What Is Dialectics, Really? Part 5: Truth Is a Thing's Agreement with Its Essence
In the earlier parts we saw that all finite things, and all the notions of the understanding, contain their opposites within themselves, and so have a nature of self-negation and self-contradiction; they all pass over into their opposites. The essence of a thing contains the identity of the thing with each of its opposites. Moreover, this essence can keep rising: driven by its essence, a thing keeps negating itself and strives to realize its own higher essence, and this process is also one in which its identity with its opposites keeps deepening. The human being, for example, is a higher being than the animal, with a higher essence, because the relations between people, that is, between a human individual and its other (its opposite), have become deeper and closer. We know that every other person is one of our kind, also an “I”, and so we must deal with one another with respect and cooperation; morality and law require it of us as well. We have language, culture, science, moral and legal systems that protect everyone, and an economy in which we provide for one another, precisely because we have reached that higher identity, which is at the same time deeper and richer in content. In short, we have realized the human essence. And because we have realized this higher essence, we live on this planet with a standing and a place that no other species can reach.
All things, driven by their essence, go on to realize their higher essence. Essence is both the driving force of a thing’s life and growth and the meaning and goal of its existence. It is no exaggeration to say that the goal of humanity, before it became humanity, was to become humanity: to reach the human essence.
When a thing has reached this goal and agrees with its essence, we can say that it truly is something. Take a person whose words and deeds agree completely with the essence of a friend: they treat the other sincerely, think from the other’s interests, and are willing to give a fitting measure of care and attention. Then we say that this person is a true friend. If, on the other hand, someone is a friend in name but is selfish, only out to use the other and take advantage, and never truly cares about them, then we say: this is not a true friend.
True and untrue: this is the question of truth. We have now found that truth is a thing’s agreement with its essence. If a thing agrees with its essence, it is true; if not, it is false. Only a person who agrees with the essence of a friend is a true friend; otherwise they are not, even if they have the name or status of a friend. Only a state that agrees with the essence of a state is a true state; otherwise it is not, even if it has the form and appearance of a state.
This view of truth is quite different from the understanding’s view of truth. For the understanding, truth is whether an idea or a theory agrees with the objective reality outside. But this is an external truth, because the ideas and theories within and the objective reality without remain external to each other, two separate things. We must point out, however, that this truth of the understanding has value in everyday life and in scientific research, and it is necessary. We can call this kind of truth “correctness”. For example: at normal pressure, water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. This, too, is true and valuable, but it is not the kind of genuine truth that can drive itself on to a higher level.
Only what agrees with its own essence is truly real. By now we understand that the essence of a thing is the truth of the thing. So a thing’s essence can also be seen as its truer self, the self it ought to become. Truth is no longer some external agreement or comparison, but the agreement of a thing with itself. This truth is an inner truth.
The truth of a thing is its essence. The greatest truth in this world is the ultimate essence of all things, the truth of all truths: the inner identity of everything in the universe. We call this essence, the objective thought that drives all things, absolute reason. We will explain its nature in a later part.
When we look at things and their truth in this way, we realize that every thing has a certain untruth in it, because it never quite agrees with its essence. No one can claim to be a Human Being with a capital H, wholly agreeing with the human essence; no friend can claim to embody the essence of friendship completely. Seen this way, we come close to regarding a thing as a kind of externalization or manifestation of its essence, as the appearance of its essence. Essence, indeed, cannot be seen or touched, while things are visible; but the reality of a thing depends on that invisible essence.
If a thing does not agree with its essence at all, or strays far from it, it has no chance to exist. A criminal organization, for example, is a group known for disregarding other people’s lives and property. It is like a crack in the body of human society, treating others not at all as people to be dealt with as equals and with mutual respect. Such an organization, we may say, does not agree with the human essence. Even so, within the organization its members must keep and show a certain identity, in the form of loyalty and keeping faith; if even this inner identity is too weak, the organization soon falls apart.
Essence is both the truth of a thing and its purpose. The purpose of a thing is plainly to realize its essence, or more precisely, to realize its higher essence.
Even when no one is aware of it, essence is quietly at work within things, driving them forward so that it can realize itself. In human society, for example, most people’s actions, taken directly, are a struggle for their own living, not directly for others; yet each person’s work indirectly furthers the welfare of all. Essence can always use the particular purposes and needs of people and things to realize its own purposes and needs. This may well be called “the cunning of reason”. Life, likewise, realizes itself by using the physical and chemical properties of organic and inorganic matter. People who are good at spotting problems always ask: inorganic and organic compounds are lifeless matter, so why does life appear when they come together? In fact, life was there all along. Life was not created; life lies hidden in natural matter as its essence, and when matter comes together in a way that agrees with this essence, the potential can be realized, and the essence of life realizes itself. This way of coming together in agreement with essence is what we will call unity in the next part.
Because every thing has an essence, every thing has its truth. Truth is then no longer an external agreement, but the process in which an inner purpose and essence (that is, truth) realizes itself. We can say that life is the truth of nature, because in nature matter is scattered and external to itself, and only in a living body does matter reach a high degree of identity. We know that in a living body the organs work closely together: the heart pumps blood to all the other organs, and the stomach takes in nourishment for all of them. Life embodies a higher essence of nature; life, therefore, is the purpose of nature, the truth of nature.
In the same way, the human being is the truth of all life, and the goal of life is to give birth to humanity. Every other form of life simply repeats, monotonously, birth and death; only humanity has raised the relations between individuals, and between individuals and nature, to a wholly new height, embodying a higher essence and reaching a higher truth. At first, it is true, humanity was like a child who did not yet know better, and did some harm to nature and to other species. But it is humanity, too, that reflects on what it has done, and makes the protection of nature and of other species its own goal. This spirit, not yet perfect, but awake, able to reflect on itself, is the goal that nature and all life have been striving toward for hundreds of millions of years. This is the special place humanity holds.
And absolute reason, as essence, is the ultimate truth of all things. It is through it that all things receive their existence, and because of it all things share an inner identity, and have both the need and the possibility to unite with one another.
This content is based on the author's own manuscript; all rights reserved by the author. No person or organization may republish it, use it, or use it to train AI without the author's written permission.
