Abstract

In this essay, I begin by observing that dialectic is the method Aristotle explicitly associates with the activity of philosophizing, both when he introduces dialectic in the Topics and also, with some refinements and developments, in the methodological discussions of later works, the opening pages of the Physics being taken as exemplary. I then interpret these passages, attending very closely to the argument, the imagery, and the etymological resonances of Aristotle’s terminology. This leads me to argue that dialectic, in both its earlier and later forms, is best understood as a proto-phenomenological method, which is to say, a method of clarifying what is already presenting itself in the initial, especially promising, pre-philosophical ‘appearances’ of one’s subject matter, for which Aristotle’s term is ἔνδοξα. Finally, given that this proto-phenomenological dialectic is a method for arriving at an understanding of ‘what is,’ its employment seems to entail a quite radical underlying Aristotelian ontology. That is, Aristotelian thought would seem to be aimed not at objective being, but rather at phenomenal being.