POL 315 MODULE 1
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
• explain dialectics (Hegelian and Marxian)
• discuss transition from quantity to quality as basis of change.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Law of Transformation of Quantity to Quality
The application of the dialectic dynamic to historical progress was first
made by Georg Hegel (1770-1831), one of the most influential political
philosophers of modern times. Hegel developed a theory of history in
which change is hinged on idea, which he believed was motivated by
dialectic conflict, as the central theme. He suggested that any reality is
two things. It is itself, and it is part of what it is becoming. Thus, the
only consistency Hegel saw was change itself. To Hegel, history was
simply the process of change brought on by the struggle between ideas
and competing nations of people who were following God's scheme for
human development. In this process, no truth was ever lost, because the
positive was more powerful than the negative. Thus, the result of
historical struggle was an ever-improving world.
In modern times Hegel is assumed to have invented the dialectic in
which every thesis generates an anti-thesis and then a synthesis (A triad
of thesis-antithesis-synthesis). Hegel emphasized ideas as the prime
mover of history. Looking at the world around us we realise that
anything including man possesses certain features or aspects- that is
descriptive marks which define it, express it most important
characteristics and its essence. Quality of a thing is the sum totals of all
those essential features which make it possible and define its inner
nature. Things and phenomena are also defined by quantitative as well
as qualitative characteristics. Every phenomenon in nature possesses
definiteness (quantity and quality)- e.g. every house or flat has its
definite floor space, likewise every chemical has its own particular
atomic weight etc. The quantity character of things and phenomena are
expressed in a variety of ways like knowing the number of machines in a
construction site, quantity of rice, maize, and cocoa etc., expressed as
percentages in tons.
Quantity characterises things by their number, size, volume etc. we
know that when the quality of things changes, the thing itself changes.
Do all changes in quantity bring about changes in the things itself? For
example, people who witnessed the damming of the Niger River at kanji
might tell the story thus: first batch of rocks, second, third batches of
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