Philosophy in the Contemporary World

Volume 17, Issue 1, Spring 2010

The Philosopher King
The Influence of Dialectics on King's Political Thought and Practice

This paper examines the neglected topic of Martin Luther King's comprehension and employment of dialectics. When we examine King's political and ideological development dialectically, we see that there are stages in the development of his thought. Most importantly, the material context of the African-American liberation struggle, as a process of objective development, shaped and directed his thinking as a dialectician. Consequently, the material context of the African-American liberation movement served as a dynamic process which greatly affected King's understanding of dialectics as a tool of analysis. King's early conception of dialectics is not Hegelian. However, after 1965, King becomes more Hegelian, approximating a regulative dialectic.