Dialectic

Dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική, dialektikḗ; German: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argumentation. Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and rhetoric.[1] It has its origins in ancient philosophy and continued to be developed in the Middle Ages.

Hegelianism refigured "dialectic" to no longer refer to a literal dialogue. Instead, the term takes on the specialized meaning of development by way of overcoming internal contradictions. Dialectical materialism, a theory advanced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, adapted the Hegelian dialectic into a materialist theory of history. The legacy of Hegelian and Marxian dialectics has been criticized by philosophers such as Karl Popper and Mario Bunge, who considered it unscientific.

Dialectic implies a developmental process and so does not naturally fit within classical logic. Nevertheless, some twentieth-century logicians have attempted to formalize it.

  1. ^ See Gorgias, 449B: "Socrates: Would you be willing then, Gorgias, to continue the discussion as we are now doing [Dialectic], by way of question and answer, and to put off to another occasion the (emotional) speeches (rhetoric) that (the sophist) Polus began?"

Developed by StudentB