Xenophon’s conception of the dialectical method shares many similarities with Antisthenes’ point of view regarding the relation between language and reality. The key element supporting this reading is the parallel between Xenophon’s method of dialegein kata genē and Antisthenes’ method of episkepsis tōn onomatōn. In this paper, I claim that a correct understanding of both methods yields a clear structural proximity between the two Socratics on the issue of dialectics. Although they present some significant differences, which (...) I will also explore, I will argue that both variants express a single Socratic motive with regard to dialectics. That is that dialectics, in its basic structure, consists of organizing reality through discourse in order to make it comprehensible. In particular, this is done through establishing unified instances capable of comprehending a multiplicity. This nuclear position could also be extended to include middle Plato’s concept of dialectics. This concurrence takes up different forms in Plato, Xenophon and Antisthenes. Nevertheless, they share the same structure, which indicates quite plausibly a major characteristic of Socratic philosophies, as opposed to previous attempts by the Presocratics and the Sophists. (shrink)

This book proposes a treatise on the Hegelian dialectical method as based on dialectical logic. Part One explores sources of dialectical logic before Hegel in ancient thought. Part Two examines dialectical logic and the dialectical method in Hegel, with attention to the relationship between dialectical logic and contemporary formal logic. Part Three concerns the dialectical method after Hegel, in which we seek to show that the method is available for (...) uses other than the one to which the historical Hegel put it. My intention has been constructive. I want to take issue with those who have contested the existence or validity of any dialectical logic, and of the dialectical method as well.1 The payoff for studying dialectical logic is the dialectical method. By using it one can reconstruct, rethink, and relive a historical course of dialectical deduction with the purpose of achieving deeper self-comprehension, i.e., comprehension of oneself by retraveling one’s past path of dialectical assumptions, contradictions, and corrections. Dialectical self-comprehension is possible when one’s present identity has historically constituted itself through such a path. It is possible when the individual is conscious of herself as triumphant over the contradictions of the past. Part Three, treating the dialectical method after Hegel, includes a reconstruction of American history since World War II in chapter 8, according to INTRODUCTION 9 1 0 Introduction the dialectical method. We will see how a Hegelian use of the method can assist in comprehending a post-Hegelian historical standpoint present to us but unknown to Hegel. (shrink)

Plato’s Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman exhibit several related dialectical methods relevant to Platonic education: maieutic in Theaetetus, bifurcatory division in Sophist and Statesman, and non-bifurcatory division in Statesman, related to the ‘god-given’ method in Philebus. I consider the nature of each method through the letter or element paradigm, used to reflect on each method. At issue are the element’s appearances in given contexts, its fitness for communing with other elements like it in kind, and its own (...) nature defined through its relations to others. These represent stages of inquiry for the Platonic student inquiring into the sources of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper will investigate Aristotle’s methodology in the Nicomachean Ethics [EN]. It is widely agreed that Aristotle’s explicit account of his methodology in EN is the method of dialectic. However, it has been argued that Aristotle does not consistently practice this method and often appeals to metaphysical principles in his other texts to construct his moral theory. As a result, it has been claimed that Aristotle not only diverges from his dialectical method, but also contradicts his (...) doctrine of the autonomy of distinct branches of philosophical enquiry. In this paper, I will investigate what it would mean for Aristotle’s account to be dialectical and will show that, although Aristotle’s explicit methodology is dialectical he nonetheless diverges from this method in presenting his ergon argument. However, though he diverges from his dialectical method, I will argue that we can understand this divergence as a response to the definitive problem of EN; namely, how can we actually achieve the highest good in our actions. Thus, I will conclude that although Aristotle does in fact diverge from his dialectical method, we can understand this divergence as consistent with the claim that EN is an autonomous enquiry. (shrink)

William S. Lewis examines the contribution to philosophy of science made by Lefebvre, in the context of his membership of the French Communist Party.

A prevailing view in the literature on Hegel’s dialectical method is that employing it involves advancing a false account and then modifying it to be closer to the truth. I will call this the Modification View. In this essay, I argue that the Modification View is incorrect. Hegel’s insight, I show, is that one can only explain the objective validity of a form of thought through employing that very form. Consequently, the dialectical method cannot relate to (...) its subject matter as something given to it, and so cannot involve advancing and then correcting errors in one’s account. (shrink)

The dialectical method, Marx Insisted, was at the basis of his account of society. In 1858, in a letter to Engels, he wrote: In the method of treatment the fact that by mere accident I again glanced through Hegel's Logic has been of great service to me... If there should ever be the time for such work again, I would greatly like to make accessible to the ordinary human intelligence, in two or three printer's sheets, what is (...) rational in the method which Hegel discovered.1 But he never did find the time for this work. As a result, Marx's dialectical method and the ways in which it draws on Hegel's philosophy remain among the most controversial and least well understood aspects of Marx's work. My purpose in this paper is to explain some of the basic presuppositions of this method and to bring out their significance for Marx's theories. I shall do so by focusing critically on G.A. Cohen 's account of Marxism in Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. In this important and influential work, Cohen contrives to give an account of 2 Marxism in entirely non-dialectical – indeed, in anti-dialectical – terms. By criticising Cohen 's views I will seek to show that the dialectical method is the necessary basis for an adequate theory of history and an indispensable part of Marx's thought. The major purpose of Cohen 's book is to develop and defend a particular interpretation of historical materialism, the Marxist theory of historical development. Cohen claims that his account is an `old-fashioned' and a `traditional' one ; and, indeed, in certain respects it is. For, in contrast to the tendency of much recent Marxist writing, Cohen strongly emphasises the materialistic and deterministic character of Marx's theory of history. He insists that the development of the productive forces is the primary motive force for historical change, and portrays Marxism as a form of technological determinism. However, there are various different forms of materialism, not all of them Marx's. (shrink)

A CAREFUL STUDY OF MARX'S METHOD IN THE "GRUNDRISSE" WILL SHOW THAT MARX OPERATES WITH A DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND APPEARANCE AND ALSO THAT, FOR MARX, CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS JUST, BUT, CONTRARY TO THE VIEWS OF ALLEN WOOD, ONLY AT THE LEVEL OF SURFACE APPEARANCE. CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS ALSO UNJUST, BUT, UNLIKE THE VIEWS OF Z I HUSAMI, ONLY AT THE LEVEL OF ESSENCE--SOMETHING DISCOVERED BY SCIENCE WHICH GOES BEHIND SURFACE.

The current issue over Marx's Grundrisse and Capital is whether these works represent a unity with or a rupture from his earlier writings. A third interpretation is more adequate than either of these: the new "dialectic method" of the later works transforms elements of his earlier outlooks into a new synthesis. In earlier works Marx describes three processes: the historical generation of the concrete, the historical development of categories, and the methodological ordering of these categories. However, his views changed (...) on which of these processes are primary. In the later works, the third process becomes independent; this modifies his view of the other two processes, and thereby of the relation of consciousness and laws of social development to material conditions. (shrink)

A cognitivist interpretation of moral inquiry treats it, like other kinds of inquiry, as aiming at true belief. A dialectical conception of moral inquiry represents the justification for a given moral belief as consisting in its intellectual fit with other beliefs, both moral and nonmoral. The essay appeals to semantic considerations to defend cognitivism as a default metaethical view; it defends a dialectical conception of moral inquiry by examining Sidgwick's ambivalence about the probative value of appeal to common (...) moral beliefs or intuitions. The essay then addresses two main concerns about the compatibility of cognitivist and dialectical conceptions of moral inquiry. The probative value of moral intuitions requires that they be sufficiently approximately true. The individual and collective benefits of regulating our interactions by norms like those of commonsense morality help explain how we can view ourselves as sufficiently reliable detectors of moral properties. But the probative value of moral intuitions may also seem threatened by the existence of pervasive moral disagreement both within and between cultures. However, a dialectical conception of moral inquiry has resources for resolving moral disagreement; in fact, the dialectical examination of diverse moral perspectives contributes to the justification of moral beliefs. (shrink)

Errol Harris talks about a crypto-dialectic method that lies behind the geometrical disguise of Spinoza'sEthics.Spinoza's method, he argues, is not the linear formal deduction of traditional logic but a crypto-dialectical development of the structural implications of a systematic whole. Substance differentiates itself into infinite attributes and infinite modes. Each attribute is self-differentiated into a hierarchy of modes ranging from the most complex to the simplest. Harris calls this a dialectical scale or a crypto-dialectical development of (...) the structural implications of a systematic whole. The self-specification of the whole into attributes and modes provides the framework for a dialectical system. Spinoza's hypotheses are implications dialectically derived from his concept of substance, a concept of a whole which differentiates itself into infinite attributes and modes. Substance is not a hypothesis but is a postulate which s i absolutely certain. Everything follows from substance with dialectical necessity. Substance is the origin of all things and ideas. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how PH II constitutes an original, ambitious, and unified skeptical inquiry into logic. My thesis is that Sextus’s argument in Book II is meant to accomplish both its stated goal (to investigate the topics typically grouped together by dogmatists under the heading of “logic”) and an unstated goal. The unstated goal is, in my view, interesting in itself and sheds new light on Sextus’s methodology. The goal is: to suspend judgement on the (...) effectiveness of dogmatic methodologies. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam's philosophical views have undergone extensive interpretation over many years. One such interpretive work is George Myerson's book Rhetoric, Reason and Society. Myerson's interest in dialogic rationalism leads him to examine the views of many theorists of rationality, philosophers and non-philosophers alike. As a prominent philosopher of rationality, Putnam is at the very center of this examination. Notwithstanding this fact, I contend that Myerson misinterprets the dialectical character of Putnam's philosophy in general and of Putnam's views on rationality (...) in particular. This misinterpretation, I argue, is revealing of an illusion of thought to which Myerson is subject, an illusion that makes it seem that it is possible to theorize intelligibly about rationality from a metaphysical standpoint. This same illusion, I claim, also makes it seem that Myerson's positive views on rationality are intelligible. Employing a close textual analysis of Myerson's book, I argue that neither scenario is the case. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how Outlines of Pyrrhonism II constitutes an original, ambitious, and unified skeptical inquiry into logic. My thesis is that Sextus’ argument in Book II is meant to accomplish both its stated goal and an unstated goal. The unstated goal is, in my view, interesting in itself and sheds new light on Sextus’ methodology. The goal is: to suspend judgement on the effectiveness of dogmatic methodologies.

The aim of this paper is to understand some meaningful aspects of the Socratic use of Iliad x 224 in Plato’s Protagoras and Symposium. In these dialogues the Homeric reference appears in different contexts, but Plato’s Socrates applies it in the same way and seems to indicate it as a relevant step for the implementation of the dialectic method. Socrates is not only provoking his interlocutor, but rather making a comparison between the dialogue’s scene and the context involving Diomedes (...) and Odysseus’ in Iliad x. Ultimately, the use of this reference shows that a dialogical interplay to achieve a common purpose is a precondition for the Socratic dialectic. This previous cooperation between Homeric characters is emphasized by Plato’s Socrates and is derived from a specific soul’s manifestation. (shrink)

It has often been pointed out that the Marxian theory of value contains some inconsistencies, usually in relation to the concept of abstract labour. However, the contradiction between the concept of labour and the concept of validity with which Marx operates in Capital has never been discussed. A detailed analysis shows that this concept of validity refers to the process of abstraction which is carried out by the participants of the exchange process. Only the rigorous comprehension of this process of (...) abstraction can illuminate that for which the concept of abstract labour was developed: the unity and universality of value. On this basis, the paper criticises the Marxian development of the money-form and presents an alternative approach that builds on the aforementioned concept of validity. This concept is formulated in more depth by recourse to the works of Hegel, Simmel and Adorno. Furthermore, the paper reconsiders the dialectical development of categories in the light of this alternative conception of the money-form as totality and abstraction. Finally, the distinction between simple circulation and the process as a whole is explored and it is argued that, according to the novel reading proposed, it acquires a fundamental significance. (shrink)

This essay revisits the question of alterations in Marx’s view of method from the 1857 “Introduction” to Capital. In the wake of the belated upsurge of interest in Marx’s notebooks of 1857–8, posthumously published as the Grundrisse, a dominant interpretation has been developed in Marx scholarship which characterizes the method of the “Introduction” as an ascent from the (transhistorical) abstract to the (historical) concrete and, upon such characterization, stresses the mature Marx’s departure from it. Rereading the 1857 “Introduction” (...) with an emphasis on the theoretical import of its examples, I argue, against this interpretation, that although this text does not provide a fully worked-out account of method, it nevertheless offers invaluable insights into some of the central methodological problems with which Marx was concerned and in response to which his dialectical method was developed. In particular, I highlight what could be called Marx’s critical historicist approach to the categories and argue that this approach, together with his specific understanding of the process of the reproduction of the concrete in thought, constitute the lasting pillars of Marx’s dialectical method, in the 1857 “Introduction” as well as in Capital. Finally, in a concluding section, I re-examine the methodological status of the commodity and argue that the post-1857 emergence of the commodity as Marx’s favourite starting point does not represent a fundamental change, or a reversal, in his view of method. (shrink)

Hegel’s viewpoint on Greek tragedy is a valuable way-station in any theoretical as well as practical consideration of dramatic play. Hegel considered Greek tragedy from the perspective of his dialectical system, thereby indirectly influencing dramaturgical practice in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is why the paper explores Sophocle’s tragedy Oedipus Rex from the viewpoint of Hegel’s theoretical perspective, as well as practical perspectives based on an influential textbook on playwriting by Lajos Egri. The paper further explores the different (...) understandings of dialectics in philosophical and dramatic dialogue. Also, it addresses the kind of applied dialecticism in the work of Greek artists of the 5th century BC. Finally, the text explores the early Greek literary form gnome, which is – hypothetically speaking – the source of the later Greek understanding of dialectics. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer an overview of Aristotle’s account for his belief that honeybees reproduce without copulation. Following this, we draw the three following implications: First, that Aristotle’s position on this question is quite unconventional, and undercuts many traditional and “Aristotelian” hierarchies; secondly, that the method that requires him to hold this unconventional position is largely dialectical; and finally, that the lineage behind this method is Socratic. In this sense, Aristotle’s biological work may be seen as (...) taking up where young Socrates left off according to his autobiographical remark in Plato’s Phaedo 95E-99E. (shrink)

Schelling is best known in the Anglo-American philosophical community for work he did in his twenties, between 1797 and 1803. During this time, he appropriated Fichte’s standpoint of transcendental idealism and developed some of its implications for the philosophies of nature, history, and art. Schelling did not claim at this stage to be formulating an original standpoint of his own, but simply to be extending the Fichtean principles in new directions. In this endeavor he was quite successful, and for a (...) brief period he was lionized as philosophy’s youngest and brightest hope. He has been recognized since then as an important pioneer in the post-Kantian German idealist movement. (shrink)