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dialectic
in
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Analytic reason, dialectic reason.†
Part 2

dialectic = a search for truth through logical discussion

He could hold off the attack for a while with fancy dialectical footwork and insults about competence and incompetence, but sooner or later he had to come up with something more substantial than that.†
Part 3

...chose to respond to this dilemma logically and dialectically rather than take the easy escape of mysticism,
Part 3 *

dialectically = in a manner that searches for truth through logical discussion -- especially in reconciling two conflicting influences or ideas

He knew himself to be a pretty sharp logician and dialectician, took pride in this and looked upon this present dilemma as a challenge to his skill.†
Part 3

The Professor of Philosophy seemed most ill at ease on the subject of "dialectic."†
Part 4

dialectic = a search for truth through logical discussion

Dialectic, eh?†
Part 4

Rhetoric is a counterpart of dialectic, it had said, as if this were of the greatest importance, yet why this was so important was never explained.†
Part 4

The only thing that was clear was that Aristotle was very much concerned about the relation of rhetoric to dialectic.†
Part 4

The Professor of Philosophy had defined dialectic, and Phaedrus had listened carefully, but it was in one ear and out the other, a characteristic that philosophic statements often have when something is left out.†
Part 4

In a later class another student who seemed to be having the same trouble asked the Professor of Philosophy to redefine dialectic and this time the Professor had glanced at Phaedrus with another quick flicker of fear and become very edgy.†
Part 4

Phaedrus began to wonder if "dialectic" had some special meaning that made it a fulcrum word...one that can shift the balance of an argument, depending on how it's placed.†
Part 4

Dialectic generally means "of the nature of the dialogue," which is a conversation between two persons.†
Part 4

Plato believed the dialectic was the sole method by which the truth was arrived at.†
Part 4

Aristotle attacked this belief, saying that the dialectic was only suitable for some purposes...to enquire into men's beliefs, to arrive at truths about eternal forms of things, known as Ideas, which were fixed and unchanging and constituted reality for Plato.†
Part 4

Thus the dethronement of dialectic from what Socrates and Plato held it to be was absolutely essential for Aristotle, and "dialectic" was and still is a fulcrum word.†
Part 4

Thus the dethronement of dialectic from what Socrates and Plato held it to be was absolutely essential for Aristotle, and "dialectic" was and still is a fulcrum word.†
Part 4

Phaedrus guessed that Aristotle's diminution of dialectic, from Plato's sole method of arriving at truth to a "counterpart of rhetoric," might be as infuriating to modern Platonists as it would have been to Plato.†
Part 4

Phaedrus wasn't insulted that dialectic had been brought down to the level of rhetoric.†
Part 4

He was outraged that rhetoric had been brought down to the level of dialectic.†
Part 4

Socrates knows very well what Gorgias does for a living and how he does it, but he starts his Twenty Questions dialectic by asking Gorgias with what rhetoric is concerned.†
Part 4

All this, which is simply Gorgias' description of what people called Sophists have tended to do, now becomes subtly rendered by Socrates' dialectic into something else.†
Part 4

Socrates is not using dialectic to understand rhetoric, he is using it to destroy it, or at least to bring it into disrepute, and so his questions are not real questions at all...they are just word-traps which Gorgias and his fellow rhetoricians fall into.†
Part 4

There's a titter from one of the women in the class which displeases Phaedrus because he knows the Professor is trying for a dialectical hold on him similar to the kind Socrates gets on his opponents, and his answer is not intended to be funny but simply to throw off the dialectical hold the Professor is trying to get.†
Part 4

There's a titter from one of the women in the class which displeases Phaedrus because he knows the Professor is trying for a dialectical hold on him similar to the kind Socrates gets on his opponents, and his answer is not intended to be funny but simply to throw off the dialectical hold the Professor is trying to get.†
Part 4

He wants to have a dialectical discussion in class in which he, Phaedrus, is the rhetorician and is thrown by the force of dialectic.†
Part 4

He wants to have a dialectical discussion in class in which he, Phaedrus, is the rhetorician and is thrown by the force of dialectic.†
Part 4

dialectic = a search for truth through logical discussion

His thoughts move up to lightning speed, winnowing through the dialectic, playing one argumentative chess opening after another, seeing that each one loses, and moving to the next one, faster and faster...but all the class witnesses is silence.†
Part 4

His mind races on and on, through the permutations of the dialectic, on and on, hitting things, finding new branches and sub-branches, exploding with anger at each new discovery of the viciousness and meanness and lowness of this "art" called dialectic.†
Part 4

His mind races on and on, through the permutations of the dialectic, on and on, hitting things, finding new branches and sub-branches, exploding with anger at each new discovery of the viciousness and meanness and lowness of this "art" called dialectic.†
Part 4

Dialectic...the usurper.†
Part 4

Phaedrus reads further and further into pre-Socratic Greek thought to find out, and eventually comes to the view that Plato's hatred of the rhetoricians was part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good, represented by the Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the dialecticians, were engaged in a huge struggle for the future mind of man.†
Part 4

Those divisions are just dialectical inventions that came later.†
Part 4

There, Phaedrus thinks, is a definition of Quality that had existed a thousand years before the dialecticians ever thought to put it to word-traps.†
Part 4

Before dialectic itself.†
Part 4

dialectic = a search for truth through logical discussion

And now he began to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had lost.†
Part 4

He sees that they consistently are doing exactly that which they accuse the Sophists of doing...using emotionally persuasive language for the ulterior purpose of making the weaker argument, the case for dialectic, appear the stronger.†
Part 4

He gives it the position of highest honor, subordinate only to Truth itself and the method by which Truth is arrived at, the dialectic.†
Part 4

But in his attempt to unite the Good and the True by making the Good the highest Idea of all, Plato is nevertheless usurping areté's place with dialectically determined truth.†
Part 4

Once the Good has been contained as a dialectical idea it is no trouble for another philosopher to come along and show by dialectical methods that areté, the Good, can be more advantageously demoted to a lower position within a "true" order of things, more compatible with the inner workings of dialectic.†
Part 4

Once the Good has been contained as a dialectical idea it is no trouble for another philosopher to come along and show by dialectical methods that areté, the Good, can be more advantageously demoted to a lower position within a "true" order of things, more compatible with the inner workings of dialectic.†
Part 4

Once the Good has been contained as a dialectical idea it is no trouble for another philosopher to come along and show by dialectical methods that areté, the Good, can be more advantageously demoted to a lower position within a "true" order of things, more compatible with the inner workings of dialectic.†
Part 4

dialectic = a search for truth through logical discussion

Of course there's "empty rhetoric," that is, rhetoric that has emotional appeal without proper subservience to dialectical truth, but we don't want any of that, do we?†
Part 4

First they are going to destroy his status dialectically in front of the class by showing how little he knows about Plato and Aristotle.†
Part 4

Then, when they have thoroughly cut him up dialectically, they will suggest that he either shape up or get out.†
Part 4

Rhetoric, 1; Dialectic, 0.†
Part 4

dialectic = a search for truth through logical discussion

It just demolishes the whole dialectical position.†
Part 4

But the dialecticians don't know that.†
Part 4

Then the question is asked him, "What is dialectic?"†
Part 4

dialectic = a search for truth through logical discussion

As best I know, Aristotle's opinion is that dialectic comes before everything else.†
Part 4

Rhetoric, 2; Dialectic, 0.†
Part 4

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Definition:

a search for truth through logical discussion -- especially in reconciling two conflicting influences or ideas