What Is Dialectics, Really? Part 6: Essence Is Realized Through the Unity of Opposites

Published 2026-10-06

Every thing and every notion of the understanding has its opposite, something set against it or contrary to it, and this opposite does not come from outside: a thing comes to it through its own inner contradiction, by negating itself. Living bodies, for example, all lose their life and die. Or take our notion of fairness, which means that everyone should be treated the same. But since people inevitably differ in intelligence, in how much they give and how hard they try, and in their interests, being treated the same is itself unfair; it means that people will no longer make an effort or set themselves great goals. So the notion of fairness contains unfairness within it; fairness leads to unfairness. If we want to establish true fairness, we must take both fairness and unfairness into account and put both to use. Within every thing and every notion there is a fundamental defect, an element of self-contradiction. A living body sustains itself through the working of non-living organic macromolecules; when these wear out, life ages and ends. Death is simply the expression of life’s own defect, its self-contradiction.

This self-contradiction, this fundamental defect, comes from the following fact. In its essence, a thing is identical with all its opposites; yet the thing or notion itself is a one-sided, isolated existence (the understanding’s notion of fairness, for instance, insists one-sidedly on equal treatment; and a living body depends one-sidedly on consuming and wearing down non-living matter), and has not reached true identity with its opposites (unequal treatment, non-living matter). Its identity with its opposites is only potential, hidden, still waiting to be realized. In other words, the essence of a thing is potential: it is contained in the thing and at work there, driving the thing to negate itself, but the essence itself has not yet been realized; the identity between the opposites is still waiting for the thing to realize it. That is why, in the previous part, we called the essence of a thing the purpose the thing pursues, which is also its truth.

Consider also this fact: the inner mechanism by which a thing contains contradiction, negates itself and produces its own opposite has long been determined by the thing’s essence; that is, the driving force of a thing’s change and development is supplied by its essence. This means that the driving force of a thing’s movement and development is its essence, and the goal of that development is its essence too. Since both the driving force and the goal are essence, we can fairly say that the movement and development of a thing is nothing but essence driving itself: it is essence’s own movement and development, essence realizing itself, and the thing itself is only an appearance of essence.

Because the essence of a thing contains the identity of the thing with its opposites, we can safely say that every thing and every notion has its opposite, its negation; no thing can exist alone without its opposite. So whenever we meet any thing, concept or notion, we should ask, with full confidence, what its opposite is. That opposite is sure to exist, and the thing and its opposite stand in an inseparable identity. We may say that the opposite develops out of the thing itself; the thing itself passes over into it. To explain this principle better, let us look at one very important example. Through it we will understand where the concept of “quantity” actually comes from, and why we have it at all.

“Quantity” is in fact a rather advanced concept. It comes after “quality”: it is the negation of quality, its opposite. Quantity develops out of the defect and contradiction of quality itself, and only this gives us the notion of quantity and the vast space of mathematics.

At first, a thing has only “quality”. Quality is the determinateness by which a thing is itself and not something else. For a chemical element, its quality is the structure of its atomic nucleus; for a person, their profession and occupation can also be regarded as a quality: one person is a doctor, another an engineer. Clearly, a thing’s quality is directly one with its being: if the quality changes, the thing is no longer itself. A metallic element whose nuclear structure changes is no longer that metal. A doctor who changes profession and occupation is no longer a doctor.

This sharp boundary is the mark of quality. But the sharp boundary is at the same time a “changeability”, a fragility, and it is precisely quality’s own defect. Any change at all in a quality brings the thing to nothing, destroys it. So a quality A easily turns into a quality B, B just as easily turns into C, and so on without end: one thing turns into another, and that into yet another… Every thing is then extremely fragile, unable to bear any change at all. This endless changing, as we pointed out in an earlier part, is a “bad infinity”: not a true infinity, but a dead loop with no breakthrough. This is how quality’s own defect and contradiction show themselves. This “changeability”, this fragility, must therefore have an opposite, something contrary to it, with this feature: it allows change, so that within a certain range, even when something changes, the thing is still itself and keeps its quality. This self-negation of quality, this opposite that develops out of quality, is quantity. From now on, a quality can keep itself within a certain range of quantity; only beyond that range does the quality change. We call this quality that can bear changes of quantity, together with the quantity so closely bound up with quality, the “measure” of a thing. Measure is the unity of “quality” and “quantity”: a quantity that has quality, and a quality that can hold quantity.

Here we formally meet the concept of “unity”. Like identity, it is a core concept of dialectics.

We have said that the essence of a thing contains the identity of the thing with its many opposites, and that the realization of that essence depends on the unity of the thing with its opposites. Unity is the state in which the two sides of an opposition, through working together and accepting each other, come to contain each other and merge. First, the external opposition between them is removed: they accept and contain each other. Second, the immediate quality of each side is negated, yet at the same time contained within the unity that emerges. This condition, of being both negated and contained, is called “sublation”. We must explain with an example, and we will use the example of fairness and unfairness from above.

We said above that to establish true fairness, we must take both fairness and unfairness into account and put both to use. Concretely, this means:

1. We must give better treatment to the successful, those who are smarter, work harder, give more and create more wealth; their incomes must be higher. This can be seen as an unfairness that starts from fairness, a reasonable unfairness. Without it, no one would make an effort any more, and no more wealth would be created.

2. At the same time, we must transfer part of the wealth these people create to those who, for all sorts of reasons (ability, opportunity, health, family background, luck and so on), have not created much wealth, so that their lives improve as well. This can be seen as a fairness based on unfairness. Without it, the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider, and society is torn apart completely. When most people grow poorer and poorer, the rich lose the conditions and the ground for creating wealth, because their products and services will no longer have enough customers. (Here we also see clearly the opposition and identity of rich and poor, and of capital and labor.)

In this, the only truly fair arrangement, we see a fair unfairness and a fairness based on unfairness. Here the absolute opposition and separation of fairness and unfairness have been broken down: what we get is an unfairness that contains fairness and a fairness that works through unfairness. The immediacy, sharpness and antagonism of fairness and unfairness as the understanding grasped them, one-sidedly, have disappeared: they have been negated or removed. Yet the two opposites are preserved at the same time in this unity; only now they have become moderate, harmonious, accommodating and dependent on each other. This is the state of unity, and only when this unity is reached can we speak of true fairness. So, in the language of dialectics, true fairness is the unity of fairness and unfairness; or, to put it generally, the essence and truth of a thing is the unity of the thing and its opposite.

From this part on, we have two concepts, “the identity of opposites” and “the unity of opposites”. They are closely related, yet different. Identity means that opposites, though distinct from and opposed to each other, are in essence one and the same thing; but this identity is only a potential state, still covered over by external separation and opposition (as with fairness and unfairness in our notions, which are external to each other and separate). Identity also means the possibility of being united. For this identity to be truly realized, for essence to realize itself, and above all to realize a higher and deeper identity, depends on the unity of the two opposites; and it is precisely through unity that we discover that the two opposing sides were one and the same all along.

Identity means that two things are one and the same thing: the opposite is oneself. But the two sides are still held apart by an external separation and an absolute opposition, and their identity is hidden. Unity dissolves this external separation: it lets the opposing sides accept each other and become, together, elements within one unity. When the inner identity of opposites is confirmed and realized in this way, we say that the essence of the thing has been realized: we have the true thing, that is, the truth of the thing, and this unity is that truth.

The unity of opposites is the realization of identity, the realization of a thing’s essence. It means that the thing reaches a new realm, a new level of being. The most striking examples of this evolution of being are the emergence of life from nature and the evolution of humanity from life. We may say that the purpose of all things is to raise their own level of being; this is an evolution of being. All things have the potential to raise their level of being, but only some can actually do so, and they do it by negating themselves, changing themselves, and reaching unity with their opposites. What drives this whole process is the essence contained within things: it is essence driving itself. On this basis we can fully regard essence as something alive: it is the inner life force of all things.

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