 Far from being a pre-condition for truth, the absence of contradiction is in Hamann’s eyes a pre-condition for dogmatism. Knowledge must not proceed on the basis of unanimity and the absence of contradiction, but must proceed through the dialogue and relation of these different voices. (Hamann does not think in terms of Hegel’s later dialectical synthesis.) When Hamann speaks of ‘opposition’ and contradictions, however, he does so in an ironic tone; for it is clearly his conviction that there is a fundamental unity in things, and the oppositions and contradictions that we perceive are chiefly of our own making. He insists that his perception is ‘without Manichaeism’ (ZH 5, 327:16–17). Body and mind, senses and reason, reason and passion are not truly opposed. These are contrasting elements of the same unified — unified but not homogenous — reality. Hamann tries to steer a course between Scylla and Charybdis: between the dogmatic, even tyrannical extermination of opposition and contradiction; and the elimination of contradiction through a false synthesis or fusion achieved by an apparent acceptance of antithetical realities.