Problems of the Hegelian Dialectic

This work, written from the standpoint of Hegel's Logic, examines the nature, conditions of possibility and scope of a valid dialectical logic. For this purpose it scrutinizes, criticizes and reconstructs it so that it may serve as a logic of Human reality. Refusing to be 'revisionist' as far as Natural Sciences are concerned, the proposed viewpoint asserts that in this domain Dialectic is incapable of great fruitfulness -- there is no 'Dialectic of Nature'. As for the domain of Human reality -- as historical, social and cultural reality -- the book suggests that such a reconstructed Dialectic, at last conscious of its own univocal limits, may help the Social Sciences and Human Studies to develop further. The book opens with an exposition, from an Hegelian point of view, of the basic categories of Identity. Difference and Contradiction. Then, in this Hegelian context, some basic issues are posed and discussed, such as the problems of the Beginning, the End, the Language, and the problem of Nature and Matter. To end with, Dialectic is proposed as a way of explanation, both progressive and regressive, elucidating Human experience while at once elucidating itself.