Hegelian Synthesis

G.W.F. Hegel’s dialectical method: thesis meets antithesis and produces synthesis, which becomes a new thesis in an ongoing historical process toward Absolute Spirit. For Schaeffer, Hegel was the crucial figure at the Line of Despair because he attempted to keep reason relevant by making truth itself dynamic and evolving; truth is not a fixed correspondence to reality but the unfolding of Spirit through history. This sounds sophisticated but it means that no proposition is finally true; everything is true at its moment in the dialectic and then superseded. The result: you can talk about truth without ever having to commit to anything in particular. Schaeffer saw Hegel as the gateway to modern relativism; once truth becomes a process rather than a correspondence, the door is open for everyone to define truth as whatever their particular stage of the dialectic happens to produce.