• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Philosophy Professor logo

PhilosophyProfessor.com

  • Philosophers
  • Philosophies

dialectic

A term with various meanings for different philosophers, notably Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx.

For the ancients, dialectic was largely a matter of philosophical method.

As embodying a theory about reality the term belongs primarily to Hegel, who thought that both reality itself and our thought about it (which were ultimately the same thing) developed by certain processes occurring (the thesis) which contained within themselves the seeds of their own frustration and destruction (the antithesis).

This antithesis, however, contained its own antithesis (the negation of the negation) which emerged in the form of a synthesis of the original thesis and antithesis. This synthesis then formed the thesis for the next stage in the overall process.

Marx took over the general ideas but replaced Hegel’s idealist equation of thought and reality by his own dialectical materialism, applying the above process to the material world. This becomes historical materialism when applied to the development of societies and to human motivation, both of these resting ultimately on economic considerations.

Within psychology, dialectic may be described as any complex process of conceptual conflict or dialogue in which the generation, interpretation and clash of oppositions leads to a fuller mode of thought. It is not a prominent theory within the discipline, except in developmental psychology of the lifespan.

Source:
M P Honzik, ‘Life-span Development’, Annual Review of Psychology, vol. xxxv (1984), 309-31

Table of Contents

    • 0.1 Related:
  • 1 Videos
  • 2 Related Products
    • 2.1 Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)
    • 2.2 Dialectic (International Library of Philosophy)
    • 2.3 An Introduction to Dialectics
    • 2.4 Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialectics Ppr)
    • 2.5 Hegelian Dialectic
    • 2.6 Dialectic Soul
    • 2.7 Critical Issues in Education: Dialogues and Dialectics, Eighth Edition
    • 2.8 Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies
    • 2.9 The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution
    • 2.10 Topdown Dialectic

Related:

  • logical atomism
  • positivism
  • pragmatic (or pragmatist) theory of truth
  • idealism
  • identity theory of mind

  • Videos

  • Related Products

     
    Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)

    Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)

    • Stanford University Press
    • Horkheimer, Max (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 304 Pages - 03/13/2007 (Publication Date) - Stanford University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Dialectic (International Library of Philosophy)

    Dialectic (International Library of Philosophy)

    • Amazon Kindle Edition
    • Adler, Mortimer J. (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 275 Pages - 10/15/2015 (Publication Date) - Routledge (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    An Introduction to Dialectics
    8 Reviews

    An Introduction to Dialectics

    • Wiley-Blackwell
    • Adorno, Theodor W. (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 336 Pages - 03/27/2017 (Publication Date) - Polity (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialectics Ppr)

    Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialectics Ppr)

    • Theodor W. Adorno (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 440 Pages - 01/01/1981 (Publication Date) - Continuum (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Hegelian Dialectic

    Hegelian Dialectic

    • Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
    • OnlyFundamentals (Producer)
    • English (Playback Language)
    • English (Subtitle)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Dialectic Soul

    Dialectic Soul

    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Critical Issues in Education: Dialogues and Dialectics, Eighth Edition

    Critical Issues in Education: Dialogues and Dialectics, Eighth Edition

    • Jack L. Nelson (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 444 Pages - 08/04/2017 (Publication Date) - Waveland Press, Inc. (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies

    Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies

    • Gadamer, Hans-Georg (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 117 Pages - 09/10/1982 (Publication Date) - Yale University Press (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution

    The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution

    • Amazon Kindle Edition
    • Firestone, Shulamith (Author)
    • English (Publication Language)
    • 240 Pages - 03/05/2003 (Publication Date) - Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Publisher)
    Check Price on Amazon
     
    Topdown Dialectic

    Topdown Dialectic

    Check Price on Amazon
  • Last update 2020-06-17. Price and product availability may change.

    double effect doctrine

    utilitarianism

    identity theory of predication

    associationism

    causal theory of names

    • Contact
    • Facebook

    Copyright © 2023 · CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. “AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM QUALIFYING PURCHASES.”