Principles
The purpose of the dialectic method of reasoning is resolution of disagreement through rational discussion, and, ultimately, the search for truth. One way to proceed—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 (see reductio ad absurdum). Another dialectical resolution of disagreement is by denying a presupposition of the contending thesis and antithesis; thereby, proceeding to sublation (transcendence) to synthesis, a third thesis.
It is also possible that the rejection of the participants' presuppositions is resisted, which then might generate a second-order controversy.
Fichtean Dialectics (Hegelian Dialectics) is based upon four concepts:
- Everything is transient and finite, existing in the medium of time.
- Everything is composed of contradictions (opposing forces).
- Gradual changes lead to crises, turning points when one force overcomes its opponent force (quantitative change leads to qualitative change).
- Change is helical (spiral), not circular (negation of the negation).
The concept of dialectic existed in the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who proposed that everything is in constant change, as a result of inner strife and opposition. Hence, the history of the dialectical method is the history of philosophy.
Read more about this topic: Dialectic
Famous quotes containing the word principles:
“Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Indigenous to Minnesota, and almost completely ignored by its people, are the stark, unornamented, functional clusters of concrete—Minnesota’s grain elevators. These may be said to express unconsciously all the principles of modernism, being built for use only, with little regard for the tenets of esthetic design.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)