system
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human
Better understanding dialectics

So from what I was taught at its most basic, dialectics refers to two different ideas interacting to produce a new idea? Is it essentially a description and analysis of how concepts or ideas constantly change? What does dialectical thinking look like?
gpt
Broadly speaking, you're right. In the history of philosophy, 'dialectic' has typically been the name for a process wherein two elements produce something new through their interaction. The classical example is Plato's dialogues, wherein two interlocutors arrive at an idea (or an aporia -- lack of a firm idea) through their discussion.

The clue is that 'dialectic', the word, comes from Greek *dia* (meaning between, across, through, etc.) and *legein* (to speak).

The idea of dialectic underwent something of a transformation in modern Germany, however: first in Kant and then in Hegel. For Kant, dialectical thinking is the result of human reason being stretched beyond its limits. When we try to know whether or not there is an immortal soul, for example, we are applying reason beyond the realms of possible experience, and consequently we arrive at contradiction. This is 'transcendental dialectic' for Kant.

For Hegel, contradiction is not a dead end (as it was for Kant), but the moment at which progress becomes possible. 'Hegel's dialectic', insofar as there is such a thing, is the process by which a philosophical position is espoused and developed in as much depth as possible, until its *internal* contradiction is revealed. For Hegel, this is the first, 'negative' moment of a dialectical process.  The next moment takes place when this negative -- the *contradiction* -- is not averted (as it is in Kant), but embraced: the negative is itself *negated*, and becomes a positive element of a new, broader philosophical position. This is the process by which Hegel's *Phenomenology of Spirit* (the introduction to his philosophical system) progresses.