Abstract
Usually Hegel’s speculative concept of contradiction is being analysed in the context of modern formal logic, as a commentary on problems arising from that discipline. But this leads to new problems concerning Hegel’s notion of contradictory things or concepts, because formal logic defines contradiction as a relation of propositions only. This paper, however, argues that Hegel did not connect his discussion of contradiction to modern formal logic but to the epistemological tradition of metaphysical logic which was founded in ancient Greek philosophy and renewed by Kant. Incorporated into this tradition, an analysis of Hegel’s concept of contradiction can show its strength as well as its limits.