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| In classical [[philosophy]], '''dialectic''' ([[Greek language|Greek]]: ''διαλεκτική'') is an exchange of ''[[proposition]]'' ([[thesis|theses]]) and ''counter-propositions'' ([[antithesis|antitheses]]) resulting in a ''[[synthesis]]'' of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. It is one of the three original [[liberal arts]] or [[trivium]] (the other members are [[rhetoric]] and [[grammar]]) in [[Western world|Western culture]]. In [[ancient history|ancient]] and [[medieval history|medieval times]], both rhetoric and dialectic were understood to aim at being persuasive (through dialogue). The aim of the dialectical method, often known as ''dialectic'' or ''dialectics'', is to try to resolve the [[disagreement]] through [[Rationality|rational]] discussion. One way — the [[Socratic method]] — is to show that a given [[hypothesis]] (with other admissions) leads to a [[contradiction]]; thus, forcing the withdrawal of the hypothesis as a candidate for [[truth]]. Another way of trying to resolve a disagreement is by denying some [[presupposition]] of the contending thesis and antithesis; thereby moving to a third (syn)thesis. <sup>[[#Footnotes|1]]</sup>
| | '''Dialectic''' is a manner and form of rational communication between two or more points of view inside of a discussion. It is contrasted against grammar and rhetoric, one of the three liberal arts or trivium in Western Culture. |
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| ==In philosophy==
| | [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic wikipedia entry on dialectic] |
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| "The history of the term ''dialectic'' would by itself constitute a considerable history of philosophy" (Barbara Cassin, ed., ''Vocabulaire européen des philosophies'' <nowiki>[</nowiki>Paris: Le Robert & Seuil, [[2004]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>, p. 306, trans. M.K. Jensen). Briefly, the term "dialectic" owes much of its prestige to its role in the philosophy of [[Plato]], where it figures as the logical method of philosophy in the Socratic dialectical method of cross-examination. The term was given new life by [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]], whose dialectically dynamic model of [[nature]] and of [[history]] made it, as it were, a fundamental aspect of the nature of [[reality]] (instead of regarding the contradictions into which dialectics leads as a sign of the sterility of the dialectical method, as [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] tended to do in his ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]''). In the mid-nineteenth century, the concept of "dialectic" was appropriated by [[Karl Marx|Marx]] (see, for example, [[Das Kapital]], published in [[1867]]) and [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]] and retooled in a non-idealist manner, becoming a crucial notion in their philosophy of [[dialectical materialism]]. Thus this concept came, for a time, to play a prominent role on the world stage and in [[History of the world|world history]]. Today, "dialectics" can also refer to an understanding of how we can or should perceive the world ([[epistemology]]), an assertion of the interconnected, contradictory, and dynamic nature of the world outside our perception of it ([[ontology]]), or a method of presentation of ideas or conclusions.
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| === Hindu dialectic === | | ==Description== |
| {{See also|Hindu philosophy}}
| | Dialectic originates back to ancient Greece, most notably the Socratic Method, which is still used in legal debate to this very day. Hegel updated the understanding of dialectic and spoke of what he called 'The Historical Dialectic", or the exchange of thesis, anti-thesis resolving into synthesis that shapes historical movements. Hegel believed that the historical dialectic would eventually lead humanity to a place of ultimate liberation. |
| In [[Hinduism]], certain dialectical elements can be found in embryo, such as the idea of the three phases of creation ([[Brahma]]), maintenance of order ([[Vishnu]]) and destruction or disorder ([[Shiva]]). Hindu dialectic is discussed by Hegel, Engels, and [[Ian Stewart (mathematician)|Ian Stewart]], who has written on [[Chaos Theory]]. Stewart points out that the relationship between the gods Shiva, "the Untamed", and Vishnu is not the antagonism between good and evil, but that of the real principles of harmony and discord which together underlie the whole of existence.
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| The very earliest religious writings in [[ancient India]], the [[Vedas]], which date from around [[1500 BC]] (and hence may be considered as the oldest philosophical literature in the world), in a formal sense, are hymns to the gods, but as Hegel also points out, Eastern religions are very philosophical in character. The gods have less of a personal character and are more akin to general concepts and symbols. We find these elements of dialectics in Hinduism as Engels has explained. The gods and goddesses of the Vedas are not persons but manifestations of ultimate truth and reality, and these writings contain a wealth of philosophical and religious speculation about the nature of the universe.
| | In relationship to P2P, dialectic can be appreciated in it's exalted form through online written discussion, allowing large groups to form synthesis and may stimulate co-intelligence. Internet discussion allows the natural [tit for tat] strategy of dialogue to exalt into a win win in the conflict of idea, allowing many global points of view to transform and align in profound ways. Indeed, the impact of direct peer to peer communications on the historical dialectic may be too overwhelming to currently model, as internet communication has increased this process exponentially in ways that were unfathomable in Hegel's day. |
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| === Socratic dialectic === | | ==See Also== |
| {{See also|Socratic method}}
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| In [[Plato]]'s dialogues and other [[Socratic dialogues]], [[Socrates]] typically argues by cross-examining someone's claims in order to draw out a contradiction among them. For example, in the [[Euthyphro]], Socrates asks Euthyphro to provide a definition of piety. Euthyphro replies that the pious is that which is loved by the gods. But, Socrates also has Euthyphro agreeing that the gods are quarrelsome and their quarrels, like human quarrels, concern objects of love or hatred. Therefore, Socrates reasons, at least one thing exists which certain gods love but other gods hate. Again, Euthyphro agrees. Socrates concludes that if Euthyphro's definition of piety is acceptable, then there must exist at least one thing which is both pious and impious (as it is both loved and hated by the gods) — which, Euthyphro admits, is absurd. Thus, Euthyphro is brought to a realization by this dialectical method that his definition of piety cannot be correct.
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| | | [[OS 0 1 2]] |
| === Internet Ternary Dialectic (also called OS 0 1 2) ===
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| The concept of [[OS 0 1 2]] is both informative and playful, and promotes a new form of dialectic called ternary dialectics, or a 'dialectic for internet communication', mixed with concepts in [[Memetics]] and [[Game Theory]] in an easy to understand and fun presention.
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| There appears to be no original or single author, as the website claims that the dialectic was created through an online and unstructured group process similar to co-intelligence, developed outside of the academic arena and thus not subjected to peer reviewed journals as would normally be the case.
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| Internet dialectics structures communication online in a [[tit for tat]] strategy and deconstructs online written discourse into three objectivly viewable categories of true, false, and mystery. It sets forth a rational foundational argument that human beings are not ideas, and creates a framework to navigate the conflict of idea until the tit for tat methodology of online internet communication exalts into a non zero sum perceptional discussion with both sides winning, exalting the conclusion that human being is not in conflict, ideas are.
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| OS 012 addresses what it claims is the real conflict of idea, the conflict over defining 'mystery'. According to the theory, this 'hidden variable' in perception, if not clearly defined in public discourse, will eventually come to wreck havoc in our global communication and understanding simply because we confuse a natural state of 'true' with a natural state of 'false' by not allowing a place for 'mystery' or 'both true and false at once'.
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| === Buddhist dialectic ===
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| {{See also|Buddhist philosophy}}
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| The dynamic element in Buddhism, its dialectical side, is shown by its view of reality as something eternally changing and impermanent. By contrast, for the [[Vedanta]] philosophy, only the changeless and eternal is real. Modern Buddhist thinkers tend to lay more stress on its "rationalistic" and "atheistic" character with the aim of making it more acceptable to educated westerners in search of a satisfying alternative to Christianity. But although it is true that Buddhism in its original form possesses a rational core, and that some of the elements of dialectics were present in it, they were present only in an early undeveloped form, similar to the early Greek philosophers. This represented the first faltering steps of dialectical philosophy.
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| === Hegelian dialectic ===
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| [[Hegel]]'s dialectic, which he usually presented in a threefold manner, was vulgarized by [[Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus]] as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a [[thesis]], giving rise to its reaction, an [[antithesis]] which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a [[synthesis]]. Hegel rarely used these terms himself: this model is not Hegelian but [[Fichte]]an.
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| In the ''Logic'', for instance, Hegel describes a dialectic of [[existence]]: first, existence must be posited as pure Being; but pure Being, upon examination, is found to be indistinguishable from Nothing. When it is realized that what is coming into being is, at the same time, also returning to nothing (consider life: old organisms die as new organisms are created or born), both Being and Nothing are united as Becoming.
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| As in the Socratic dialectic, Hegel claimed to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. For Hegel, the whole of history is one tremendous dialectic, major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as [[slavery]] to self-unification and realization as the [[rational state|rational]], [[constitutional state]] of free and equal citizens. The Hegelian dialectic cannot be mechanically applied for any chosen thesis. Critics argue that the selection of any antithesis, other than the logical negation of the thesis, is subjective. Then, if the logical negation is used as the antithesis, there is no rigorous way to derive a synthesis. In practice, when an antithesis is selected to suit the user's subjective purpose, the resulting "contradictions" are [[rhetoric|rhetorical]], not logical, and the resulting synthesis not rigorously defensible against a multitude of other possible syntheses. The problem with the Fichtean "thesis — antithesis — synthesis" model is that it implies that contradictions or negations come from outside of things. Hegel's point is that they are inherent in and internal to things. This conception of dialectics derives ultimately from [[Heraclitus]].
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| === Marxist dialectics ===
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| [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] believed Hegel was "standing on his head", and claimed to put him back on his feet, ridding Hegel's logic of its orientation towards philosophical "idealism", and conceiving what is now known as materialist or Marxist dialectics. This is what Marx had to say about the difference between Hegel's dialectics and his own:
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| "My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought." Nevertheless Marx "openly avowed [himself] the pupil of that mighty thinker" and even "coquetted with modes of expression peculiar to him". Marx wrote: "The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell."
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| In the work of Marx and Engels the dialectical approach to the study of history became intertwined with [[historical materialism]], the school of thought exemplified by the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. (Marx himself never referred to "historical materialism.") A dialectical methodology came to be seen as the vital foundation for any Marxist politics, through the work of [[Karl Korsch]], [[Georg Lukács]] and certain members of the [[Frankfurt School]].
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| Under [[Stalin]], Marxist dialectics developed into what was called "diamat" (short for [[dialectical materialism]]). Some [[Soviet]] academics, most notably [[Evald Ilyenkov]], continued with unorthodox philosophical studies of the Marxist dialectic, as did a number of thinkers in the West. One of the best known North American dialectical philosophers is [[Bertell Ollman]].
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| Engels argued that all of nature is dialectical. In [[Anti-Dühring]] he contends that negation of negation is "A very simple process which is taking place everywhere and every day, which any child can understand as soon as it is stripped of the veil of mystery in which it was enveloped by the old idealist philosophy." In [[Dialectics of Nature]], Engels states, "Probably the same gentlemen who up to now have decried the transformation of quantity into quality as mysticism and incomprehensible transcendentalism will now declare that it is indeed something quite self-evident, trivial, and commonplace, which they have long employed, and so they have been taught nothing new. But to have formulated for the first time in its universally valid form a general law of development of nature, society, and thought, will always remain an act of historic importance."
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| Marxists view dialectics as a framework for development in which contradiction plays the central role as the source of development. This is perhaps best exemplified in Marx's ''Capital'', which outlines two of his central theories: that of the theory of surplus value and the materialist conception of history. In ''Capital'', Marx had the following to say about his dialectical methodology:
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| "In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary."
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| At the heart of Marxist dialectics is the idea of contradiction, with class struggle playing the central role in social and political life, although Marx does identify other historically important contradictions, such as those between mental and manual labor and town and country. Contradiction is the key to all other categories and principles of dialectical development: development by passage of quantitative change into qualitative ones, interruption of gradualness, leaps, negation of the initial moment of development and negation of this very negation, and repetition at a higher level of some of the features and aspects of the original state.
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| === Critiques of dialectic ===
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| Many philosophers have offered critiques of dialectic, and it can even be said that hostility or receptivity to dialectics is one of the things that divides twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy from the so-called "continental" tradition, a divide that only a few contemporary philosophers (among them [[Richard Rorty]]) have ventured to bridge.
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| One philosopher who has attacked the notion of ''dialectic'' again and again is [[Karl Popper]]. In [[1937]] he wrote and delivered a paper entitled "What Is Dialectic?" in which he attacked the dialectical method for its willingness "to put up with contradictions" (''Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge'' [New York: Basic Books, 1962], p. 316). Popper concluded the essay with these words: "The whole development of dialectic should be a warning against the dangers inherent in philosophical system-building. It should remind us that [[philosophy]] should not be made a basis for any sort of scientific system and that philosophers should be much more modest in their claims. One task which they can fulfill quite usefully is the study of the critical methods of [[science]]" (Ibid., p. 335).
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| In chapter 12 of volume 2 of ''[[The Open Society and Its Enemies]]'' (1944; 5th rev. ed., 1966) Popper unleashed a famous attack on Hegelian dialectics, in which he held Hegel's thought (unjustly, in the view of some philosophers, such as [[Walter Kaufmann]][http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/kaufmann.htm]) to some degree responsible for facilitating the rise of [[fascism]] in Europe by encouraging and justifying [[Epistemology#Irrationalism|irrationalism]]. In section 17 of his [[1961]] "addenda" to ''The Open Society'', entitled "Facts, Standards, and Truth: A Further Criticism of Relativism," Popper refused to moderate his criticism of the Hegelian dialectic, arguing that it "played a major role in the downfall of [[Weimar Republic|the liberal movement in Germany]], . . . by contributing to [[historicism]] and to an identification of might and right, encouraged [[Totalitarianism|totalitarian]] modes of thought. . . . [and] undermined and eventually lowered the traditional standards of intellectual responsibility and honesty" (''The Open Society and Its Enemies'', 5th rev. ed., vol. 2 [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966], p. 395).
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| == Dialectical biology ==
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| In ''The Dialectical Biologist'' (Harvard U.P. 1985 ISBN 0-674-20281-3), [[Richard Levins]] and [[Richard Lewontin]] sketch a dialectical approach to biology. They see "dialectics" more as a set of questions to ask about biological research, a weapon against dogmatism, than as a set of pre-determined answers. They focus on the (dialectical) relationship between the "whole" (or totality) and the "parts." "Part makes whole, and whole makes part" (p. 272). That is, a biological system of some kind consists of a collection of heterogeneous parts. All of these contribute to the character of the whole, as in reductionist thinking. On the other hand, the whole has an existence independent of the parts and feeds back to affect and determine the nature of the parts. This back-and-forth (dialectic) of causation implies a dynamic process.
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| For example, [[Darwinian evolution]] points to the competition of a variety of species, each with heterogeneous members, within a given environment. This leads to changing species and even to new species arising. A dialectical biologist would not reject this picture as much as look for ways in which the competing creatures lead to changes in the environment, as when the action of microbes encourages the erosion of rocks. Further, each species is part of the "environment" of all of the others.
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| ==See also==
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| * [[Aristotle]]
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| * [[Chinese philosophy]]
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| * [[Critical theory (Frankfurt School)]]
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| * [[Dialectician]]
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| * [[Feedback|Feedback loop]]
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| * [[Gyorgy Lukacs]]
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| * [[Hegel]]
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| * [[Heraclitus]]
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| * [[Marxism]]
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| * [[Plato]]
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| * [[Talmud#Form_and_style|Talmud: Form and style]]
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| * [[Universal dialectic]]
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| * [[Doublethink]]
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| == Footnotes ==
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| <sup>1</sup> [[Musicology|Musicologist]] [[Rose Rosengard Subotnick]] gives the following example: "A question posed by Fred Friendly on a PBS program entitled ''Hard Drugs, Hard Choices: The Crisis Beyond Our Borders'' (aired on WNET, Channel 13, in the New York area, February 26, 1990), illustrates that others, too, seem to find this dynamic enlightening: 'Are our lives so barren because we use drugs? Or do we use drugs because our lives are so barren?' The question is dialectical to the extent that it enables one to grasp the two opposed priorities as simultaneously valid."
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| == Sources ==
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| * Cassin, Barbara, ed. ''Vocabulaire européen des philosophies''. Paris: Seuil & Le Robert, 2004. ISBN 2020307308.
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| * Fleck, Jack Lucero, [http://www.dialectics4kids.com dialectics4kids.com]
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| * Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. ''[[Lectures on the History of Philosophy]]''. London.
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| * Marcuse, Herbert. ''Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory'' (Humanity Books, 1999). ISBN 157392718X.
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| * Marx, Karl. ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy''. Volume 1
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| * Popper, Karl. ''[[The Open Society and Its Enemies]]''[http://www.recent-articles.info -]. 5th ed., revised. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966. Reprints, Vol. 1, 1972: ISBN 0691019681. Vol. 2, 1976: ISBN 069101972X.
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| * ________. "What is Dialectic?" In ''Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge'', 312-35. New York: Basic Books, 1962. ISBN 061313769. Reprint: Routledge, 1992, ISBN 0415043182.
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| * Stewart, Ian. ''Does God Play Dice?'', 1990. London.
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| * Subotnick, Rose Rosengard. ''Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music'', 1991. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816618739.
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| * [[Alan Woods|Woods, Alan]]. ''The History of Philosophy'', 2001.
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