A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition
. Literally, ‘a method of conversation or debate’ (etymologically akin to ‘dialogue’). ‘Dialectic’ originally referred to debating tournaments, but Socrates and, at first, Plato thought that the cultivation of philosophy, and discovery of philosophical truths, could best be achieved by the interplay of opinions in co-operative enquiry by question and answer. Plato therefore used ‘dialectic’ for philosophical method in general, and came to apply it to whatever method of enquiry he favoured at the time, or to the highest stage thereof. Aristotle kept the sense of conversational interplay; but though he confined dialectic to serious enquiry rather than eristic or argumentativeness, he thought it an inferior, though sometimes indispensable, method of enquiry because it had to start from prem-ises which were agreed to by the interlocutors rather than those which could be demonstrated to be true.
The use of ‘dialectic’ for debates where one reduced an opponent to contradiction helped to make ‘dialectic’ largely synonymous with ‘logic’ for the Stoics and the Middle Ages. The Aristotelian feature whereby dialectic relies on inadequate premises is seen again in Kant. In many later writers, notably Hegel and Marx, the sense of ‘interplay’ is transferred from the development of thought to that of the world itself.
The world develops dialectically by the interplay of opposites. See also MATERIALISM.
R.Norman and S.Sayers, Hegel, Marx and Dialectic: a Debate, Harvester/Humanities, 1980. (Has partly annotated bibliography. Conflicting interpretations by two British philosophers who agree a dialectical philosophy cannot be the mere dogmatism Marxism is often said to be.)
G.E.L.Owen (ed.), Aristotle on Dialectic, Clarendon, 1968. (Essays on dialectic up to Aristotle. Varying in difficulty. Most accessible are items by Ryle (controversial), Moreau and Moraux (both in French).)
H.H.Williams, Hegel, Heraclitus, Marx’s Dialectic, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989. (Shows how Hegel and Marx have different approaches to notion originated by Heraclitus.)
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