ABSTRACT
3The dialectic refers to a process in which objects of interest (e.g., “capital,” “society”) are understood as developing through contradictions structured in relationship to an essence, a force which both sets things as they are (and appear) and yet propels them into a beyond (as they could be). Marx (1977, 103) wrote that he used a dialectical method he had extracted (removed from its “mystical [idealist] shell”) from Hegel. Arguing the impossibility of divorcing Hegel’s dialectic from his idealism, Althusser (1970) proposed overdetermination as an alternative materialist framework.
