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dialectic

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Definition a search for truth through logical discussion — especially in reconciling two conflicting influences or ideas
  • Plato's Socratic dialogues popularized the concept of dialectics.
  • Marx criticized Hegel's dialectic as too idealist which lead to dialectic materialism.
  • This was a consistent conclusion of his dialectical method: the simultaneous affirmation and negation of a given theological point.
    Faith and Reason - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy  --  http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/faith-re.htm (retrieved 05/20/06)
  • Thus, Talmud professor Daniel Boyarin has argued that "Jewishness disrupts the very categories of identity, because it is not national, not genealogical, not religious, but all of these, in dialectical tension."
    Judaism - Wikipedia  --  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism (retrieved 05/20/06)
  • As a scientist, I am not sure anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible.
    Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
  • The dialectical argument searches for the synthesis of theses and antitheses.
  • The dialectical argument between the two professors put less interested students to sleep.
  • They joined in a dialectic search for truth.
  • ...chose to respond to this dilemma logically and dialectically rather than take the easy escape of mysticism,
    Robert M. Pirsig  --  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  • dialectically = in a manner that searches for truth through logical discussion — especially in reconciling two conflicting influences or ideas
  • Socrates is of opinion that the more abstract or dialectical definition of figure is far better.
    Plato  --  Meno
  • That is he above the course of history and the compulsions of dialectic?
    John Le Carre  --  The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
  • When we discuss something, we think dialectically.
    Jostein Gaarder  --  Sophie's World
  • So a dialectic is established between one kid with no boundaries and the other with nothing but.
    Ron Suskind  --  A Hope in the Unseen
  • Brothers, come down or you'll land on your dialectics; the stage of history hasn't built that far.
    Ralph Ellison  --  Invisible Man
  • Antithesis, dualism—that is the motivating, passionate, dialectical, spiritual principle.
    Thomas Mann  --  The Magic Mountain
  • How much dialectics have you read?
    Ernest Hemingway  --  For Whom the Bell Tolls
  • In Eisenstein you note that the camera angle is a kind of dialectic.
    Don DeLillo  --  Underworld
  • Under the circumstances, how could even the most committed racists among the faculty be diverted by the Professor's cunning dialectics?
    William Styron  --  Sophie's Choice
  • He is unable to think dialectically.
    Ayn Rand  --  Atlas Shrugged
  • If this sounds like a contradiction, it is not a proof of bad logic, but of a higher logic, the dialectics of all life and art.
    Ayn Rand  --  The Fountainhead

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