unity of experience. (70) Green, for example, got from Hegel his idea that the world is essentially interrelated to become one spiritual whole, and what is real is then the expression of a “self-conscious being” who is related to reality as a parttaker in this self-consciousness.
Few British Idealists, however, adopted the dialectical method Hegel uses to reach this complex unity. Green, for instance, found that the dialectic hindered Hegel in reaching his conclusions. The British Idealists liked the principle Hegel used, but the method of dialectic was not their choice to act upon.
In 1883, Edward Caird had a book published in which he biographizes and comments on the philosophy of Hegel. In this book he comments on Hegel’s dialectic. The problem Caird notices there to be, is the debate over the law of contradiction – which says that what is A, cannot be not-A at the same time -, because one thing can only be itself and not something else. However, Caird states, Every finite thing, by the fact that it is finite, has an essential relation to that which limits it, and thus it contains the principle of its destruction in itself. It is therefore, in this sense, a self-contradictory existence, which at once is itself and its other, itself and not itself. (12) Caird defends Hegel in the same way where it comes to definite things, by stating:
Every definite thought, by the fact that it is definite, has a necessary relation to its negative, and cannot be separated from it without losing its own meaning.” (12)
J.M.E. McTaggart studied Hegel in his 1896 publication, Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic. In chapter I, he examines the general idea of the dialectic, explaining it as follows:
The examination of a certain category leads us to the conclusion that, if we predicate it of any subject, we are compelled by consistency to predicate of the same subject the logical contrary of that category. This brings us to an absurdity, since the predication of two contrary attributes of the same thing at the same time violates the law of contradiction. On examining the two contrary predicates further, they are seen to be capable of reconciliation in a higher category, which combines the contents of both of them, not merely placed side by side, but absorbed into a wider idea, as moments or aspects of which they can exist without contradiction.(41) McTaggart understands that it is difficult to grasp the concept of dialectic, for it seems to unite two opposing things. However, he argues, while the opposition vanishes, the significance of both is nevertheless to be found in the unity which follows. (41)
McTaggart defends Hegel against comments by Hartmann, who views the idea that the dialectic is both the cause and the effect of contradictions, as inconsistent, for it, as Hartmann says, implies that dialectic is both subjective and objective. McTaggart reacts in defining how indeed it can be both subjective and objective, and how imperfect and irrational categories may eventually appear to be parts of a perfect and rational universe. McTaggart compares imperfect categories within a perfect universe to a diseased body in connection to an intellectual and spiritual person, which may lead to the person being seen as true and perfect, even though part of him isn’t. God, for Hegel, is the only objective idea in the universe, so that all ideas that are abstracted from Him, are untrue and imperfect, but as seen as part of the Absolute Idea, they’re perfect and true.
McTaggart also reacts to criticism that states that Hegel rejects the law of contradiction, which says that all that is A cannot be not-A at the same time. McTaggart here recognizes, that when the law of contradiction is rejected, any statement or thought becomes false. After all, if the statement “All men are mortal,” doesn’t exclude the statement “Some men are immortal,” it’d be meaningless. McTaggart, however, defends the dialectic by saying:
The dialectic, however, does not reject that law. An unresolved contradiction is, for Hegel as for every one else, a sign of error. The relation of the thesis and antithesis derives its whole meaning from the synthesis, which follows them, and in which the contradiction ceases to exist as such.(41) In fact, according to McTaggart, it is the very law of contradiction which leads to the dialectic, because it is the contradiction that causes the dialectic movement. However, this couldn’t have happened if we didn’t recognize the contradictions as marks of error. Negation is also not too important, according to McTaggart, cause, although it is implied by the dialectic that each idea includes its negation, it is not the meaning of the dialectic to negate ideas, but to complete them through synthesizing the two contrary ideas.
McTaggart compares dialectic to ordinary thought, which in Hegel is called respectively Reason and Understanding. McTaggart wants to lay down dialectic to get to ordinary thought, for we cannot think ordinarily about things that are constantly synthesizing and hence changing. So, as a result,
we cannot think about true ideas ordinarily – after all, unsynthesized ideas are untrue. McTaggart provides an explanation of why we need dialectic, by writing:
As you’ll likely have noticed in this section and elsewhere in this work, many Idealists were influenced by Hegel. While they did not use the same method Hegel did, most agreed to the dialectic principle and were eager to defend it against, according to them false criticism.