(Nicholas Rescher) Dialectics A Classical Approach

Nicholas Rescher
Dialectics
A Classical Approach to Inquiry
ontos
verlag
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
Chapter 1: Dialectical Processes: A General View 1
Chapter 2: Disputational Dialectic 17
Chapter 3: Cognitive Dialectic 37
Chapter 4: Methodological Dialectic 61
Chapter 5: Ontological Dialectic: The Hegelian Background 75
Chapter 6: Philosophical Dialectic 87
Chapter 7: A Brief History of Dialectic 119
BIBLIOGRAPHY 185
NAME INDEX 195

PREFACE
F ew ideas have played a more continuously prominent role throughout

the history of philosophy than that of dialectic, which has figured on
the philosophical agenda from the time of the Presocratics to the present
day. Almost from the outset, dialectic has led a Jekyll/Hyde existence,
some viewing it as a matter of sophistry and deceit, and others as the only
true and secure road to a deeper understanding.
Actually, it is not particularly instructive to speak of dialectic as such.
One scholar not unjustly complains that The term [dialectic] has been
used in so many different senses that it can only be employed meaningfully
after one has indicated with precision in which sense it is to be taken.1
The fact of it is that dialectic is a genus of many species. There is the Pla-
tonic dialectic, the Aristotelian dialectic, the scholastic dialectic, the Kant-
ian dialectic, the Hegelian dialectic, the Marxist dialectic, and numerous
others. The present book will not endeavor to cover this entire waterfront.
Instead it explores the philosophical promise of dialectic, and especially
the dialogical version associated with disputation, debate, and rational con-
troversy. Its deliberations will endeavor to see what epistemological les-
sons can be drawn to exhibit the utility of dialectical proceedings for the
theory of knowledge. One prime goal of this exploration is the develop-
ment of a dialectical model for the rationalization of cognitive methodol-
ogyscientific inquiry specifically included. (In particular, politically ori-
ented dialectics in the tradition of Marx and post-Marxism falls outside the
scope of the book.)
Why this focus on the dialectic of inquiry? For one principal reason:
because it exhibits epistemological processes at work in a setting of so-
cially conditioned interactions. This communal perspective is surely a step
in the right direction through countervailing against the baneful influence
of the Cartesian egocentric orientation of modern epistemology. The tradi-
tional and orthodox emphasis on the issue How can I convince myself?,
How can I be certain? invites us to forget the social nature of the ground
rules of probative reasoningtheir rooting in the issue of: How can we go
about convincing one another? The dialectics of disputation and contro-
versy provides a useful antidote to cognitive egocentrism. It insists that we
not forget the build-up of knowledge as an interactive communal enterprise
subject to communal standards.
Nicholas Rescher Dialectic
Dialectic is an area of crossroads where many philosophical programs

meet. On the one hand, a dialectical approach is congenial to and actually
in a way constitutes one version of process philosophy in assigning a fun-
damental and indeed paradigmatic role to a certain particular, specifically
dialectical mode of processes. On the other hand, a rational, reason-driven
dialectic is highly congenial to and actually in a way constitutes a version
of pragmatism because such a dialectic is committed to the quality control
of philosophical functional efficacyof what works out best with respect
to the range of purposes at issue. Many instructive philosophical perspec-
tives come together in the study of dialecticand particularly so when this
is viewed in its classical perspective as a process of rational inquiry.
The book represents a confluence, consolidation, and extension of ideas
developed over many years, some of which are scattered over various pub-
lications. The dialectical process of challenge-response-synthesis charac-
terizes a many-sided process that is not irrelevant to the production of
books.
I am grateful to Estelle Burris for her capable help in preparing this ma-
terial for publication.
Nicholas Rescher
Pittsburgh PA
June 2007
NOTES
1
A. Lalande, Vocabulaire de la philosophie (Paris: Felix Alcon, 1923; 9th ed.
Presses Universitaires de France, 1962), p. 227.
II
Chapter 1
DIALECTICAL PROCESSES:
A GENERAL VIEW
1. GENERAL DIALECTICS
T he characterizing format of a dialectical process can be described in

contemporary terms of reference as a feedback process with the cyclic
structure sketched in Display 1, where the output of every stage serves as
the starting point of a new cycle. Such effectively circular processes can be
encountered in artifice and nature alike, with dialectical interactions occur-
ring in inquiry, in history, in nature, and in social affairs. For pretty much
any mode of agency or action can in principle proceed dialectically. And it
does so whenever the processes involved react sequentially to or against
their own prior products.
A dialectical cycle accordingly consists of three phases or stages;
namely those of
Initiation (positing, declaration, inauguration)
Response (counter-reaction, reply, opposition, destabilization)
Revision & readjustment (operational modification, sophistication,

complexification)
Display 2
THE STRUCTURE OF DIALECTICAL PROCESS
Initial Process-induced Changed

state impact state
Once achieved these stages are then followed by a return to the initial
phase.
As Display 2 indicates, the result is a cyclic process of INITIATION
RESPONSE REVISION RETURN that moves the overall condition
of things to a higher level of stability and sophistication so that one would
expect a dialectical process to issue in a result that is at once ever more so-
phisticated and complex but at the same time more firm on its grounding.
Looking at the matter from the perspective of speech-act analysis we
have the analogous stages:
asserting, maintaining, affirming
challenging, denying, questioning
reaffirming, qualifying, enmeshing
Such a triplet is then again followed by a return to the initial phase result-
ing in a succession of moves that exhibit a sequential reversal of declara-
tive polarities as per + +.
Broadly speaking any process of interaction through a sequential and
progressive exchange between two parties can be characterized as dialecti-
cal. Negotiation and haggling provide a good example here.
The process of negotiative dialectic also carries over to the sort of inter-
active rivalry encountered in the competition between such schools of
thought. One example of this is the clash between rival interpretations of
a text, for example of the sequence at issue in the When A, then B-claim
of a certain discussion is to be construed as a matter of chronological suc-
2
DIALECTIC PROCESSES: A GENERAL VIEW
cession or of logical consequence. In the course of such a hermeneutic con-

troversy, each party will endeavor to counter the consideration achieved by
others, perhaps by way of explaining them away or perhaps by way of an
accommodation or appropriation.
In rational inquiry dialectics is generally a matter of the new and dis-
cordant findings afforded by a widening course of experience. This sort of
thing is typified by disputation. And so in natural history this sort of proc-
ess usually arises through the untenability under new conditions of prior
resolutions reached on the basis of earlier developments. A physical proc-
ess could also be characterized as one of dialectical development, and even
the designing interaction between an architect and a client could be charac-
terized in these terms. Overall, dialectic is something very diversified and
many-sided.
2. DISCURSIVE DIALECTIC
In the course of a discursively dialectic process the initial position becomes

subject to modification and refinement through the impetus of the destabi-
lizing pressure of counter-consideration. That initial position becomes
transformed continuously through a series of successive responses to chal-
lenges that results in its revisions and refinement. An ongoing process of
complexification and sophistication is set under way so as to render that
position increasingly less vulnerable to challenges and impedances.
Cogent counterarguments always require some concession. Whenever a
plausible contention is confronted with a plausible counterargument, that
original contention cannot be left intact and unqualified. It requires read-
justment, qualification, sophistication. The result is a cycle of
contention counter-contention revision
or, viewed differently
argument counter-argument harmonizing adjudication
The third stage of revision/adjudication is a reworking of the original

position that gives each side its own and acknowledges the separative
claims and merits of both opposing tendencies.
3
Display 3
DISCURSIVE DIALECTIC
Start Thesis Negating Revised and

anti-thesis qualified
synthesis
These considerations point towards what might be called F. P. Ramseys

Maxim of rational dialectic. For Ramsey held that with regard to disputes
that seem incapable of decisive settlement we have to split the difference
as it were: In such cases it is a heuristic maxim that the truth is not in one
of the disputed views but in some third possibility which has not yet been
thought of, and which we can only discover by rejecting something assured
as obvious by both the disputants.1
The formal structure of a dialectical process is depicted in Display 2.
However, the sort of situation at issue with dialectic is typified by the stan-
dard process of a dialogical interaction of a verbal exchange between
two parties carried on in a context aimed at ferreting out the truth of things.
At first manifested in the context of law-court exchanges, the process
evolved into the more complex stylization of medieval academic disputa-
tion which itself evolved into the practice of contemporary academic de-
bating.2
The question/answer cycle was characteristic of discursive dialectic in
its original form.3 The generic format of what is at issue with such dialectic
is outlined in Display 3. In the by-now classic terminology introduced by
J. G. Fichte a discursively dialectical process accordingly exhibits three de-
finitive components:
the thesis or similar position-taking
the anti-thesis or counter-position affording a reaction or response

that impacts upon the thesis.
4
the syn-thesis or thesis-modifactory response to the antithesis, yield-

ing a revised position that produces the starting-point for the next in-
teraction of the dialectical cycle.
In his influential essay What is Dialectic Karl Popper criticized dialectic

for its willingness to put up with contradictions.4 This is an almost per-
verse misunderstanding of the matter because what dialectical theorizing in
all its guises has always maintained is that whenever contradictions and
such-like conflicts of consistency come up this must be removed, elimi-
nated, and transcended. The impetus of coherence and consistency is the
motive force of any dialectical process. Viewed in its most general form,
dialectic is a course of sequential development through a progressive suc-
cession of challenge-and-response cycles, with earlier problems and diffi-
culties met by the successive elimination of obstacles and shortcomings.
The driving mechanism of dialectic is instabilitybe it the instability of
thought (most drastically exemplified by self-contradiction) or the instabil-
ity of condition typified by the vagaries of nature or the fickleness of man.
On this basis, the driving force of a dialectical process is the destabilization
or discord issuing from the counter-reaction against an initial state of
things that is an already achieved given. Thus on this basis a dialectical
process effectively constitutes a spiral or ascending cycle of ever more
elaborate renovations or revisions of that initial thesis at ever more sophis-
ticated levels of operation. The process is one of strengthening the thesis
by requiring itor rather its duly qualified replacementsto surmount
ever-increasing obstacles and to meet ever-escalating challenges.
In principle a process can be hierarchically dialectical. It can see factor
A as the product of a dialectical tension between A1 and A2, and also see B
as the product of dialectical tension between B1 and B2. And it can then go
on to see C as the product of a dialectical tension between A and B. Insofar
as things can get complicated in the real world, they can get complicated in
the world of dialectic as well.
5
Display 4
PROCESSUAL DIALECTIC
Modus Challenges to Modifactory

operandi successful readjustment for
operation effective functioning
3. DIALECTIC AND PROCESS THOUGHT
The medieval schoolmen debated the question: Is dialectic a means for phi-
losophizing or a part of philosophy, is it a procedural method or a doctrinal
theory? This question still holds good here and now. And the best answer,
so it would seem, is that it is first and foremost the formera method. Phi-
losophical dialectic is a way of doing thingsof conducting philosophical
inquiry. It constitutes a substantive theory only insofar as the contention
holds good that this method finds a wide and diversified application
throughout philosophy. Dialectic, in sum, belongs to methodology rather
than doctrine, and affords a procedural process rather than a substantive
product of philosophy.
On this perspective a dialectical approach is congenial to and actually in
a way constitutes one version of process philosophy in so far that it sees
processuality of a certain particular, namely dialectical format, as funda-
mental and indeed paradigmatic.
On this basis, the theory of dialectics can be viewed as a sector of proc-
ess philosophy. For dialectics represents one particular style or mode of
developmental process, specifically one of the format presented in Display
4. Process revision in the wake of applicative experience lies at the heart of
the enterprise. And overall, it is sufficiently general that both natural and
rational selection can in principle afford the means for a quality control
which endows a developmental process with a dialectical structure.
The entryway to a dialectical process should be marked NO EXIT. For
the cyclic nature of the business in effect means that there is no inevitably
natural end to it. The dialectical conflict between venture and reaction,
claim and counterclaim, thesis and antithesis can issue in two importantly
6
different sorts of results. For whenever a given situation is forced to react

to a succession of destabilizing challenges there will, in principle, be two
sorts of reactions, adaptation or disintegration. In the later case the process
will, of course, eventually vary from the historical stage. Those processes
that persist and succeed in propelling themselves along the corridor of time
(be it unchanged or modified), will exhibit through this very fact in general
the generic structure of a dialectical development. Mere survival over
timemeeting the challenges of transtemporal endurancecan be the
driving force of a processual dialectic. From this perspective reason-driven
dialectic is highly congenial to and actually constitutes in a way a version
of pragmatism because such a dialectic is driven by the quality control fac-
tor of functional efficacyof success with respect to the range of purposes
at issue.
On the one side we have a convergent dialectic where the difference be-
tween the successive thesis revisions that are required to meet proffered
challenges grows ever smaller. The readjustments needed to address the
difficulties that remain are continuously diminished in scope, so that the ul-
timate result increasingly approximates to one fixed and definitive out-
come. As the dialectic proceeds there is less and less scope for effective
challenge to the result arrived at. Accordingly the dialectical process de-
velops a very strong case for the result at issue.
On the other side, by contrast, we have a divergent dialectic where the
difference between the positions of the proponent and opponent continue to
be as wide as ever without diminishing. Here the opposing theses and an-
titheses never yield a convergence as the dialectical exchanges proceed, the
two opposed sides continue to be as far apart as ever. The reconciliatory
function of syntheses that afford some degree of mutual accommodation is
unrealizable in these circumstances, and the dialectical process is effec-
tively unproductive in its failure to uncover a viable way of splitting the
difference between the opposed agencies through some sort of mutual ac-
commodation.
Both sorts of dialectical processesthe convergent and the divergent
in fact exist. There is nothing in the generic nature of a dialectical process
as such that guarantees success in the realization of a convergent result.
This can be seen clearly in what is yet another form of dialectical process,
namely negotiation in matters of gain and loss as per Display 5. The hope-
ful aim of such a process is to reach an equilibrium where each party does
as well as the circumstances allow.
7
Display 5
THE DIALECTICS OF NEGOTIATION
Party #1 Party #2 Party #1

makes an proposes a revises the
offer to counter-offer offer
Party #2 to party #1
When a dialectical process ends, it is not because it has come to the end of
the journey to a predetermined destination but rather because it has run out
of steam. In the case of a man-operated dialectic this running out of
steam will generally happen in one of two ways: (1) because we lack the
means of going further because we have exhausted the requisite resource
(time, energy, funding, etc.) for doing so, or (2) because we have no need
for continuing because the progress achieved through successive cycles has
become vanishingly small owing to a convergence of some sort.
A dialectical process may or may not prove to be convergent. With dia-
lectic as such there will be no inevitable end, no ultimate and fore-ordained
distinction.5
4. DIALECTICAL DUALITY
Any doctrine which, like that of the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus, en-
visions historical development as a matter of ebb and flow, of reciprocal
accommodation between two opposing forces where the excess of one
evokes an ultimately predominately opposition of the others, deserves to be
characterized as dialectical.
In his Dialectics of Nature Friedrich Engels enumerated three laws of
dialectic:
the unity and interpenetration of opposites.
the negation of the negation
the transformation of quantity into quality.
8
Display 6
ONTOLOGICAL DIALECTIC
tendency reactively evoked interactive

counter-tendency resolution
In effect, however, Engels three laws simply restate the format of a dialec-
tical process at large: the unity and interpenetration of opposites reflects
the cyclic nature of dialectical processes, the negation of the negation re-
flects the aspect of revision and return, and the transformation of quantity
into quality reflects the greater sophistication of detail reflected in the
progressive impetus of the dialectical succession of cycles.
In ontological perspective, a dialectical process involves the ongoing in-
teraction of two opposed forces or tendencies in the manner of Display 6.
Here the impact of a reactive counter-force or counter-tendency, and the
resolution of compromise and co-adjustment resulting when these two op-
posing agencies have done their interactive work.
On this basis perhaps the most dramatic instance of a dialectical theory
is the ancient Manichaen doctrine which saw the whole of history, alike
natural and human, as the interactive conflict of two co-equally potent op-
posing forces of light and darkness, order and chaos, good and evil. How-
ever, arriving at a synthesis is no automatic, mechanical process. It is, in
general, something that requires judgment based on grasp of the case-
specific particulars.6
Of course a dialectical perspective need not be carried to such an ex-
treme but can be implemented on the more modest basis of wearing the
dialectical shoe when and where it happens to fit. And even in this modest
basis there will be a good deal of work for dialectics to do.
Dialectical theory, insofar as there is such a thing, envisions some range
of phenomena in dialectical terms, as ruled by processes whose structure is
dialectical in nature. It would be absurd, however, to maintain that dialectic
is a method, a procedure, an instrumentality and as such is versatile and
many-sided, it matters not if those processes relate to nature or artifice, to
9
reasoning or to causality, to history or physics. However, dialectics is not a

theory. It would be a theory if it maintained that all the problems of any
and every domain can and should be addressed by the dialectical method.
For, after all, there is surely no domain of inquiry or action every one of
whose problems can be addressed successfully by using, and only using,
one particular method or instrument. All that can be claimed for any par-
ticular tool is that it works where it works. (And of course when this is so
one should be able to explain it.) And in fact dialectical processes can and
often are at work in matters of inquiry, politics, history, and various other
domains as well.
Dialectics is very much of a two-edged sword. On the one side, it is a
conceptual instrumentality for deciding and explaining the development of
thought regarding the modus operandi of things. On the other, it character-
izes the structure format of a vast variety of natural processes ranging
across the spectrum from physical and even cosmological courses of de-
velopment to the unfolding of events in social, political, and cultural his-
tory. Thus both the historical development of things and the epistemologi-
cal development of thought about them can in large measure be character-
ized in dialectical terms. Both natural and cognitive processes and
proceeding in good measure invite description and explanation in terms
that cry out to be characterized as dialectical. And so the proper answer to
the question Is dialectics a perspective upon thought-and-discourse or
upon natures processes? is simply that it is both.
5. SPENCERS LAW AT THE DIALECTIC COGNITIVE COMPLEXI-

FICATION
Already well before Darwin, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer

(18201903) argued that organic evolution is characterized by Karl Ernst
von Baers (17921876) law of development from the homogeneous to
the heterogeneous and thereby produces an ever-increasing elaborateness
of detail and complexity of articulation.7 As Spencer saw it, organic spe-
cies in the course of their development confront a successive series of envi-
ronmental obstacles, and with each successful turning along the maze of
developmental challenges the organism becomes selectively more highly
specialized in its bio-design, and thereby more tightly attuned to the par-
ticular features of its ecological context.8
Now this view of the developmental process may be of limited applica-
bility in biological evolution, but there can be little question about its hold-
10
ing good in cognitive evolution. For rational beings will of course try sim-
ple things first and thereafter be led step by step towards an ever-enhanced
complexification. In the course of rational inquiry we try the simple solu-
tions first, and only thereafter, if and when they cease to workwhen they
are ruled out by further developmentsdo we move on to the more com-
plex. Matters go along smoothly until an oversimple solution becomes de-
stabilized by enlarged experience. For a time we get by with the compara-
tively simpler optionsuntil the expanding information about the worlds
modus operandi made possible by enhanced new means of observation and
experimentation insists otherwise. And with the expansion of knowledge
those new accessions make ever increasing demands.
And this situation is attested by the course of empirical inquiry which
has moved historically in the direction of ever increasing complexity. The
developmental tendency of our intellectual enterprisesnatural science
preeminent among themis generally one of greater complication and so-
phistication. For in scientific inquiry we look to the most economical the-
ory-accommodation for the amplest body of currently available experience.
Inductionhere short for the scientific method in generalproceeds by
way of constructing the most straightforward and economical structures able
to house the available data comfortably while yet affording answers to our
questions.9 Accordingly, economy and simplicity serve as cardinal direc-
tives for inductive reasoning, whose procedure is that of the precept: Re-
solve your cognitive problems in the simplest, most economical way that is
compatible with a sensible exploitation of the information at your disposal.
But we always encounter limits here. Simple solutions take us only so far.
An inner tropism towards increasing complexity is thus built into the
very nature of the scientific project as we have it. And this circumstance
leads to what may be called Spencers Law of Cognitive Development:
What we have here is a thesis to the effect that cognitive progress is accom-
panied by and can be measured in terms of the taxonomic complexity of the
information manifold at hand.
Our cognitive efforts manifest a Manichaean-style struggle between com-

plexity and simplicitybetween the impetus to comprehensiveness (ampli-
tude) and the impetus to system (economy). We want our theories to be as
extensive and all-encompassing as possible and at the same time to be ele-
gant and economical. The first desideratum pulls in one direction, the sec-
ond in the other. And the accommodation reached here is never actually
stable. As our experience expands in the quest for greater adequacy and
11
comprehensiveness, the old theory structures become destabilizedthe old

theories no longer fit the full range of available fact. And so the theoreti-
cian goes back to the old drawing board. What he comes up with here is
and in the circumstances must besomething more elaborate, more com-
plex than what was able to do the job before those new complications arose
(though we do, of course, sometimes achieve local simplifications within
an overall global complexification). We make do with the simple, but only
up to the point when the demands of adequacy force additional complica-
tions upon us. Be it in cognitive or in practical matters, the processes and
resources of yesteryear are rarely, if ever, up to the demands of the present.
In consequence, the life-environment we create for ourselves grows in-
creasingly complex. The Occams Razor injunction, Never introduce
complications unless and until you actually require them, accordingly
represents a defining principle of practical reason that is at work within the
cognitive project as well. And because we try the simplest solutions first,
making them do until circumstances force one to do otherwise, it transpires
that in the development of knowledgeas elsewhere in the domain of hu-
man artificeprogress is always a matter of complexification. An inherent
impetus towards greater complexity pervades the entire realm of human
creative effort. We find it in art; we find it in technology; and we certainly
find it in the cognitive domain as well.10
6. GENERALITY
As such deliberations indicate, any productive end-oriented process what-

soever is in principle subject to dialectical development in the manner in-
dicated in Display 7. And against this background it is clear that dialectics
is a general instrumentality able to serve two correlative purposes. It is a
double-edged tool able to function both as descriptive of an historical
course of development and as explanatory by accounting for how it has
come about that developments have taken the form they did.
In a dialectical process developmental history and functional teleology be-
come intertwined. For any such process is evolutionary. The aspect of retro-
active feedback that reshapes and revises an initial position into a less prob-
lematic, functionally better adapted successor means that historical develop-
ment and functional improvement are declined to proceed hand in hand:
history enjoins validation (the Weltgeschichte become the Weltgericht). With
a dialectical process, in sum, there emerges a naturally en-forced conformity
between temporal development and functional improvement.
12
Display 7
THE DIALECTIC OF PROCESSUAL DEVELOPMENT
Retain the process
Is a teleological Yes
Process assessment
positive? No
Modify and
readjust the
process
This feature of competitive accommodation is illustrated with particular

clarity by competitive games that invoke the alternative of move and
counter-move and above all by warfare11 as per the process depicted in
Display 8.
Display 8
WARFARE: THE DIALECTICS OF STRATEGIC

AND TACTICAL PLANNING
Deployment of Counter-deployment Redeployment by

forces by of forces by side #1 in the wake
side #1 side #2 of #2s counter-
deployment
Then, too, strategic planning can be viewed as a quintessentially dialec-

tical exercise where the actual conduct of games can be simulated in a
13
thought-imposed modeling of the actual processes involved. On this basis

methodological dialectic can function amphibiouslyboth in reality and in
the cognitive enterprise of war games and strategic planning.
All in all, then, the conceptual perspective provided by dialectics is a
versatile instrument for the analysis and elucidation of a wide range of
phenomena relating as well to the processes of nature and the procedural
methods of human artifice.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 1

1
Frank P. Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics ed. by R. B. Breathwaite (Lon-
don: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931),
pp. 11516.
2
Some aspects of the process were discussed a generation ago in the authors Dia-
lectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 1977).
3
On Socratic/Platonic dialectic see Michel Meyer, Dialectic and Questioning: Soc-
rates and Plato, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 17 (1980), pp. 28189.
Meyer appropriately stresses that while the Platonic Socrates practiced dialectic, he
never thematized it.
4
K. R. Popper in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
(New York: Basic Books, 1963). See p. 311.
5
There is a kinship between dialectic and mysticism that is emphasized in Jonas
Cohns Theorie der Dialektik (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1923).
6
In this respect our present perspective on dialectic agrees entirely with the position
of Roland Simon-Schaefer that a synthesis is not related to its antecedent thesis-
counterthesis by some sort of logical derivability, but is a matter of the substantive
situation in particular dialectical situations. (See his Dialektik: Kritik eines Wort-
gebrauchs (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1973), p. 146.
7
Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 7th ed. (London: Appleton, 1889); see sects 14
17 of Part II, The Law of Evolution.
8
On the process in general see John H. Holland, Hidden Order: How Adaptation
Builds Complexity (Reading MA: Addison Wesley, 1995). Regarding the specifi-
cally evolutionary aspect of the process see Robert N. Brandon, Adaptation and
Environment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
9
For further details see the authors Induction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980).
14
10
An interesting illustration of the extent to which lessons in the school of better ex-
perience have accustomed us to expect complexity is provided by the contrast be-
tween the pairs: rudimentary/nuanced; unsophisticated/sophisticated; plain/elabo-
rate; simple/intricate. Note that in each case the second, complexity-reflective al-
ternative has a distinctly more positive (or less negative) connotation than its
opposite counterpart.
11
An early observation of the relation of dialectics to the theory of games occurs in
Georg Klaus (ed.), Wrterbuch der Kybernetik (Berlin: Dietz, 1968), s. v.
Spieltheorie.
15
Chapter 2
DISPUTATIONAL DIALECTIC
1. FORMAL DISPUTATION
P erhaps the clearest, and certainly historically the most prominent in-
stance of a dialectical process is formal disputationa procedure for
conducting controversial discussions, with one contender defending a the-
sis in the face of objections and counterarguments made by an adversary.
This was a commonplace procedure in universities in the Middle Ages,
where it served as one of the major training and examining devices in all
four faculties of academic instruction: in arts, law, medicine, and theology.
The procedure of disputation before a master and an audience was closely
akin to a legal trial in structure and in setting (the aula was set up much as
a courtroom). It was presided over by a determiner, the supervising ma-
gister, who also determined itthat is, summarized its result and ruled
on the issue under dispute (quaestio disputata), exactly as a judge did in a
law court.1 The disputant was faced by a specifically appointed respondent
(respondens), who, like a defending attorney, attempted to rebut his points
in reply (respondere de quaestione).2
There had to be general rules for assigning responsibility for the con-
duct of argumentation and for allocating the burden of proof between
proponent (proponens) and opposing respondent (respondens, oppenens, or
quaerens). These, too, were taken over bodily from the procedure of the
Roman law courts. In particular, it was a cardinal rule that throughout the
dialectical process of contention and response, the burden of proof lay with
the assertor (ei qui dicit non ei qui negat). Disputation was thus modeled
rather straightforwardly on the precedent of legal practice.3
Transposition of various devices of legal argumentation to debate in
rhetoric was already clear with the ancients (e.g., in Aristotles Topics and
Rhetoric, and in Ciceros De inventione).4 But it was not until 1828 that
Richard Whately took a crucial further step in his Elements of Rhetoric.
Though part of the law of evidence since antiquity, and though tacitly pre-
sent throughout as a governing factor in disputing practice, the ideas of
burden of proof and of presumptions were first introduced explicitly into
the theoretical analysis of extralegal argumentation in Whatelys treatment

of rhetoric. And from that time on to the present day they have figured
prominently in the theoretical discussions of college debating text books.5
This continuity of debating with medieval disputation has a solid historical
basis. There are good grounds for holding that the extracurricular disputa-
tions of the fifteenthseventeenth centuriesespecially those between ri-
val universitieswere the direct precursors of modern intercollegiate de-
bates.6
Disputation long survived as a testing method in universities, providing
a format for viva voce examinations. In German universities it was intro-
duced as such in the Middle Ages and long continued in standard use to
examine doctoral candidates (Doktoranden), not only in humanistic fields,
but even in the natural sciences.7 The candidate had to undertake a formal
public defense of specified theses against designated opponents, with his
professors presiding over the exercise. In later days all this became very
much a formality, the candidate having arrived at a friendly understanding
with his opponents in advance.8 In the American context such disputa-
tion continues in a vestigial form in the final oral examination for graduate
degrees, when the candidate defends his thesis or dissertation before a
group of his principal professors, who play a dual role: first in the public
part of the examination playing out the role of opponents and thereafter de-
liberating in camera as evaluative judges, with the dissertation director act-
ing as counterpart to the determiner of a medieval debate.
It is worthwhile to study the process of disputation closely because it of-
fers a clear and vivid illustration of dialectics.
2. THE FORMALITIES OF A DISPUTATION
A disputation, as we have seen, involves three parties: the two disputing

adversaries, namely, the proponent and his opponent (or opposing respon-
dant), and the determiner who presides as referee and judge over the con-
duct of the dispute.
The formal structure of the disputation is given in rough outline in Dis-
play 1.
As the disputation proceeds, a sequential series of arguments and
counterarguments is developed around the proponents initial thesis.
Traditional disputation involves a rather stylized routine and was gov-
erned by as rigid an etiquette as prevailed in any royal court of the old re-
gime. This fact makes it relatively easy to systematize (at least approxi-
18
mately) the formal moves and countermoves which compose the dialectical
fabric of a disputation. The ensuing survey will presentadmittedly in a
somewhat oversimplified formthe logical structure of the debating
moves in a formal disputation. (One point of oversimplification is that the
present analysis traces out only one single round of a cyclic.
Display 1
THE STRUCTURE OF A FORMAL DISPUTATION
The disputation ends

and the determiner STOP
gives his ruling
yes
Has the proper juncture

been reached for ter- no Spokesmanship
minating and determining switches to
the disputation? speakers adversary
START
Proponent Speaker
formulates yes continues
his thesis Spokesmanship Has speaker completed no to develop
and builds switches to his responses to all of his his case
a prima opponent adversarys points? with respect
point? to the next
facie case point
for it
19
INVENTORY OF BASIC MOVES IN DISPUTATION
(1) Categorical assertion
!P is P is the case or It is maintained (by me, the assertor) that P
The proponents opening move of a disputation must take this categorical

form.
(2) Cautious assertions
P for P is the case for all that you (the adversary) have shown Ps
being the case is compatible with everything youve said (i.e., have
maintained or conceded).
Moves of the !-type can be made only by the proponent, those of the -type
only by the opponent.
(3) Provisoed assertion
P/Q for P generally (or usually or ordinarily) obtains provided that

Q or P obtains, other things being equal, when Q does or When Q,
so ceteris paribus does P or P obtains in all (or most) ordinary cir-
cumstances (or possible worlds) when Q does or Q constitutes prima
facie evidence for P.9
NOTE: This move must always be accompanied by one of the two preced-
ing forms of assertion of its operative condition Q. Note also that corre-
sponding forms of denial arise when -P stands in place of P.
In the usual course of things, Americans learn English, fish are not
mammals, men are capable of reasoning, birds can fly. And all of these
linkages give rise to provisoed assertions. But none of these circumstances
are inevitable. What is at issue in each case is a reasonably safe presump-
tion rather than an airtight guarantee. If As are Bs in the vast majority of
cases, if the general rule of the situation is such that Xs are Ys, or if an
F is a G when things run their normal course, then a corresponding pro-
visoed assertion is generally in order. The relationship at issue is one that
deals with what is normal, natural, and only to be expected. This is not a
20
matter of mere probabilitiesof how things go mostly or usuallyrather,

it is a matter of how things go normally or as a rule.
To look upon P/Q as an implication-relation is to slide into an unhelpful
misinterpretation. For P/Q does not mean that Q implies (entails, assures)
that P. Rather, the claim at issue is that it is sensible to suppose that P once
Q is givensensible though by no means a sure thing. Thus P/Q can be
true together with ~P/(Q & R).10 The addition of a further qualification
(proviso) can not only abrogate the conditionalized transition to a thesis
that obtained under the status quo ante, it can render appropriate the transi-
tion to its contradictory denial. Accordingly, we cannot reason from such a
relationship by invoking a rule of detachment. For clearly if
P/Q
Q
P
were an unconditionally valid deductive inference, then we could not pos-

sibly have
~P/(Q & R)
Q&R
~P
be equally valid, without generating a contradiction. This consideration is a

decisive impediment to counting the I-relationship as an implication-rela-
tion. It represents a linkage that is presumptive rather than deductively air-
tight. This failure of the detachment principle means that in dialectical (as
opposed to deductive) reasoning an assessment of the cognitive standing of
a thesis can never leave its probative origins behind altogether.
For simplicity we shall suppose throughout the present chapter that
moves of the form X/Y are always correct in the setting of a disputation;
that the disputants cannot makeor perhaps, rather, are debarred by the
determiner from makingerroneous claims regarding purely evidential re-
lationships. We thus exclude the prospect of incorrect contentions about
the merely probative issue of what constitutes evidence for what. Accord-
ingly, the disputing parties can avoid addressing themselves to the proprie-
ties of the reasoning and need only attend to issues of substance in the de-
velopment of the argumentation. (This assumption eliminates various
complications that do not really matter for present purposes.)
21
In consequence of this supposition, certain theoretically feasible ex-

changes cannot arise, as for example:
Proponent Opponent
1. !P ~P/Q & Q
2. P/Q & !Q
For this exchange clearly involves a disagreement (as between P/Q and
~P/Q) of the kind that runs afoul of our assumptive proscription of error
regarding evidential claims of the form X/Y.
The orthodox opening of a disputation is for the proponent to formulate
and assert his thesis (in the categorical mode !T). The opponent may then
offer an opposing challenge (~T as launched against !T), and the propo-
nent thereupon proceeds to develop his supporting argument for it, offering
one (or possibly more) grounding contentions such as: T/Q & !Q.11
With this survey of the basic moves needed to get a disputation started
safely in hand, let us now turn to a consideration of the dialectical moves
and countermoves that constitute the development of the argumentation at
issue.
SOME DISPUTATIONAL COUNTERMOVES
(1) Countermoves to categorical assertion or counterassertion
The following two responses may be offered by the opponent in reply

against !P.
1. Challenge or cautious denial
~P
NOTE: this is simply the qualified assertion of the contradictory of an as-

serted thesis. Such a challenge traditionally took the form Please prove P
(faveas probare P).
22
2. Provisoed denial
~P/Q & Q, for some suitable Q
Display 2
OPENING STEPS IN DISPUTATION
Pattern I Pattern II
Proponent Opponent Proponent Opponent
~P ~P !P ~P/Q & Q
P/Q & ~Q
____________________________________________________________
Whenever the proponent has made moves of the form !X1, !X2, , !Xn, and
some thesis Y is a logical consequence of these Xi (Xl, X2, , Xn Y), then
the opponent can offer a challenge of the form ~Y or a provisoed denial of
the form ~Y/Z & Z. Thus if P Q, the proponents categorical assertion
!P can be met by the opponent either by a direct challenge ~Q or by the
provisoed denial ~P/Q & Q. Challenges can thus be issued not only
against categorical assertions themselves, but also against their logical con-
sequences. Such consequence-challenge is simply an extended form of a
challenge issued against a thesis itself.
In line with these two possibilities, a formal disputation always opens
on one of the two patterns set out in Display 2:
On both patterns the proponent opens with a categorical assertion (a state-
ment of his thesis), on the lines of the traditional formula I maintain (af-
firmo) that P. With Pattern I the opponent denies this thesisor, more
strictly, denies that the proponent has any adequate entitlement for his
claim: I deny (nego) that P [can be maintained]. The proponent must
then proceed (as at step (2)) with the setting out of his case. With Pattern
II, on the other hand, the opponent proceeds straightaway to launch a coun-
terattack on the proponents thesis (in the form of a provisoed counter-
assertion).
23
A categorical denial of the form !~P is simply the categorical assertion

of ~ P. It may thus be met by the opponent by one of the countermoves to
categorical assertion, viz., either by the cautious denial P (equivalent to
~~P) or by the provisoed denial P/Q & Q.
It is worth noting that the opponents moves can always be put in the
form of a question: the challenge ~P as What entitles you to claim P?
or the provisoed denial ~P/Q & Q as How can you maintain P seeing
that ~p/Q and for all youve shown Q? This interrogative approach is in
fact always possible with opponents moves. Accordingly, the opponent
was also often characterized as the questioner (interrogans).
(2) Countermoves to cautious assertion or denial
The following responses may be offered to P
1. Categorical counterassertion
!~P
2. Provisoed counterassertion
~P/Q & ~Q, for some suitable Q
NOTE: (1) Because they involve components of the form !X, these moves
are available only to the proponent.
NOTE: (2) It is necessary to preclude the repetitiveindeed circular se-

quence:
Proponent Opponent
!P ~P
!P
This blockage is accomplished by adopting a special rule to proscribe the

simple repetition of a previous move. The reason for such a non-repetition
rule lies deep in the rationale of the process of disputation. A disputation
must be progressive: it must continually advance into new terrain. Since its
24
aim is to deepen the grounding of the contentions at issue, it must always

endeavor to improve upon the reasoning already laid out, in the interests
of achieving greater sophistication. Mere repetition would frustrate the aim
of the enterprise.
A cautious denial (or challenge) of the form ~P is simply the cautious
assertion of the negative thesis ~P. It may thus be met either by
1. The categorical counterassertion
!~~P or equivalently ~P
or
2. A provisoed counterassertion of the form
P/Q & !Q
Cautious denial being available only to the opponent, these countermoves

are available only to the proponent. The following sequence represents a
typical exchange:
Proponent Opponent
P/Q & !Q ~P/(Q & ~R) & (Q & ~R)
~~(Q & ~R) = ~(~Q v R) [Q, ~Q v R R] & ~R
!R
The succession of contentions that open the way to further responses de-
fines the developmental format of a disputational process.
3. PROBATIVE ASYMMETRIES
It is worth stressing that there are certain crucial role-governed asymme-

tries or disparities in position between the parties in a disputation:
1. The proponent must inaugurate the disputation. And he must do so

with a categorical assertion of the thesis he proposes to defend.
25
2. All countermoves involving categorical assertion (conditionalized

counterassertion, strong distinction) are open to the proponent alone.
Moreover, every move of the proponent involves some categorical
assertion: he is the parry on whom it is incumbent to take a commit-
tal stance at every juncture. The burden of proof lies on his side
throughout.
3. All countermoves involving a challenge or cautious denial (including

provisoed detail and weak distinction) are open to the opponent
alone. Moreover, every move of the opponent involves some chal-
lenge or cautious denial: he is the party who need merely call claims
into question and carries no responsibility for making any positive
claims.12
The process of disputation thus exhibits a significant dialectical asymme-

try. A disparity or imbalance of probative position is built into the propo-
nents role as supporter and the opponents as skeptical denier.
Every step taken by the proponent involves a commitment of some sort,
and the proponent is liable for the defense of all of thesehe is vulnerable
at every point to a call to make good his claims. The opponent, on the other
hand, need make no positive claims at all. He need merely challenge the
proponents claims, and his work is adequately done if he succeeds in
bringing to light the inadequacy of some one of the claims on which the
proponents case rests.
In this regard, formal disputation with its opposing !T by T differs
from a symmetrically contradictory debate that opposes !~T to !T. The lat-
ter situation is typical of modern collegiate debating, where each side un-
dertakes to defend one member of a pair of mutually contradictory theses.
This situation gives rise to what is, in effect, simply a pair of concurrent
and interlocked disputations: One contender is proponent for T to his ad-
versarys opponentship, and this adversary is proponent of ~T to his adver-
sarys opponentship. On each side we have an attempt to build up a cogent
and persuasive case in the face of skeptical objections from the other. The
situation that results here poses no theoretical innovations. It simply re-
flects the evolution of disputation into a variant form of controversy that
makes for a situation of probative symmetry between the parties.
26
4. THE DETERMINATION (ADJUDICATION) OF A DISPUTATION
A disputation involves a stylized sequence of moves and countermoves

that locks the participants into a rigorously programmed minuet of well-
determined steps. The various combinatorial possibilities that can arise will
conform in structure to a circumscribed sequence of admissible exchanges,
as set out in the flow-diagram of Figure 3.
Since this process is intrinsically non-terminating (as the flow-diagram
contains wholly closed circuits), there must be some additional rules
extrinsic to the dialectical process itselffor fixing a stopping point to the
process. Various alternatives are possible here: e.g., a predesignated total
number of exchanges, a fixed period of time, surrender by one of the par-
ties for reason of frustration or exhaustion, etc. (The rule should, however,
be such that the proponent gets the last word.)
But how to assess matters? The preceding analysis has stressed the fun-
damental disparity in the probative position of the two rival parties in a
disputation. The ultimate burden of proof rests squarely with the propo-
nent. He alone is entitledand indeed requiredat every stage of the pro-
ceedings to make moves that involve a definite commitment (and so have a
component of the form !X).
Accordingly, the proponent alone maintains an ever-changing variety of
commitments during the course of the disputationa shifting constellation
of theses to whose defense he stands committed. The issue of such com-
mitment needs closer scrutiny.
A proponent discharges a commitment when he exchanges it for an-
other through a sequence of the form:
Proponent Opponent
... & !P ~P
P/Q & !Q
Here the proponent has, as it were, exchanged his initial commitment to

defend P for one to defend its supportive pillar Q instead. When the chal-
lenge to a direct commitment to X (of the form !X) is taken up and trans-
formed into an indirect commitment to X via some Y, then the initial com-
mitment to X is discharged. (Of course, all the logical consequences of
discharged commitments must also be taken to be discharged.)
27
An opponent concedes a committed thesistacitly, to be surewhen

he subjects it to a distinction. Thus consider the sequence:
Proponent Opponent
P/Q & ~Q ~P/(Q & R) & (Q & R)
The opponent here concedes Q in switching the ground from considering

the acceptability of P in the face of Q to considering its status in the face of
Q & R, the combination of Q conjoined with some other thesis R. Again,
the opponent concedes a committed thesis when he fails to attack it when
given as an opportunity to do so. Thus consider the sequence
Proponent Opponent
~P ~P/Q & Q
P/(Q & R & !(Q & R) R
By ignoring Qwhich he had, moreover, insinuated in his initial attack

the opponent concedes it.
Given the ever-shifting pattern of commitment on the proponents part
(undertaking new commitments, discharging old ones, having others con-
ceded), there will at each stage be a (constantly changing) group of living
commitments on his part. This is illustrated in the following example:
Proponent Opponent
(1) !P ~P/Q & Q
(2) P/~Q & !~Q ~P(~Q & R) & (Q & R)
(3) !~(~Q & R) R
(4) ~R/S & !S
As this illustration shows, there is a constant ebb and flow in the substance
of commitment.
28
The determination of a disputation is, of course, a pivotally important

issue, governing the entire process that issues in this climactic culmination.
When the dispute ends, the determiner uses the following standards in ad-
judging the dispute with a view to assessing what adversary deserves to be
counted as the victor:
1. A formal criterion with reference to the avoidance of illicit moves:

Did the proponent argue in a circle? Did the opponent challenge the-
ses which he had already called into Question before? Did anyone
perpetrate formal errors in reasoning?
If alls well as to point 1 (as one would ordinarily expect to be the case),
then a different criterion comes into play.
2. A material criterion with reference to assessing the extent to which

the opponent drove the proponent into implausible commitments.
This is a matter of assessing the plausibility (absolute plausibility or
perhaps simply the plausibility relative to the initial thesis) of the
proponents undischarged and unconceded commitments.
This evaluation process serves to determine the strategy of disputation. The

proponent has to cover his commitments in a maximally plausible way; the
opponent tries to force him into more difficult commitments by introducing
cleverly contrived distinctions that push his adversary in this direction.13
(In terminating a dispute a clear distinction must, of course, be made be-
tween those of the opponents concessions which represent theses he has
had an opportunity to attack, those that he has declined and those which he
has not yetat this stagehad adequate opportunity to attack.) In a well-
conducted disputation, one will always be able to extract by analysis of the
exchanges of the pro-con tabulation a good (though certainly not necessar-
ily a deductively valid) argumenta unilateral line of reasoning in support
of a thesis. And victory is determined by how cogent a case the propo-
nent manages to make relative to the possibilities at his disposal through
the mechanisms of plausibility and presumption.
The pivotal facet of the determination of a disputation is thus its cru-
cial dependence upon a means for evaluating the plausibility (acceptabil-
ity) of the theses upon which the proponent isin the enddriven by the
opponent to rest his case. This is what fixes the aim and object of the
whole enterprise and indeed determines its entire strategy. For the propo-
29
nent is ever striving to lead his case towards the secure ground of plausible
contentions and the opponent is ever seeking to prevent his reaching any
such safe harbor of plausible and presumption-secured contentions.
5. THE ROLE OF PRESUMPTION
Over and above the formal principles that govern the proper conduct of
dialectic there are various substantive principles as well. These are gener-
ally encapsulated in various sorts of presumptions.
A presumption is a claim which, in standard practice, is allowed to
stand as true provisionallyuntil such time (if any) that sufficiently deci-
sive counter-indications come to view.14 The concept has its origin in law
(as per the presumption of innocence, or the presumption that someone
missing for seven years is dead). From law it was carried over to formal
disputation (as per the presumption of falsity that has contentions deemed
unacceptable until due grounds emerge in their support). In cognitive mat-
ters at large a plethora of policies of presumption are at work. Thus we
presume that the testimony of our senses is veridical, that normal condi-
tions prevail, that people mean what they say, etc. In all such matters, pre-
sumptions are allowed to stand as a matter of general policy unless or until
they are defeated by case-specific considerations.
Presumptions have two polarities, pro or con, positive of negative.
These mark the inclination of the burden of proof on a given issue. Some
positive cognitive presumptions are
that people are trustworthy,
that professionals are competent.
Per contra, some negative presumptions are
that the claims someone who has a strong beneficial interest in the
matter cannot be taken at face value,
that people with a record of incompetence will not perform compe-

tently.
Some presumptions that specifically govern the conduct of dialectic are
30
that the considerations adduced in favor or against particular claims

are the strongest available, and correspondingly
that those conclusions supported by weak or fallacious arguments are

false.
In disputation there is a standing presumption against any flat-out claims

until such time as some substantiation is provided. When this is done,
however, the polarity of presumption is reversed from negative to positive:
the burden of proof now shifts to the opponent who must now come up
with further counter-indications.
Being a presumption is not a function of what a statement says, but
rather of how it figures in the context of discussion. Thus when a statement
functions as a claim/thesis/affirmation there is automatically a con-pre-
sumption that needs to be met by some sort of substantiation. But if it is
put forward as a hypothesis/supposition/assumption we have no alternative
but to accept it (pro tem) as true. It could, to be sure, in due course be re-
jected as equivocal, or too vague, or outright meaningless, but until this
sort of thing is shown it stands in place on the basis of a pro-presumption.
The validation of presumptions ultimately is functional, finalistic,
pragmatic. An individual presumption is validated with reference to a pol-
icy. But that policy itself is in its basis validated isand certainly will
bevalidated in terms of its systemic efficacy relative to the aims of the
enterprise at issue.
In certain key instances a shift in the thematic perspective at issue suf-
fices to carry in its wake a polarity reversal with respect to presumption.
Case 1: Actuality/Possibility
With a flat-out claim to truth, the presumption is always negative. There is

an automatic counter-presumption that has to be overcome. The cat is on
the matwell and good; but just what is it that entitled you to state this
claim. (Agenti incumbit probatio as the medieval theory of disputation had
it.) The affirming agent bears the burden of substantiation.
However with claims of possibility rather then actuality the polarity is
reversed. The cat may be on the matits just possible. In cases of such
mere possibility claims there is a pro-presumption. We now have to
counter with something like Its not possible; the mat is here in London
and the cat was in Chicago just half an hour agocats just dont travel all
31
that fast. In the presence of some such story, the possibility claim is on
safe ground. With merely speculated thematic possibilities, presumption
takes a positive line.
Accordingly, one prime instance of presumption in philosophyand in
particular in metaphysicsis the Leibnizian Presumption of Possibility to
the following general effect:
Possibility is always to be presumed and must be deemed true until its im-
possibility is established.15
In matters of truth presumption figures negatively (presumed false until the

evidence indicated otherwise) but in matters of possibility the polarity of
presumption is reverse: here presumption figures positively, with matters
presumed possible unless and until the indications point otherwise.
Case 2: Factuality/Fictionality
With factual claims there is, as already indicated, a negative case-

presumption and support needs to be provided to defend such a presump-
tion.
But the matter stands differently with acknowledged fictions: the sorts
of claims that we project by suppositions, assumptions, and hypotheses.
The cat is on the mat. Here we have a factual claim which, as a mere
assertion, merits no credence unless something transpires in its support.
(Of course if vouched for by a well-informed observer, the matter would
stand otherwise and the burden of proof became discharged). But now by
contrast consider Suppose that the cat is on the mat or Let it be that the
cat is on the mat. With such a finalization The cat is on the mat be-
comes safe as the focus of a picture presumption. The burden of proof is
now in its favor. To be sure someone can say Thats not possible: that mat
is so small the cat wont fit. But when something like that happens, the
supposition stands secure.
As this example illustrates, explicit fictionality in the form of supposi-
tion, assumption, and hypotheses also effects a reversal in presumptive po-
larity.
Case 3: Factuality/Suppositionality
Let it be that we accept:
32
(1) The generalization: All As are Bs.
(2) The particularization: Such-and-such is an A.
And now consider adding to this the following further, clearly inconsistent,
item:
(3) Such-and-such is not a B.
Clearly these three theses cannot be maintained together, something has to

give way. However, the conflict-creating contention (3) can come upon the
agenda of consideration in either of two ways: As a factual discovery, or as
a mere assumption or supposition.
If the former occurs we would, clearly, abandon the generalization (1)
as now being invalidated by (3). But in the latter, hypothetical case we
would retain (1) and make (2) give way, now endorsing the counterfactual
conditional If such-and-such were not a B, then it would not be an A
(since all As are Bs). And this illustrates a general point: when cognitive
commitments come into conflict then in factual contexts we concede a
positive presumption in favor of specificity as against generality, while in
fictional (hypothetical) contexts we concede positive presumption to gen-
erality as against specificity.
Considerations of the sort canvassed in this chapter clearly indicate that
principles of plausibility and presumption are a crucial factor for the entire
process of disputational dialectics; with disputants who cannot agree on the
fundamental ground rules that are to prevail there is little if any prospect of
engaging in rational dialectic.16
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 2

1
A rather romanticized view of the basic set-up can be seen in the famous fresco
The Dispute of St. Thomas Aquinas with the Heretics in the Church of Santa
Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. It is particularly interesting that the foreground is lit-
tered with the books used by the disputants as sources for their proof-texts.
2
On medieval academic disputations, see A. G. Little and F. Pelster, Oxford Theol-
ogy and Theologians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), pp. 2956. A vivid account
of the conduct of scholastic disputations is given in Thomas Gilby, O. P., Barbara
Celarent: A Description of Scholastic Dialectic (London: Longmans Green, 1949);
see especially Chapter XXXII, Formal Debate, pp. 282293.
33
3
See, for example, Cicero, De inventione, I: 1016. Ciceros analysis of four types
of disputable questions and his description of the successive stages through which a
dispute passes is drawn up with a view to the legal situation.
4
A very helpful survey of issues in the theory of argumentation in general is Chaim
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, La Nouvelle Rhtorique: Trait de largumenta-
tion, 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958). (Cf. also Perelmans
Rhtorique et philosophie [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1952].) Among
the older discussions of dialectic and its relationship to logic, one which still retains
a substantial interest, is Arthur Schopenhauers Eristische Dialektik, in Arthur
Schopenhauer: Der handschriftliche Nachlass, ed. by A. Hbscher, vol. III (Frank-
furt am Main: Kramer, 1970), pp. 666695.
5
See, for example, A. J. Freeley, Argumentation and Debate, 2nd ed. (Belmont,
Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1966), chap. III, sect. iii, Presumption
and Burden of Proof, pp. 3034. Regarding the literature of rhetoric in general,
see the very full bibliography given in Ch. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, La
Nouvelle Rhetorique.
6
See Bromley Smith, Extracurricular Disputations: 14001650, Quarterly Journal
of Speech, vol. 34 (1948), pp. 473476.
7
See Ewald Horn, Die Disputationen und Promotionen an den deutschen Universi-
tten vornehmlich seit dem 16. Jahrhundert, Centralblatt fr Bibliothekswesen,
No. 11 (1893); and cf. G. Kaufmann, Zur Geschichte der akademischen Grade und
Disputationen, ibid., 12 (1894): 201225. Compare W. T. Costello, S. J., The
Scholastic Curriculum in Early Seventeenth Century Cambridge (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958).
8
See the report given by Max Planck of his own experiences at the University of
Munich in 1879:
The viva voce examination was followed by the ceremonial Promotion in

whichaccording to the regulations of the daythe doctoral candidate had to
defend [in disputation] certain theses which he put forward. My opponents,
with whomas was customaryI had already reached friendly accommoda-
tion in advance, were the physicist Carl Runge and the mathematician Adolf
Hurwitz. (Max Planck, Vortrge und Erinnerungen, 5th ed. [Stuttgart: S. Hirzel,
1949], p. 4.)
9
Thus P/Q could be construed as either P obtains in most cases of Qs obtaining or
P obtains in all standard (or: typical) cases of Qs obtaining. (Note that in either
case the transitivity relation will fail to hold. This alone blocks the prospect of con-
struing the connection at issue as an implication-relationship.) Given the dialectical
function of this relationship, the second of these constructions seems more appro-
priate.
34
10
If the only available evidential support were via logical entailment, rather than this
weaker mode of plausible substantiation, then the very reason for being of disputa-
tion would be undermined. For in a strictly deductive argument, the conclusion
cannot be epistemically weaker than its weakest premise. This would preclude any
prospect of building up a case for an epistemically frail conclusion from relatively
firm premises (just as in inductive reasoning), and exactly this is one of the key
aims of disputation. This fact constrains the grounding relationship at issue to be of
less than deductive strength.
11
In the actual practice a scholastic disputation was sometimes complicated by the
practice of (in effect) a role-reversal which assigned to the opponent the task of
carrying the burden of proof in establishing the falsity of the proponents thesis.
See Thomas Gilby, Barbara Celarent, pp. 282293. The proponent would open
with a statement of the disputed thesis (and perhaps some grounds for it). The op-
ponent would then take on the probative burden of maintaining a contrary (sed con-
tra est!) of the proponents thesis. But this was simply a matter of a functional role-
interchange within the same framework.
12
Such a challenge can always be put into the form of a question: But just what enti-
tles you to maintain ? Disputation can thus be carried on in a question-and-
answer process. Aristotle sometimes approaches the matter in this way in Book VII
of the Topics.
13
This idea that a successful course of dialectical reasoning should not argue to a con-
clusion from less plausible premises was already stressed by Aristotle in the Topics
(e.g., at 161bl934).
14
Compare G. W. Leibniz Ce quon appelle prsomption ... est plus incomparable-
ment quune simple supposition, puisque la pluspart des suppositions ne doivent
tre admises quon ne les prouve: mais tout qui a la prsomption pour soi doit pas-
ser pour vrai jusqu ce quon le rfute. (To Jaquelot 20 Nov. 1792; G. P. III 444).
15
See G. W. Leibniz, Oeuvres chosies ed. by L. Prenaut (Paris: Garnier, 1940), p. 58.
[To Princess Elizabeth late in 1678. Compare GP III 444 [to Jaquelot, 20 Novem-
ber 1702.]
16
On the wider role of presumptions in cognitive systematization see the authors
Presumption (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). For more on classi-
cal disputation see also authors Dialectics (Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 1977).
35
Chapter 3
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
1. THE DIALECTIC OF NATURAL SCIENCES
T he present chapter will focus upon the role of dialectics in the cogni-
tive methodology used for the production of knowledge. It will, in
specific, endeavor to show how the theory of knowledge can helpfully be
clarified from a dialectical angle of approach.
Logic is a matter of if-then, of what follows from given premises (be
they established or assumed). But how are premises ever established? The
Western tradition of epistemology affords two answers here: induction and
dialectic. Dialectic, so regarded, is a procedure of confirmationa process
for establishing factual contentions that is in a way analogous to but differ-
ent from inductive reasoning from observation.
Cognitive dialectics in its investigative form as an inquiry method has
the structure pictured in Display 1. Overall, such a dialectical procedure
seeks to canvas both the pro- and the con-consideration regarding some
proposed idea or hypothesis for the sake of assessing just where in its gen-
eral neighborhood the truth of the matter lies.
____________________________________________________________
Display 2
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
A state of Questions to which

knowledge K K gives rise
Knowledge Answers to the

revision questions
____________________________________________________________
In deduction we move uni-directionally from accepted premises to a con-

clusion. Inquiry dialectic, by contrast, is a far more complex process. In
dialectic we move cyclically, testing the acceptability of premises in terms
of the acceptability of the conclusions to which they lead. The overall
process is roughly as follows. We set out (experimentally-peirastically) as
it were from seemingly plausible premises (viz. the endoxa on the subject).
Thereupon we look (by deductive or plausible reasoning) at what sorts of
conclusions follow. And then we assess the acceptability/plausibility of
this conclusion in terms of coherence (harmonization) within the wider
context of relevant information. And insofar as the results are not all that
favorable we revise and readjust those premises in a direction that seems
more promising.
In deduction then we validate a conclusion relative to the premises. But
dialectics, by contrast, puts us into a position to validate premises on the
basis of broader considerations of systemic harmonization.
In deduction we need notnay should notlook beyond the informa-
tion available in the given premises. In dialectic we have to undertake a
broad canvas of relevant information.
It might go without saying that the only inquiry procedures of any inter-
est for us are those that satisfy the minimal conditions of rationality. For
one thing, they must be consistent in that such a procedure must not enjoin
us to accept both some thesis P and its contradictory denial not-P. More-
over, they must encompass certain minimal principles of logical cogency,
especially in enjoining acceptance of anything that follows logically from
38
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
____________________________________________________________
Display 3
INQUIRY DIALECTIC IN NATURAL SCIENCE
THEORISTS EXPERIMENTALISTS
Design a body Make observations

of theory to fit under heretofore
the available data unexplored conditions
____________________________________________________________
theses whose acceptance it has already authorized. They may well, how-
ever, be incomplete in being prepared to suspend judgment between a pair
of contradictories P and not-P, so that non-acceptance of P does not entail
acceptance of not-P. Only inquiry procedures that satisfy such minimal ra-
tionality conditions can deserve serious consideration.
In specific, the dialectics of natural science unfolds as a dialogue be-
tween theorists with their speculations and experientialists with their ob-
servations. The overall process results in an alternatingly cyclic exchange
between theory and observation that strives for an ever smoother attune-
ment between the two. Display 3 offers a schematic view of this situation.
Unlike demonstration which always needs previously established inputs
for use as premises, dialectic is not other-dependent but self-sufficient. It
reflects and deliberates without assuming or requiring anything pre-
established for its determinations. Dialectic does not reason from preestab-
lished givens but through the evaluation of plausibilities. It does not yield
proofs and demonstrations but merely indicates plausibilities. Its basis is
not previously secured knowledge but a fragile experience assessed by test-
ing them against each other. Display 4 indicates the structure of this situa-
tion. Dialectics does not deduce conclusions but evaluates candidates for
truth-imputation (Aristotelian endoxa) through assessing their strengths
and weaknesses.
In his interesting study of dialectic Roland Simon-Schaefer takes latter-
day dialecticians to task for imputing insufficiency and inadequacy to stan-
dard theoretical logic for cogent reasoning.1 But what is actually at issue
39
____________________________________________________________
Display 4
Specification of the Revision via systematization Context enhancement

data or plausible and coordinative co- and introduction of
truth prospects adjustment in the light of new data
internal stresses
____________________________________________________________
here is a division of labor. For standard logic deal with what follows IF
AND WHEN certain premises are true, while dialectics is concerned with
the truth-claims of those premises themselves and their substantive conge-
ners. The job of dialectic is thus something quite different and distinctive
from that of logic; they are different tools created for different purposes.
Neither one can justly be criticized on grounds of dispensability through
replacement by the other.
2. THE QUALITY CONTROL PROBLEM
The functioning of an inquiry procedure in providing putative factual

knowledge can thus be viewed in essentially system-theoretic terms, on the
model of a production process. The resources of plausible supposition
serve as the input, and items of (putative) knowledge constitutes the out-
putas shown in Display 5. Here the initial information would at first
include a good deal of misinformationof mere supposition, surmise, and
conjectureso that the inquiry process is not just a matter of extending the
quantitative volume of information, but also one of confirmation, satisfac-
tion, substantiation, with the result of a qualitative upgrading of what is al-
ready in some sense available.
In this manner, the conception of an inquiry procedure implements the
idea of a cognitive methodology employed in the production of factual
knowledge about the world. This methodological perspective brings to the
fore the question of quality control, that is, the problem of assessing how
well a cognitive method is able to accomplish its intended task.
40
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
____________________________________________________________
Display 5
THE PRODUCTION-PROCESS VIEW OF KNOWLEDGE
Initial Inquiry procedure Putative

information
for extending and knowledge
refining given
information
____________________________________________________________
But how is one to determine that a fact-oriented inquiry procedure is ade-

quate? What sort of check can be put on whether the procedure is indeed
doing its job?
On first thought, it might perhaps seem that one can simply employ here
the standard quality-control procedure of assessing the adequacy of a proc-
ess in terms of the merits of its product. Unfortunately this will not do. For
we immediately run up against one of the key issues of the problem dis-
puted in antiquity between the Stoics and the Academic Skeptics under the
rubric of the criterionthe problem, that is, of the test-process that is to
represent our standard of truth.
Now to all appearances the question of the appropriateness of a crite-
riological acceptance-standard C is simply this: Does C yield truths?
But how could one meaningfully implement the justificatory program
inherent in this question? Seemingly in only one way: by looking on the
one hand at C-validated propositions and checking on the other hand if
they are in fact truths. But if C really and truly is our working criterion for
the determination of factual truth, then this exercise becomes wholly point-
less. We cannot judge C by the seemingly natural standard of the question
whether what it yields as true is indeed actually true, because we ex hy-
pothesi use C itself as the determinant of just this.
At this point it becomes crucial that C really and truly is the criterion we
actually use for truth determinations. Clearly, if the issue were that of justi-
fying a proposed procedure C the preceding methodology would work
splendidly well. For we would then simply check whether the C -validated
propositions are indeed truthsthat is, whether they are also validated by
C. But with respect to C itself this exercise is patently useless.
This line of reasoning has been known from the days of the skeptics of
41
antiquity under the title of the diallelus, a particular sort of self-valida-

ting circulus in probandi. Montaigne presented this Wheel Argument (as
we may term it) as follows:
To adjudicate [between the true and the false] among the appearances of
things we need to have a distinguishing method (un instrument judicatoire);
to validate this method we need to have a justifying argument; but to validate
this justifying argument we need the very method at issue. And there we are,
going round on the wheel.2
It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of this extremely simple line of

reasoning. It proves, in as decisive a manner as philosophical argumenta-
tion admits of, that our operative standard of factual truth cannot be vali-
dated by somehow exhibiting directly that it does indeed accomplish prop-
erly its intended work of truth-determination.3 The routine tactic of assess-
ing process in terms of product is thus seemingly not practicable in the
case of an inquiry procedure of the sort at issue: it is in principle impossi-
ble to make a direct check of this sort on the functioning of our truth-
determining methods.
The quality control of information cannot just look to information it-
selfit has to be geared to application. The lesson of the Wheel Argument
(diallelus) is that there simply is no direct way of checking the adequacy of
an inquiry procedureat any rate with that inquiry procedure to which we
are seriously committed. So where to turn?
3. COGNITIVE TELEOLOGY: THE RECIPROCAL ACCOMMODA-

TION OF THEORY AND PRACTICE
This deceptively simple-seeming question of the quality control of our in-

formation poses profound and far-reaching issues. In particular, it con-
strains us to give prominence to a recognition of the tritely familiar but still
fundamental fact of the amphibious nature of man as a creature of mind
and body, intellect and will, reason and action, theory and practice.
In keeping with this duality, our knowledge answers to two distinct
categories of purpose, the theoretical and the practical. The theoretical sec-
tor of purpose is pure (action prescinding) and the practical sector is ap-
plied (action involving) in orientation. The theoretical relates to the strictly
intellectual interests of manthe acquisition of descriptive information
and explanatory understanding (to what and why)whereas the practical
relates to the material interests of man that underlie the guidance of human
42
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
action: avoidance of pain, suffering, frustration, etc. The functional role of

our knowledge encompasses both the intellectual/theoretical aspect of the
purists knowledge for knowledges sake and the activist/practical aspect
of knowledge as a counsel in the conduct of affairs and a guide to life. Our
acceptance or non-acceptance of factual truths, of course, has profound in-
volvements on both sides of the theoretical/practical divide, since such ac-
ceptance furnishes a guide both to intellectual belief and to overt action in
the pursuit of our practical goals.4
The crucial lesson of such considerations is that the teleology of inquiry
is internally diversified and complex, and spreads across both the cogni-
tive/theoretical and active/practical sectors. Accordingly, a truth-criterion
comes to be endowed with a duality of objectives, and the relevant teleol-
ogy of inquiry is both cognitive and practical.5 Truth-acceptance is on the
one hand a determining factor for belief in purely intellectual and theoreti-
cal regards, and on the other a guiding standard for the practical conduct of
life. The two are inseparably interrelated. And this second cluster of the
goals pertinent to inquiry is by no means of a stature inferior or subordi-
nate to the first. If anything, the reverse is the case: stress upon explanation
and prediction can be viewed as derivatively subsidiary to practice. For on
the one hand, explanatory adequacy is a crucial factor in guiding the prac-
tice of specifically rational beings. And on the other hand, prediction is an
inevitable aspect of adequate controleven of that merely negative control
of letting nature take its course. The correct canalizing of expectations in
predictive contexts is a crucial aspect of the control over nature essential to
the successful guidance of practical affairs.6
The lesson of the diallelus argument is that we cannot judge theory by
theory alone. Success in matters of practiceof applicative efficacyis
something very different from success in the sphere of theory (viz., be-
ing right about something). The success of the pragmatic context is of the
affective order, ranging over the spectrum from physical survival and
avoidance of pain and injury on the negative side to positive satisfactions
such as those attending the satiation of physical needs on the other. Merely
intellectual accomplishment like predictive success (which, to be sure,
can be attended by affectively positive satisfaction) is but a small part of
the picture. After all, a world-external, disembodied spectator can make
predictions about the world and utter a pleased ahathere it is to himself
when his predictions work out. But the core factor is that of the success
of a being emplaced in this world in medias res who must intervene in the
course of events to make matters eventuate so as to conduce to his survival
43
and well-being. The issue here is thus not to be construed as one of cogni-
tive success but rather in terms of the affectively satisfying and pur-
posively adequate guidance of action, i.e., intervention in the course of
events so as to make things work out satisfactorily. In the final analysis,
then, the teleology relevant for the evaluation of cognitive methods must
ultimately be located in applicative success in the practical area.
But how is such an approach to be implemented? Let us now try to ex-
ploit in the special case of an inquiry procedure the generic process of in-
strumental justification as previously outlined, recognizing the specifically
pragmatic aspect of the relevant teleology. Approached from this angle,
the justificatory process will have the essentially dialectical structure ex-
hibited in Display 6.
____________________________________________________________
Display 6
THE PRAGMATIC JUSTIFICATION OF

A METHODOLOGY OF INQUIRY
Merely Plausible Theses

Reassessment in the light
Presumptions Matters of of the products of M
Record
Presumptively Attributably M M-validated

Warranted Theses Truths
Pragmatic Applications
Validation of M
____________________________________________________________
This schema presentsat least in bare bones outlinesthe process of the

pragmatic justification of an inquiry procedure or truth-criterion. Its
workings are virtually self-explanatory. The pragmatic factor of the practi-
cal success realized in applying the findings of the procedure comes to rep-
resent the governing consideration for the evaluative issue of its legiti-
macy. In all, then, validity a dialectical inquiry procedure is a process that
itself proceeds along substantially dialectical lines.7
44
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
4. PRAGMATIC EFFICACY AFFORDS A REALITY PRINCIPLE
One important consideration has, however, thus far been left out of view.
For the preceding account shows merely how various elements are con-
nected, but does not indicate which of these elements lie within the range
of our manipulative control, and which ones merely react to variations in
those determining variables which, so to speak, hold the reins in their
hands. In this regard it is clear that: (1) we can alter and readjust our Welt-
anschauung. (2) We can change our inquiry procedure (and hence, medi-
ately, the range of truths that result from its application). (3) We can
modify and reorient our actions. But the one thing that we cannot control
are the consequences of our actions: those results which determinate ac-
tions bring in their wake. In short, while we can change how we think and
act, the success or failure attendant upon such changes is something wholly
outside the sphere of our control. In this crucial respect, our cognitive and
active endeavors propose, and nature disposesand does so in presumably
blithe independence of our wishes and hopes, and our beliefs and concep-
tions or misconceptions about the world. Here we come up against the ulti-
mate, theory-external, thought-exogenously independent variable. Pragmatic
success constitutes the finally decisive controlling factor.
These considerations highlight a critically important aspect of the whole
enterprise, namely that of a theory-external quality-control upon theoreti-
cal performance. The over-all process of justification thus involves the
proper closing of two interlocked cycles, the one theoretical/cognitive and
the other practical/applicative in orientation. We can see this most clearly
by reconsidering the elements of the preceding double circle from the vari-
ant point of view presented in Display 5 above.
As long as one remains in the domain of theoryone moves about in
the realm of ones own views and beliefs. At this level nothing precludes
the whole process from being a pure idealism, confined to the realm of
mind alone; the pragmatic element of action and reaction is still absent.
And even when one moves on to the domain of action, one still remains
within an area where we ourselves are masters, the realm of thought and
action whose elements lie within our own control. Only in moving from a
secure, man-dominated realm to encounter the harsh realities of a world
not of our making whose workings lie in predominant measure beyond the
reach of our control.
The process at issue is thus a complex of two distinct but interlocked
cyclesthe theoretical cycle of cognitive coherence and the pragmatic cy-
45
cle of applicative effectiveness. Only if both of these cycles dovetail prop-

erlyin both the theoretical and the applicative sectorscan the whole
process be construed as providing a suitable rational legitimation for the
inquiry procedure at issue.
Everyone is familiar with the occasional surfacing even today of some
occult or pseudo-scientific views of the world which substantiate fact-
purporting theses of the strangest sort. It is always striking here how beau-
tifully everything meshes at the theoretical levelone bit of strangeness
being supported by others. The crunch comes only with the tough question:
Does this world-view enable its proponents to navigate more successfully
through the rocks and shoals of this world? The proof of such a theoretical
pudding is its applicative eating.
The pivotal element of action and reaction thus provides for the opera-
tion of a reality principle. And this is vital to the justificatory capacities
of the whole process, because it blocks the prospect of a futile spinning
around in reality-detached cycles of purely theoretical gyrations. Some-
place along the line of justification there must be provision for a corrective
contact with the bedrock of an uncooperative and largely unmanipulable
realitya brute force independent of the whims of our theorizing. This
crucial reality-principle is provided for in the framework of the present
theory by the factor of the reactive success consequent upon implementing
action.
There is no hors de texte says Jacques Derrida. The only validating rea-
son for a belief is yet another belief says Donald Davidson. But this sort of
wisdom is error. Whatever happened to experience? The world of
thought is not self-contained; it is integral to the wider world of nature, part
of a realm in which events happen and experiences occur. And it is the
course of experience that can and does validated many of our beliefs. A
perfectly good reason for believing that the cat is on the mat is that we ex-
perience (i.e., observe) it to be there. The acceptability of beliefs lies not
with other beliefs but with experienceand experience must here be un-
derstood in rather general and broadly inclusive terms.
On this approach, then, the linkage between pragmatic utility and the
truth of theses can be broken apart, and methods are inserted into the gap
that opens up. Pragmatic considerations are not brought to bear on theses
directly. This mediation of methods between pragmatic considerations and
thesis-acceptance is central toand indeed definitive ofthe specifically
methodological pragmatism at issue here.
By its very nature as such, a thesis-oriented pragmatism cannot afford to
46
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
concede possible discrepancies between success and truthfulness. But a

methodological pragmatism is in a very different position here. Theses per-
ish in unfavorable circumstances, but methods can live on to fight another
day. For the success of a method is a factor whose systematic nature gives
it great probative weight in spite of occasional failings. A cognitive meth-
odology is something so general and so open-ended in its orientation that
gratuitously lucky success in the implementation of its products on a sys-
tematic basis can be ruled out as a genuine prospect.
After all, the systematic success of an inquiry method cannot plausibly
be dismissed as a sheerly fortuitous piece of luck owing to the inherent
generality of methods. After all, the applicability range of an inquiring
methodology is literally boundless: no factual issue is to lie outside its in-
tended province. Here it is effectively assured that probatively irrelevant
side effects by way of fortuitous benefits or disasters will become canceled
out in the larger scheme of things. That inappropriate processes might
prove pervasively successful at this synoptic level of generality is theoreti-
cally possible but affectively unlikelya prospect so farfetched that it can
be dismissed with confidence. Fundamental mistakes at this level of gener-
ality are bound to have applicative repercussions across a limitless frontier
that would not only be discernible but would ultimately prove catastrophic
in implementation. These considerations indicate a critically important as-
pect of the generality of such a methodological approach to pragmatism
an approach whose generality is crucial to its capacity to overcome the
shortcomings inherent in thesis-pragmatism.
Precisely because the later, progressive stages of the application of
our inquiry procedures are more fully warranted on the basis of a dialecti-
cal feedback via the ampler and more successful body of praxis that they
underwrite, we can take the stance that is rational to view their deliver-
ances as better qualified for endowment with the presumption of truth. It is
on this basis alone that we can be increasingly confident that our currently
accepted picture of nature affords a comparatively better estimate than our
past pictures do.
In valid deductive logic the premises constrain the conclusion: when
and if the premises are true, the conclusion is inevitably true as well. In
dialectics the situation is different. The premises invite the conclusion;
they instruct it but do not constrain it. Given the impact of an antithesis
upon a thesis, there are always alternatives, various options for responding
with one specific alternative forced and inevitable. Dialectics does not ne-
cessitate: a certain aura of contingency is always present. Insofar as cogni-
47
tive dialectics determines truth it does so not with demonstrative certainty

but with plausibility.
Accordingly, our dialectally formed beliefs about the world should be
seen as having two interrelated aspects: on the one hand, they are indeed
estimates of the truth and not definitive demonstrations thereof; but on the
other hand they are not mere estimates: they are responsible estimates of
the truth that rest on the most amply authenticated methodological basis
that it has been within our power to devise.
5. ISSUES OF MEANING
Apart from the cognitive dialectic of inquiry, of truth-determination, there

is also the cognitive dialectic of hermeneutics, of meaning-clarification.
For dialectic can serve for clarification as well as for substantiation. After
all, many if not most of our affirmations are vague and imprecise and
thereby in some respect untenable so that there is something that can be
said for its denial. And conversely, where we issue denials there is often
not sufficient imprecision to leave some room for saying something on be-
half of the continuing affirmation. One of the key tasks of dialectic is ac-
cordingly a matter of negotiation, as it were, between affirmation and de-
nial for the sake of greater clarity and precision in our cognitive commit-
ments. Thus consider: The cat is on the mat. What could be a simpler,
more categorical truth than that? And yet consider the following dialogue
between Proponent and Opponent:
P: The cat is on the mat.
O: But his left front paw is somewhat off the mat. And for that matter his
whiskers arent on the mat at all but up on his face, which is considerably
above the mat.
P: But what is meant by asserting The cat is on the mat doesnt claim that
every part of the cat is touching the matpaws and whiskers included.
For the cat to be on the mat it need not be that all its parts are in contact
with that mat, an evident impossibility; it suffices that most of the largest
should be so.
This sort of exchange is clearly a matter of explanatory rather than justifac-

tory (probative or evidential) dialectic. But this process too exemplifies the
48
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
____________________________________________________________
Display 7
TERMINOLOGICAL IMPRECISION
Definite in proposed
border
Definite out
Undecided
____________________________________________________________
typical dialectical format of moving from a consideration via counter-con-

siderations to a more sophisticated re-consideration.
Epistemic dialectic has a composite aim: it seeks concurrently and in-
teractively to clarify a thesis and to establish its credentials. The object is
to recast and revise an otherwise unclear claim and to do this in a way that
makes it more plausible, less open to objection. Sharpening a contention in
the direction of tenability is the aim of the enterprise.
Such a process finds its work in the fact that many or most of our de-
scriptive and classifactory concepts are imprecise and have some element
of unclarity about them. And so, in endeavoring to provide an exact con-
strual for an imprecise thesis there is a dialectical opposite between two
much and too little.
Any imprecise term presents us with the situation depicted in Display 7.
No matter where that proposal border is placed within that region of inde-
terminateness, there will be some post-border outs that are actually in and
some post-border ins that are actually out. So there will be errors of both
types: errors of omission and errors of commission. And for this reason
there will arise contradictions between what is in (according to the border)
and what is out (according to fact)or the other way around.
The thesis at issue fixes a border by overgeneralization with too many
errors of commission: too many OUTS included. The anti-thesis goes too
far the other way: too many errors of omission, too many INS excluded.
And in the next dialectical cycle the same story recursalbeit none (hope-
fully) at a level of lesser severity. Potentially the process goes on and on.
What Eduard von Hartman called Hegels commitment to the instable flu-
idity (Flssigkeit) of concepts turns on the imprecision of those we gener-
49
ally use.8 Truly scientific categories grow more and more precise. In the
ideal end (the Absolute) there is perfectly precise and detailed thought.
No more conflicts, no more dialectic.
In the face of merely imprecise rather than rationally confused and self-
contradictory concepts, dialectic can play a positive and constructive role
as a clarifactory rather than a negatively deconstructive process. However
given that imprecision, the achievement of perfection is in principle impos-
sible here. But with a (hopefully) convergent dialecticdriven at each
stage by the endeavors to reduce the volume of contradictionsthere will
in the end be a superior product, or a condition which, though still incor-
rect, reduces the level of totality of errors (omission plus commission) by a
border drawn with increasing refinement and judiciousness.
Where Hegel spoke of the instability of finite categories one can also
speak of the indefiniteness of finite categories. Every taxonomy and every
descriptive characterization of the real things we encounter in the course of
our interactive experiences with the world is imperfect, imprecise, fuzzy-
edged. There will always be some excluded things that should, properly
considered, ideally be included (errors of kind one), and some properly ex-
cluded things that should, properly construed, ideally be excluded (errors
of kind two). In sum errors of omission and commission are inevitable. The
only wholly unproblematic reality-geared category is being an object of
thought which defined the totalistic set T. Here there can be no mistakes
and there are no borderline cases: whatever the item may be that is at issue
is at deliberation, it will inevitably and unavoidably be a member of this
set. No dialectical staggering is needed here. But of course while we know
that there are increasingly many items in this set T, we cannot hope to offer
anything like a complete inverting or indication of what they are.
Explicative dialectic (of the sort practical by the Platonic Socrates) is
seemingly more fundamental than probative dialectic (of the sort provided
by the Schoolmen) if only because any assertion above X presupposes that
one has already settled the meaning-coordinate issue of just what is at issue
with X. But this does not do justice to the later version of probative dialec-
tic derived from Fichte and Hegel. For here the issue of meaning and ten-
ability are heisted in interactive juxtaposition. The enterprise is seen as one
of negotiation between meaning and tenability, with meaning seen as re-
constructable and fluid in the interaction of developing a version of the ini-
tial target-thesis that is more tenable and less open to objection.
Historically, this sort of dialectic has stood at the forefront of philoso-
phy. With Plato, dialectic was often a matter of elucidationof bringing to
50
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
light just how various misconceived and misunderstood conceptions should

properly be understoodof bringing their constituting idea to light.9 How-
ever, such a clarifactory dialectic need not simply discount the earlier con-
ception as totally mistaken and erroneous but can endeavor to find within it
a level of insightful truth that can be carried forward. Since a process re-
constitutes rather than discounts the conception at issue. A key element of
what there was is retained (Hegels aufgehoben) and highlighted (i.e.,
raises up into the lightand in this way also aufgehobenthus capturing
both senses of the German term). In emphasizing this sort of dialectic in
Hegel, H. G. Gadamer wrote that it:
Restored a way of doing philosophy which is the natural inheritance from the
first Greek thinkers. Hegels methodological principle ... [is] the requirement
of an immanently developing progression in which concepts move to ever
greater differentiation and concretization.10
And just this is the crux of Hegelian dialectic in its bearing on conceptual
hermeneutics.
6. CONCEPT COMPLEMENTARITY AND DIALECTICAL TENSION
With complementarity in physics we confront a situation of clash or con-

flict. There are two things about a subatomic particle that we would ideally
like to know: an exact and accurate specification of the particles momen-
tum and an exact and accurate specification of its position. But quantum
theory teaches that one can only improve matters as regards one of these
two factors at the expense of worsening them with respect to the other:
greater exactness with respect to momentum enjoins less exactness with
regard to positionand conversely. We thus have to come to terms with
the situation of Display 8. In respect to what is at issue here one cannot
improve matters beyond the limits set by the laws of nature.
However, in the course of time Neils Bohr, a founding father of quan-
tum theory, himself came to view this sort of complementarity as a very
general principle with applications far above and beyond the limited do-
main of quantum physics. As one eminent physicist summarized the situa-
tion:
In later years Bohr emphasized the importance of complementarity for mat-

ters far removed from physics. There is a story that Bohr was once asked in
German what is the quality that is complementary to truth (Wahrheit). After
51
____________________________________________________________
Display 8
PHYSICAL COMPLEMENTARITY
specificity locus of feasible combinations

regarding
momentum
specificity regarding
position
____________________________________________________________
some thought he answered clarity (Klarheit). (Stephen Weinberg, Dreams of

a Final Theory [New York: Pantheon Books, 1992], p. 74 footnote 10.)
And it would seem that here Bohrs instinct was very much on the right
track. For the situation of quantum-physical complementarity in fact ex-
emplifies a very general phenomenon that occurs across a wide spectrum
of situations, and indeed has substantial ramifications in various key areas
of philosophy. In seeking to clarify this issue the subsequent discussion
will focus on the presently pivotal idea of what might be called conceptual
complementarity.
The reality of it is that the constitutive components of our concepts are
frequently competitively interactive. A conflict or competition among fac-
tors so functions that more of the one can only be realized at the expense of
less of the other. Such conceptual complementarity thus arises when two
(or more) parametric features are linked in a see-saw or teeter-totter inter-
connection, be it nature-imposed or conceptually-mandated interrelation-
ship where more of the one automatically ensures less of the other, as per
the situation of Display 9. Situations of trade-off along these general lies
occur in a wide variety of contexts, and many concepts afford instances of
this phenomenon.
For the sake of illustration, let us begin with Bohrs own example from
epistemology. It is a basic principle of this field that increased confidence
in the correctness of our estimates can always be secured at the price of de-
52
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
____________________________________________________________
Display 9
FEATURE COMPLEMENTARITY VALUES
Parameter 1
Parameter 2
____________________________________________________________
creased accuracy. For in general an inverse relationship obtains between

the definiteness or precision of our information and its substantiation: de-
tail and security stand in a competing relationship. We estimate the height
of the tree at around 25 feet. We are quite sure that the tree is 25 5 feet
high. We are virtually certain that its height is 25 10 feet. But we can be
completely and absolutely sure that its height is between 1 inch and 100
yards. Of this we are completely sure in the sense that we are absolutely
certain, certain beyond the shadow of a doubt, as certain as we can be
of anything in the world, so sure that we would be willing to stake your
life on it, and the like. For any sort of estimate whatsoever there is always
a characteristic trade-off relationship between the evidential security of the
estimate, on the one hand (as determinable on the basis of its probability or
degree of acceptability), and on the other hand its contentual detail (defi-
niteness, exactness, precision, etc.).
And so it emerges that there obtains a complementarity relationship of
the same structure as that of Display 1. This was adumbrated in the ideas
of the French physicist Pierre Maurice Duhem (19811916) and may ac-
cordingly be called Duhems Law.11 In his classic work on the aim and
structure of physical theory, Duhem wrote as follows:
A law of physics possesses a certainty much less immediate and much more
difficult to estimate than a law of common sense, but it surpasses the latter by
the minute and detailed precision of its predictions. ... The laws of physics
can acquire this minuteness of detail only by sacrificing something of the
53
fixed and absolute certainty of common-sense laws. There is a sort of teeter-

totter of balance between precision and certainty: one cannot be increased
except to the detriment of the other.12
In effect, these two factorssecurity and detailstand in a teeter-totter re-

lation of inverse proportionality, much as with physical complementarity.
Continuing with epistemology, let it be noted that there are two signifi-
cantly different sorts of errors, namely errors of commission and errors of
omission. For it is only too clear that errors of commission are not the only
sort of misfortune there are. Ignorance, lack of information, cognitive dis-
connection from the worlds course of thingsin short, errors of omis-
sionare also negativities of substantial proportionism, and this, too, is
something we must work into our reckoning. Both are negativities and ob-
viously need to be avoided insofar as possible in any sensible inquiry proc-
ess.
With error-avoidance in matters of cognition the trade-off between er-
rors of type 1 and errors of type 2between improper negatives and false
positivesis critical in this connection. For instance, an inquiry process of
any realistically operable sort is going to deem some falsehoods acceptable
and some truths not. And the more we fiddle with the arrangement to de-
crease the one sort of error, the more we manage to increase the other.
The familiar teeter-totter relationship obtains here once more. For un-
fortunately the reality of it is that any given epistemic programany sort
of process or policy of belief formationwill answer to the situation of
Display 10. In discerning between the sheep and the goats, any general de-
cision process will either allow too many goats into the sheepfold or ex-
clude too many sheep from its purview. The cognitive realities being what
they are, perfection is simply unattainable here.
To be sure, agnosticism is a sure-fire safeguard against errors of com-
mission in cognitive matters. If you accept nothing then you accept no
falsehoods. But error avoidance as such does not bring one much closer to
knowing how pancakes are actually made. The aims of inquiry are not nec-
essarily enhanced by the elimination of cognitive errors of commission.
For if in eliminating such an error we simply leave behind a blank and for
a wrong answer we substitute no answer at all we have simply managed to
exchange an error of commission for one of omission.
As such examples illustrate concepts like propositional informativeness
(with its conflicting components of security and detail) or erroneousness
(with its conflicting components of commission and omission) are enmesh-
54
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
____________________________________________________________
Display 10
THE PREDICAMENT OF COGNITIVE ERRONEOUSNESS
errors of
commission
errors of
omission
____________________________________________________________
ed in a situation of conceptual complementarity where two salient constitu-

tive features are in a situation of trade-off. There is, in such cases, a dialec-
tical tension between the concept-constituted features.
With such concepts we become concerned with the situation of what
might be called an estimation quandary.
Estimation quandaries arise in connection with the quest for a happy
medium between too much and too little of something in the assessment
of a problematic parameter. This sort of thing is typified by the classic
Heap paradox (Sorites) which pivots on the question How many grains of
sand will make a heap? Two potential disvalues (negativities) loom here.
On the one side stands the excess of too many. (A zillion grains form a
sand-dune or beach, not a heap). And on the other side stands the defi-
ciency of too few. (Two or even three grains of sand are not yet a heap.)
But the corresponding merits that are at issue here pose problems: excess
avoidance risks deficiency, and deficiency avoidance risks excess. Those
corresponding merits or positivities at issue with over- and under-estima-
tion avoidance stand in a condition of desideratum complementarity. For in
specifying the n-value at issue with It takes n grains of sand to make a
heap we arrive at the situation of Display 11. With overly large n and un-
derly small n alike we unravel the tenability of our purportedly heap-
characterizing contention. As with any estimate we must negotiate between
the competing merits of deficiency avoidance and excess avoidance.
Let us return to our problem in the light of these generalities. In the spe-
cial case of communication it transpires that the claims we assert will di-
vide the overall realm of possibilities into two regions: those that our state-
55
____________________________________________________________
Display 11
ESTIMATIONAL MERITS
Deficiency
avoidance
Excess
avoidance
____________________________________________________________
ment admits (its truth-range) and those it excludes (its falsity range). The
state of things is depicted in Display 12.
____________________________________________________________
Display 12
HOW STATEMENTS COORDINATE WITH POSSIBILITIES
realm of statement-included possibilities

possibilities
statement-excluded possibilities
____________________________________________________________
And here in staking our informative claims by means of statements we in

effort offer an estimate of the truth-range at issue. Adequate communica-
tion requires both the reliability and contentual informativeness. But if the
truth-range is too large we have a situation of excess with its correlative
demerit of compromising the informativeness of our claim. And if it is too
small we incur the corresponding demerit of compromising its reliability
since ampler information is required to validate greater specificity.
But of course both informativeness and reliability are crucial for suc-
cessful communication. A statement, however definite and informative,
56
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
whose claims to truth are weak is useless in communication, and the same
goes for a statement which, despite strong claims on truth is vague and un-
informative. Any cognitively useful contention must be both substantively
informative and contextually well evidentiated. For be it ever so informa-
tive it is useless if we limit you from seeing it as true or at least likely and
conversely, no matter how probable or certain it may be, it will be useless
when vacuous.
But with communication managed in the imperfect medium of language
there is no boundary between the two that is at once readily specifiable and
razor-sharp.
On this basis the interplay of deficiency avoidance and excess avoid-
ance enters upon the stage in such a way as to entail the desideratum com-
plementarity at issue with the security/detail relationship, which actually is
no more (but also no less) than yet another instance of an estimation quan-
dary.
Situations of concept complementarity and estimation quandaries be-
long to the realm of what might be called conceptual dialectics. For in ap-
plying such concepts to specific instances one must carefully weigh and
balance the argument for and against in the specific case that lies before us.
Validating the application of any such concept is a quintessentially dialec-
tical process.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 3

1
Roland Simon-Schaefer, Dialektik: Kritik eines Wortgebrauches (Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog,1973).
2
Pour juger des apparences que nous recevons des sujets, il nous faudrait un ins-
trument judicatoire; pour vrifier cet instrument, il nous faut de la dmonstration;
pour vrifier la dmonstration, un instrument: nous voila au rouet. Essaies, Bk II,
ch. 12 ( An Apologie of Raymond Sebond); p. 544 of the Modern Library edition
of The Essays of Montaigne (New York, 1933). Francis Bacon, with the character-
istic shrewdness of a lawyer, even managed to turn the diallelus into a dialectical
weapon against his methodological opponents: no judgment can be rightly formed
either of my method, or of the discoveries to which it leads, by means of ... the rea-
soning which is now in use, since one cannot postulate due jurisdiction for a tribu-
nal which is itself on trial. (Novum Organon, Bk I, sect. 33).
3
Notwithstanding its intrinsic significance, this line of reasoning has lain dormant in
modern philosophy until D. J. Merciers monumental Criteriologie generale ou
theorie generale de la certitude (Louvain: Institut superieur de philosophie, 1884;
8th ed. 1924). This book gave the argument a currency in the Catholic circlesee,
57
for example, P. Coffey, Epistemology or the Theory of Knowledge (2 vols., Lon-

don: Longmans, Green and Company, 1917). It figured centrally in my The Pri-
macy of Practice (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973), and concurrently Roderick
Chisholms interesting lecture on The Problem of the Criterion (Milwaukee: Mar-
quette University Press, 1973).
4
This is not the place to enlarge on the problem of how knowledge and belief serve
in guiding rational action. The large (and rapidly growing) literature on practical
reasoning throws much light on the relevant issues. The crucial point is the na-
ively elemental fact that we cannot move from the objective to quench our thirst to
drinking a certain liquid save by the mediation of a belief that drinking it will (or
may) conduce to this goal (without offsetting side-effects).
5
A fuller development of these considerations regarding the teleology of inquiry is
given in the authors Scientific Explanation (New York: The Free Press, 1970).
6
Though many philosophers of science maintain the primacy of prediction over ret-
rodictive explanation in assessing the adequacy of scientific theories, others have
found this puzzling. They view it as implausible that future-oriented applications
should receive more weight than past-oriented ones. Thus J. M. Keynes wrote:
The peculiar virtue of prediction or predesignation is altogether imaginary. The
number of instances examined and the analogy between them are the essential
points, and the question as to whether a particular hypothesis happens to be pro-
pounded before or after their examination is quite irrelevant (A Treatise on Prob-
ability [London: Macmillan, 1921], p. 305). A pragmatic point of view that stresses
the centrality of control immediately rationalizes the difference between past and
future in this regard: the two cases may be logically symmetric but there is a deci-
sive pragmatic asymmetrythe past lies beyond the prospect of intervention
whereas we can often still do something about the future. For an interesting treat-
ment of some relevant issues see Alan Musgrave, Logical versus Historical Theo-
ries of Confirmation, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 25
(1974), pp. 12g (see especially pp. 13).
7
These theories are further developed in the authors Methodological Pragmatism
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977).
8
Edmond von Hartmann, ber die dialektische Methode (Darmstadt: Wissenschaft-
liche Buchgesellschaft, 1963), pp. 95100.
9
In thinking of himself as the founder of positive dialectic Hegel failed to do justice
to the ancients. See H. G. Gadamer, Hegels Dialectic (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1976), especially Chapter 1, Hegel and the Dialectic of the Ancient
Philosophers.
10
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hegels Dialectic, p. 31.
58
COGNITIVE DIALECTIC
11
Here at any rate eponyms are sometimes used to make the point that the work of
the person at issue has suggested rather than originated the idea or principle at is-
sue.
12
La thorie physique: son objet, et sa structure (Paris: Chevalier and Rivire, 1906);
tr. by Philip P. Wiener, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1954), op. cit., pp. 17879. Italics supplied.
59
Chapter 4
METHODOLOGICAL DIALECTIC
1. ASPECTS OF METHODOLOGY: THEOLOGY
O f all the various versions of dialectics which one is correct and true?
Asking this misconceives matters. Only if dialectic were a doctrine or
theory this question would make sense so that we can only ask about its ef-
ficacy. But it is not so, seeing that dialectic is a process or procedure. (To
be sure, something on the order of dialectical materialism will indeed be a
doctrine and a theory. But this is not because what is at issue here is dialec-
tical but because it embodies materialism.)
Now if dialectics is a method or process, then for the doing of what does
it function as such? At this point a multiplicity of answers crops up:
for carrying on a discussion
for assessing the truth-claim of assertions
for conducting on an inquiry into some open question
for characterizing the course of cognitive development
for the design and quality-control assessment of input-output proc-

esses
for characterizing the course of developments in social-interaction

situations
for characterizing the course of developments as physical interaction

situations
The salient point is that dialectical processes are defined as such by their
structure rather than by their substantive area of application. And exactly
because dialectics is not a theory but a modus operandi it enjoys a diversi-

fied bearing across a wide range of service.
As these considerations indicate, the relevant question is not that of the
truth or falsity of dialectics but rather that of its efficacy and efficiency in a
given context of application. And since this is so, not only does dialectic it-
self constitute a method, but this very method itself can serve for the as-
sessment and development of methods.
Just how is a methodological means for doing things of a certain sort
to be justified or legitimated? Clearly this will have to be done in a pur-
posive or teleological manner. A method is never a method pure and sim-
ple, but always a method-for-the-realization-of-some-end, so that the inevi-
tably teleological question of its effectiveness in the realization of its pur-
poses becomes altogether central to the issue of justification. A method,
after all, is something intrinsically purpose-relative.
It is only to be expected that, with particular regard to methodology at
any rate, the pragmatists were surely right: there can be no better or more
natural way of justifying a method than by establishing that it works with
respect to the specific appointed tasks that are in view for it. The proper
test for the correctness or appropriateness of anything methodological in
nature is plainly and obviously posed by the paradigmatically pragmatic
questions: Does it work? Does it facilitate the realization of its intended
purposes? Does itto put it crasslydeliver the goods?
Instrumentalities (methods, etc.) are invariably purposive: they are
means for the realization of certain ends. And so: the natural standard for
the rational evaluation of methods is that of its applicative success in rela-
tion to the aims for which this method is instituted. Accordingly, anything
methodological, be it a tool, procedure, instrumentality, program or policy
of action, etc., is properly validated in terms of its ability to achieve the
purposes at issueits success at accomplishing its appropriate task. And it
is just here that a dialectical perspective comes to the fore because the
over-all process of instrumental justification natural to a method (proce-
dure, modus operandi, etc.) has the essentially dialectical structure indi-
cated in Display 1.
This process represents what might be characterized as a control-sys-
tems model of instrumental justification. It proceeds in terms of the key
concepts of systems analysis, viz., input (the use of a method), output (the
results of applying the method), and quality-control (the assessment of
purpose-realization).
62
Display 1
STRUCTURE OF THE INSTRUMENTAL

JUSTIFICATION OF A METHOD
Application Implementation
Product Utilization of the results and

Method & assessment of the consequences
Results thereof in point of purpose-
realization
Retrospective Teleological Evaluation

(validation or invalidation)
Since methods are open-ended in their bearing, the functional/instrumental

justification of a method is inevitably general and, as it were, statistical in
its bearing. Suppose one applies a method just once, and meets with suc-
cess in reaching a result that fully answers to the hoped-for purposes. This
would clearly cut very little ice. The success might have come our way
gratuitouslyby accident or luck or thanks to some unrecognized special
feature of the particular case at hand. One swallow does not make a sum-
mer, and one success does not validate a method. Methodological efficacy
is a matter of how things go generally and in the long run.1 Thus working
on one occasion does not have sufficiently general import, and failing on
one occasion is not necessarily invalidating. Instrumental justification is
only to be sought at this generic and systematic plane.2
The preceding discussion has concerned itself with the instrumental justi-
fication for a particular method or procedure. However, particular interest
and importance attach to the comparative appraisal of competing or alterna-
tive methods for realizing the specified purposes. And once we are in a posi-
tion to assess the extent to which a single method is justified, we shall also
be in a position to consider the relative justification of rival methods. Much
the same issuenamely the comparative analysis of the various degrees of
successis the crucial factor for both sorts of problems. And so, insofar as
successful performance and functional efficacy are the operative standards
for assessment, the dialectic of evaluation comes upon the scene once more.
63
Display 2
THE DIALECTIC OF METHOD IMPROVEMENT
Quality-control
Application Correction
Mechanism or Evaluative of
utilization of product malfunctions
The generic structure of the entire process is represented in Display 2.3

Here the cyclically iterative nature of the procedure clearly manifests itself
in a feedback recycling into early stages of the circuit. The over-all proce-
dure manifests a feedback mechanism of producing at later stages materials
for re-entry in later iterations into previous stages of the process.4 The
structure of such a mechanism clearly exhibits the form of a dialectic that
proceeds through sequential stages of refinement. And of course a rational
person would only regard a revision in a method as affording an actual
(rather than merely putative) improvement insofar as there is good reason
to think that it is indeed better on the basis of the teleological evaluation of
results. Superior performance is the key to progress in methodology, and
the role of considerations regarding efficiency and effectiveness in realiz-
ing the purposive raison detre of the method is clearly central here.
The dynamic aspect of historical replacement or revision assimilates this
approach to methods to the dialectical performance-monitoring set out in
Display 2. Of course such a process is not wholly self-adjusting, because
the issue of finding the refinements needed to correct malfunctions is cer-
tainly not automatic nor even indeed is it always determinable through
simple trial-and-error variation. In general, it requires an exogenous in-
strumentality, namely the intervention of creative ingenuity.
The lesson that emerges from these deliberations is that the process of
validating the use of dialectical methods in a certain range of application is
itself dialectical in its structure. Dialectics, where productively applicable,
is itself generally legitimated in this role by a fundamentally dialectical
process of validation.
64
3. THE EVOLUTIONARY DIMENSION: RATIONAL SELECTION
The dialectical validation envisioned above also has a significant historical

dimension. Under suitable circumstances (preeminently including the ra-
tionality of the method-users at issue) the systematic course of theoretical
amelioration and the historical course of evolutionary development both
represent different views of the same basic course of events. On the one
hand it can describe the essentially static process of theoretical justifica-
tion that characterizes their warranting rationale, on the other hand it can
be used to account for their dynamic process of historical development
over timebut both of them conforming to the same underlying pattern for
the teleologically guided emendation of methods.
The components of an evolutionary model are principally two: variation
and selection. To apprehend their mode of operation in the present case we
must begin by noting certain relevant features of the community of persons
that provides the setting within which methods are adopted and employed.
An evolutionary process as such must involve mechanisms of mutation
and of selection. Mutation is needed to arrive at a plurality of (potentially
competing) alternatives. Selection then enters in to provide for the survival
of the somehow fittest alternative. Both these processesmutation and
selectioncan in theory take one or another of two very different forms,
the one blind, the other teleological (purposeful). Accordingly, there are
two sorts of mutations:
1) Chance: random variation, blindly generated alternatives.
2) Contrivances: purposeful variation, a somehow designed varia-

tion in line with some governing goal, function, or objective.
Also there are two sorts of selection processes:
1) Natural: failure (absolute or statistical) to reproduce or replicate

for physical causes.
2) Rational: failure (absolute or statistical) to be perpetuated for func-

tional/rational reasons.
Given this duality, four very different modes of evolution can in principle
be contemplated:
65
Mutation Selection
Darwinian: random natural

Lamarckian: random rational
Bergsonian: purposeful natural
Teilhardian: purposeful rational
We shall not have occasion here to invoke the two mixed modes of La-
markian and Bergsonian evolution. For the cases that will concern us pri-
marily are that of biological evolution which (so one may at this time of
day suppose) takes the Darwinian form and that of cultural evolution
which is rather different in character.
As regards variation, two factors are crucial: (i) the constancy of pur-
pose which serves to assure that, throughout the historical process, the
methods at issue address themselves to essentially the same objectives, and
also (ii) creative operational innovativeness in modifying existing meth-
odological procedures in the interests of their refinement. These two fac-
tors assure the necessary element of variation in a continual effort to devise
more efficient and effective methods for the realization of ongoing pur-
posive goals.
As regards selection, the crucial factor is that of critical rationality in
adopting, from among competing alternatives, that method which proves in
the course of applications to be more successful in point of goal-realiza-
tionand correspondingly in abandoning those methods that have shown
themselves less successful. However, in our methodological case, where
overtly purposive instrumentalities rather than biological organisms are at
issue, the operative factor in the developmental process is not that of natu-
ral selection, but that of rational selection in the light of explicitly pur-
pose-oriented considerations. This, of course, is a significant point of dif-
ference from evolution in its classical Darwinian form where survival
alone, rather than any other more elaborately rational purpose is the opera-
tive factor. In the present case, where methods are overtly purpose-
correlative, an explicitly rational teleology is called for. This difference is,
however, quite basic evolutionary pattern of the present model of the his-
torical process, given the classic form of an evolutionary pattern based on
variation and selection.
And so there is an analogy between the biological and the sociological
situations that is both close and far-reaching:
66
BIOLOGY SOCIOLOGY
biological mutation procedural variation
reproductive elimination of reproductive elimination of

traits through their non- processes through their lapsed
realization in an individuals transmissions to ones successors
progeny (children, students, associates)
ones physical progeny those whom one influences
On the one hand, we deal with the biological transmission of physical traits
by biological inheritance across generations, on the other, with the social
propagation of cultural traits by way of generation-transcending influence.
But the fundamental structure of the process is the same on either side.
Both involve the conservation of structures over time. It must accordingly
be recognizedand stressedthat the survival-conducive role in biologi-
cal evolution of mans generic capacity for thought is not alone at issue
with respect to cognitive matters. Evolution-like processes are also at work
in the historical development of the concrete instruments and procedures of
mans thinking. Not only our various capacities for intelligent operation,
but even the way in which we go about using them, have an evolutionary
basisalbeit in rational rather than natural selection. Even though biologi-
cal evolution accounts for our possession of intelligence, accounting for
much or most of the way in which we actually use it calls for a rather dif-
ferent evolutionary approach, one that addresses the development of
thought-procedures rather than of the thinkers themselves. This sort of
non-biological evolutionary epistemology also figures in our present delib-
erations, specifically as regards the cultural development of our conceptual
instrumentalities.
Biological evolution is undoubtedly Darwinian, with teleologically
blind natural selection operating with respect to teleologically blind ran-
dom mutations. Cultural evolution, on the other hand, is generally Teil-
hardian, governed by a rationally guided selection among purposefully de-
vised mutational variations.5 Taken in all, cognitive evolution involves
both components, superimposing rational selection on biological selection.
Our cognitive capacities and faculties are part of the natural endowment
we owe to biological evolution. But our cognitive methods, procedures,
standards, and techniques are socio-culturally developed resources that
evolve through rational selection in the process of cultural transmission
67
through successive generations. Our cognitive hardware (mechanisms and

capacities) develops through Darwinian natural selection, but our cognitive
softwarethe methods and procedures by which we transact our cognitive
businessdevelops in a Teilhardian process of rational selection that in-
volves purposeful intelligence-guided variation and selection. Biology pro-
duces the instrument, so to speak, and culture writes the musicwhere ob-
viously the former powerfully constrains the latter. (You cannot play the
drums on a piano).
Rational selection is a matter not of a biological but rather of a ration-
ally selective elimination (or rationally preferential retention)of a proc-
ess of historical transmission that involves a reasoned preference based on
purposive consideration. A rigorously biological eliminative model for
methodological or procedural evolution is unrealistic. For what is basically
at issue in this domain is the matter of historical survival based on commu-
nal behavior in transmission through teaching and example. As changes are
entertained (under the pressure of necessitating circumstance), one meth-
odological instrument may eventuate as more fit to survive than another,
because extensive experience shows that it answers better to the range of
relevant purposes. The ways in which we make use of our biologically
given capacities are cultural resources preserved and transmitted by social
preferences operative in example and teaching. There is a preferential se-
lection at work in the perpetuation of those methods and procedures whose
effectiveness is indicated by the lessons of experience. Whatever may be
the shortcomings of a Lamarckian approach to biological evolution via ge-
netic mechanisms, it is clearly useful and appropriate for the cultural evo-
lution operative in the transmission of our intellectual resources.
To be sure, natural and rational selections are deeply kindred processes.
Even as in biological evolution it is a matter of the selective perpetuation
through biological transmission over time within a certain population of
those physical traits which are favorable to the continued existence of indi-
viduals, so in rational evolution those methods (processes) are selectively
perpetuated over time in teaching and borrowing from examples which are
favorable to the efficient achievement of tasks to whose accomplishment
the group is committed. And a deep kinship obtains between the two evo-
lutionary modes based on the parallelism:
inherent mutationprocedural variation
inherent retentionrational retention
68
The processes of the left-hand side combine to move the species towards
superior fitness, those on the right-hand side combine to move proce-
dural processes toward superior efficiency. On both sides alike, the evolu-
tionary processes at issue exert a pressure in the direction of greater effi-
ciency and effectiveness in niche-attunement: like the market in econom-
ics, evolution makes for an efficient and economic accommodation to the
requirements of the prevailing circumstances.
In natural selection, however, the matter is one of favoring certain alter-
natives in the transmission process because these lead more readily to pre-
ferred results. This whole approach presupposes the picture of intelligent
beings acting rationally with reference to ends-in-view. Where rational se-
lection is operative, pragmatism and evolution walk hand in hand because
those processes which are inherently advantageous (more efficient, effec-
tive, economical, etc.) will be more than likely the ones that survive to
make their way down the corridor of time. The crux is the matter of what is
deemed fitting to transmit because of its demonstrated efficacy in the harsh
school of the lessons of experience.
Rational selection is accordingly a process of fundamentally the same
sort as natural (biological) selectionboth are devices for eliminating cer-
tain items from cross-generational transmission. But their actual workings
differ, since elimination by rational selection is not telically blind and bio-
logical, but rather preferential/teleological and overtly rational. Orthodox
Darwinian selection is in effect a way of removing teleology; it provides a
way of accounting for seeming purposiveness in purpose-free terms, by
deploying the mechanisms of a blindly eliminative annihilation of certain
forms in place of any recourse to preferential considerations. But rational
selection is something else again: it can operate only with respect to beings
endowed with intelligence and action, with reasoning and purposesits
mechanism being the deliberate failure to perpetuate forms that are not
purpose-serving.
4. THE ROLE OF REASON
Once humans appeared on the scene, reproductive elimination as such no

longer monopolizes the processes of development. Among rational crea-
tures, cultural patterns that are inefficient decline from one generation to
another because these processes are less effective at reproducing them-
selves, since peoples attachment to these patterns becomes undermined
69
because of this very fact of their inefficiency, ineffectiveness, avoidable

cumbersomeness, or the like.
The historical ontogenesis of methods will thus replicate a probatively
ordered line of rational justification: the dialectical course of historical
evolution reflects the unfolding of a dynamic rationale of warrant. One
fundamentally isomorphic process-structure underlies both the static ra-
tional order of justification andin its dynamic dimensionthe historical
course of evolutionary development.
Our intelligence and our knowledge are the fruits of collective and cu-
mulative efforts. We humans cannot all and always begin at square one;
life is too short. Most of what we havephysically and intellectuallyis
inherited from the past, and some part of what we ourselves do is in turn
transmitted to the future. The social aspect of cultural evolution is para-
mount for our intellectual development. And it provides for a particularly
potent instrumentality. Cultural evolution can manage to achieve things
that biological evolution cannotborrowing across genealogical lines (that
is, from foreign groups), for example, or effecting changes of operation
within the boundaries of a single generation.
Rational selection via a challenge/response dialectic is a complex proc-
ess that transpires not in a population but in a culture. It pivots on the
tendency of a community of rational agents to adopt and perpetuate,
through example and teaching, practices and modes of operation that are
relatively more effective for the attainment of given ends than their avail-
able alternatives. Accordingly, the historical development of methods and
modes of operation within a society of rational agents is likely to reflect a
course of actual improvement. Rational agents involved in a course of trial
and error experimentation with different processes and procedures are
unlikely to prefer (for adoption by themselves and transmission to their
successors) practices and procedures which are ineffective or inefficient.
This line of consideration does not envision a direct causal linkage be-
tween the historical survival of method users and the functional effective-
ness of their methods. The relationship is one of common causation. The
intelligence that proves itself normal conducive also forms functional effi-
cacy. In consequence, survival in actual use of a method within a commu-
nity of (realistic, normal) rational agents through this very fact affords evi-
dence for its being successful in realizing its correlative purposes.6
These deliberations regarding rational selection have been altogether up
to this point general in their abstract bearing upon methodologies of any
shape or description. They apply to methods across the board and hold for
70
methods for peeling apples as much as of methods for substantiating

knowledge-claims. But let us now focus more restrictedly on specifically
cognitive methods and consider the development of the cognitive and ma-
terial technology of intellectual production.
There is every reason to think that the cognitive methods and informa-
tion-engendering procedures that we deploy in forming our view of reality
evolve selectively through the evolutionary dialectic of trial and error
analogous in role though different in character from the biological muta-
tions affecting the bodily mechanisms by which we comport ourselves in
the physical world. Accordingly, cognitive methods develop subject to re-
vision in response to the element of success and failure in terms of the
teleology of the practice of rational inquiry. An inquiry procedure is an in-
strument for organizing our experience into a systematized view of reality.
And as with any tool or method or instrument, the paramount question
takes the instrumentalistic form: does it work, does it produce the desired
result? Is it successful in practice? Legitimation along these lines is found
in substantial part on the fact of survival through historical vicissitudes in
the context of this pivotal issue of working out best. This sort of legiti-
mation has at its basis the cultural development of our cognitive resources
through a process of the variation and selective retention of our epistemi-
cally oriented intellectual products.7
It is clear that there are various alternative approaches to rational cogni-
tions problem of determining how things work in the world. The exam-
ples of such occult cognitive frameworks as those of numerology (with its
benign ratios), astrology (with its astral influences), and black magic (with
its mystic forces) indicate that alternative explanatory frameworks exist,
and that these can have very diverse degrees of merit. Now in the Western
tradition the governing standards of human rationality are implicit in the
goals of explanation, prediction, and preeminently control. (And thus the
crucial factor is not, for example, sentimental at-oneness with nature
think of the magician vs. the mystic vs. the sage as cultural ideals.) These
standards revolve about considerations of practice and are implicit in the
use of our conceptual resources in the management of our affairs.
Given the reasonable agents well-advised predilection for success in
ones ventures, the fact that the cognitive methods we employ have a good
record of demonstrated effectiveness in regard to explanation, prediction,
and control is not surprising but only to be expected: the community of ra-
tional inquirers would have given them up long ago were they not compara-
tively successful. The effectiveness of our cognitive methodology is thus
71
readily accounted for on an evolutionary perspective based on rational selec-

tion and the requirements for survival through adoption and transmission.
It is accordingly not difficult to give examples of the operation of evolu-
tionary processes in the cognitive domain. The intellectual landscape of
human history is littered with the skeletal remains of the extinct dinosaurs
of this sphere. Examples of such defunct methods for the acquisition and
explanatory utilization of information include astrology, numerology, ora-
cles, dream-interpretation, the reading of tea leaves or the entrails of birds,
animism, the teleological physics of the Presocratics, and so on. No doubt,
such processes continue in issue in some human communities to this very
day; but clearly not among those dedicated to serious inquiry into natures
waysi.e., scientists. There is nothing intrinsically absurd or inherently
contemptible about such unorthodox cognitive programseven the most
occult of them have a long and not wholly unsuccessful history. (Think, for
example, of the prominent role of numerological explanation from Py-
thagoreanism, through Platonism, to the medieval Arabs, down to Kepler
in the Renaissance.) Distinctly different scientific methodologies and pro-
grams have been mooted: Ptolemaic saving the phenomena vs. the hy-
pothetico-deductive method, or again, Baconian collectionism vs. the post-
Newtonian theory of experimental science, etc. The emergence, develop-
ment, and ultimate triumph of scientific method of inquiry and explanation
invite an evolutionary accountthough clearly one that involves rational
rather than natural selection.
The scientific approach to factual inquiry is simply one alternative
among others, and is not something inherent in the very constitution of the
human intellect. Rather, the basis of our historically developed and en-
trenched cognitive tools lies in their having established themselves in open
competition with their contemplated rivals. It has come to be fated by the
tribunal of bitter experiencethrough the historical vagaries of an evolu-
tionary process of selectionthat the accepted methods work out most ef-
fectively in actual practice vis--vis other tried alternatives. To be sure,
such a legitimation is not absolute, but only presumptive. It does, however,
manage to give justificatory weight to the historical factor of being in de
facto possession of the field. The emergence of the principles of scientific
understanding (simplicity, uniformity, and the like) is thus a matter of cul-
tural rather than biological evolution, subject to rational rather than natural
selection.
In these conditions, history represents an evaluative tribunal for meth-
ods along lines reminiscent of Hegels famous dictum regarding the ration-
72
ality of the real. And specifically, the survival of a method over a long and
varied historical course of applications thus comes to be seen as a factor on
which the warrant of its rational claims to acceptance can appropriately be
based. Methodological survival isunder appropriate circumstances
indicative of probatively rational justification, and evolutionary develop-
ment replicates rational substantiation throughout the arena of methodo-
logical evolution in a realm of rational agents.
The crux of such a methodological pragmatism is the idea that the aim
of the enterprise, its purpose and objective, is crucial in any context of ra-
tional deliberation and action, and that it is functional efficacy that is the
decisive monitor here. The pragmatists pivotal principle is this, that func-
tional adequacy affords the quality-control for rational endeavor. But the
rational dialectic of efficacy determination and the developmental dialectic
of trial and error survival prove to be pivotal here in their collaborative in-
teraction.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 4

1
Thus when we turn to specifically cognitive methods of inquiry we shall be led to
an essentially-Peircean perspective in coordinating cognitive rationality with the
concerns of the human community in its at large distribution over space and
time.
2
The importance for inductive considerations of the inherent generality of methods
was clearly perceived by Peirce, who held that synthetic inferences are founded
upon the classification of facts, not according to their characters, but according to
the manner of obtaining them. (Quoted in Ernest Nagel, Principles of the Theory
of Probability, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I [Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1955], pp. 343422 [see p. 414].)
3
German writers on dialectic have long noted the structural kinship of dialectical
processes and cybernetic processes of quality control. These include: Gotthard
Gnther, Das Bewusstsein der Maschinen : Eine Metaphysik der Kybernetik (Kre-
feld/Baden-Baden: Agis-Verlag , 1964); Peter K. Schneider, Die Begrndung der
Wissenschaften durch Philosophie und Kybernetik (Stuttgart, Berlin, Ko ln,
Mainz: Kohlhammer, 1966); Helmar G. Frank, Kybernetik und Philosophie (Ber-
lin, Duncker u. Humblot , 1966; 2nd ed. 1969); Georg Klaus, Wrterbuch der Ky-
bernetik (Frankfurt am Main: Dietz , 1968); Herbert Stachowiak, Denken und Er-
kennen im Kybernetischen Modell (Wien, New York, Springer-Verlag, 1965; 2nd
ed. 1969).
4
This latter-day idea of a cyclic feedback renders obsolete in suitable circumstances
the proscription of an earlier day against what Hugo Dingler condemned as a meth-
odological or pragmatic circle, namely a step [in a procedure] that requires per-
73
forming another step that becomes possible through it. (Die Methode der Physik
[Munich: E. Reinhardt, 1938], p. 71.) What was once seen as a fault now becomes
a virtue. After all, any adequate cognition method must be self-substantiating in be-
ing able to speak on its own behalf.
5
Various aspects of cultural evolutions are interestingly treated in Culture and the
Evolutionary Process by Robert Byrd and Peter J. Richardson (Chicago and Lon-
don: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Their deliberations indicate that while
cultural evolution is not just an analogue of biological evolution, nevertheless that
both are variant forms of one structurally uniform process.
6
No recent writer has stressed more emphatically than F. A. Hayek the deep inher-
ent rationality of historical processes in contrast to the shallower calculations of a
calculating intelligence that restricts its view to the agenda of the recent day. (See
especially his book, The Political Order of a Free People [Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1979], Volume 3 of Law, Liberty, and Civilization.)
7
The French school of sociology of knowledge has envisioned just such a competi-
tion and natural/rational selection among culturally diverse modes of procedure in
accounting for the evolution of logical and scientific thought. Compare Louis Rou-
gier, Trait de la connaissance (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1955), esp. pp. 426428.
74
Chapter 5
ONTOLOGICAL DIALECTIC:
THE HEGELIAN BACKGROUND
1. HEGEL AND HISTORICO-DEVELOPMENTAL DIALECTIC
D ialectical ontology effectively begins with Hegel. With him, the initial
dialogically epistemic mode of dialectics came to be transmuted into
an ontological process characterizing reality development through succes-
sive stages of self-interactive modification. Hegels conception of such an
ontological dialectic line has roughly the structure depicted in Display 1,
which encompasses a two-fold unfolding of dialectical processes, either
discursively (logically) or developmentally (ontologically).
In its ontological setting, dialectics can be construed as a version of
process philosophy, specifically one which views dialectical development
as the paramount and quintessential format for salient processes across the
entire board, alike in nature, society, and thought.
While Hegel sometimes spoke as though dialectic were simply the general
mode of developmental process he usually means something more specific
by the term, namely the rationally determinate (Geist-managed) processual
development through which Existence/Reality (das Seiende) unfolds over
time. Moreover, the self-definition of anything is a matter of distinguishing
and distancing it from that which it is not, a certain mode of negative dia-
lectic will be operative as regards historical change.1 As Hegel put it:
Everything about us in this world may be viewed as a product of Dialectic.

For we must realize that everything finite, rather than being stable and ulti-
mate, is changeable and merely transient. Just this is what we mean by the
Dialectic of the finite, by which the finite, implicitly encompassing more
than what it is, is forced by and its own immediate or natural being so as to
turn suddenly into its opposite.2
Against this background, Hegel saw rational dialectic as tracking an un-

folding process alike in thought (discursively) and in nature (developmen-
tally). Such a step from cognitive to ontological dialectic was altogether
pivotal for his philosophy, which saw dialectic as being concurrently and
conjointly a process in the development of knowledge and in the develop-
ment of the universe itselfthe reality which includes the evaluation of
Absolute Thought. With Hegels philosophical predecessors, and Fichte
in particular, dialectic was preeminently an instrument of inquiryfor the
development of rational thought about the real. With Hegel, however, insis-
tence on the correspondence of true thought with its object dualized dialectic
into a concurrently ontological and epistemological account of reality.
In Greek thought, dialectic was usually an instrument of inquiry, predi-
cated on the idea that by looking at what can be said on both of the op-
posed sides of a disputative question we can realize a judicious intermedia-
tion more faithful to the truth of the matter than either of those conflicting
extremes. Thus ancient dialectic is a matter of the search for truth between
the extremes of opposition set by an either-or. With Hegel, on the other
hand, we have a position that wants it both waysthat strives for a (poten-
tially unrealizable) both-and. As Hans-Georg Gadamer puts it:
For Hegel, the point of dialectic is precisely that by pushing a position to the
point of self-contradiction it [the dialectical impetus] makes possible the
transition to realizing a higher truth which concurrently embraces both sides
of that contradiction.3
Hegel thus saw dialectic as a process of rationally enforced convergence in

which the potential disparity between thought and truth is ultimately over-
come in an ideal unity of identification that constitutes absolute knowl-
edge.4
76
ONTOLOGICAL DIALECTIC: THE HEGELIAN BACKGROUND
Display 2
THE SHARED STRUCTURE OF NATURAL AND

ARTIFACTUAL DIALECTIC
Development in Revision to
Start Initial relation to achieve greater
conditions specified functions functional efficacy
In its rational orientation the Hegelian dialectic is, in effect, the entire
process of inquiry, construed two-sidedly, on the one hand in regard to the
process of constituting and reconstituting our view of the world in cogni-
tion and, on the other hand, in regard to the product as the world is pre-
sented in the world-picture that results. It is thus the complex compilation
of reality taken conjointly in its cognition and ontological manifestation.
The sequential pattern of such a specifically dialogic process is of course
readily generalized to the idea of any cyclically repetitive process of pro-
duction where the end product of each cycle furnishes the starting ingredi-
ent for the next interaction. And developmentally this process yields an
ever more adequate and improved revision increasingly approximating the
Absolute Idea towards which the actually realized situation is tending and,
as it were, striving.
Viewed in this perspective it appears that there are two principal types
of developmental dialectics, the one intentionally purposive and artifactual,
and the other abstractly functional and impersonally natural. However,
both have the same general structure set out in Display 2. Artifactual de-
velopment will be as diversified and many-sided as the whole range of
human purpose itself. Natural dialectic, by contrast, is always historical,
geared to endurance and survivalto the projection of items at issue (be it
a species or an individual) down the corridor of time.
Dialectic, as Hegel sees it, is the process through which the operations
of reason come to be manifest in reality. Since truth corresponds to reality
(an adaquatio ad rem) this correspondence manifests itself two-sidedly
both in the character of adequate thought and in the rational investigation
of nature that such thought portrays. Understood in this way, dialectic is
77
the interactive process through which reality comes to be not merely self-
constituted but also self-comprehended in a sense that verses in the cogni-
tive and rational. As such, dialectic is a two-sided (epistemically rational
and ontologically systemic) process. Thus, as Hegel saw matters in the En-
cyclopedia, developmental dialectic makes manifest two sides of the same
coin: reflected in the parallel duality of physical (material) explanatory (in-
tellectual) process. For him, dialectic is thus a process that is at once epis-
temological and ontological. In this way, the Hegelian dialectic is two-
sided, representing a parallelism in the development not just of a cognition
of reality but coordinatively of the very reality that is cognized.5 This par-
allelism is reflected in the thesis that the real is rationalthat the rational
structure which inquiry brings to light in its depiction of reality concur-
rently represents a characteristic of the structure of that reality itself. Just
as a printing press gives physical realization to the cognitive content of a
text, so physical reality at once encapsulates and encodes a cognitive repre-
sentation of the real.
On this basis, Hegel was in effect a founding father of what the 20th cen-
tury has come to know as intelligent design theory. For him physical re-
ality is the material encoding of a fundamental feature of rationality with
the structure of explanatory thought in rational inquiry and the structure of
causal eventuation in the development of nature running in parallel. For in
both cases alike that which is (the natural condition of things) and that
which is not (i.e., not yet) come to terms in a process of development
(synthesis) which itself simply sets the stage for the next iteration of the
same developmental pattern. In nature, as in the development of knowl-
edge, there is always self-transcendences. Things impel themselves for-
ward under their own impetus, their development being a matter of self-
preservationa process in which things change (as they must) not only for
the sake of preserving something of themselves at the next stage of devel-
opment. The upshot is at once a sublation (change) and a continuation
(preservation) in line with the dual sense of the German expression sich
aufheben.
Moreover, Hegel saw dialectical development as having an inner logic
through which the transition from one phrase to the next is developmen-
tally or (perhaps better) historically necessitated. It is this aspect of the
Hegelian dialectic that has become at once the most influential (via Marx)
and the most sharply criticized. For, as Hans-Georg Gadamer has noted,
78
Wilhelm Dilthey and others (Jonas Cohn, Nicolai Hartmann) object that the
system of relationships of logical concepts [in Hegels Logic] is more vari-
ous and contains more dimensions than those admitted by Hegel himself,
who forces matters into the monolithically unified level of his own dialecti-
cal progression.6
In consequence, critics of Hegel from Adolf Trendelenburg onwards have

rightly complained that, notwithstanding Hegels insistence on logical ne-
cessity in dialectic, this very feature is prominently absent in the dialectical
expositions that he himself exfoliates in his Logic. In Hegels discussion of
dialectics the that of its necessitation is clear enough, but the how of its
ways and means remains decidedly obscure.
2. A NEO-HEGELIAN VIEW
What, then, of Hegels double-edged dialectic of reason and nature? First

the easy part. There is, surely, no difficulty about considering the processes
of the worlds historical development (be they at the biological, social,
physical, or cosmological levels) as a temporal evolution proceeding
through successive phases, each of which reacts against the last and sets
the stage for the next. Every such course of historical development can be
viewed as a dialectical process, with an initial state of affairs or phase en-
gendering the emergence of another under the impact of destabilizing
forces, pretty much along the lines set out in Display 3.
The pivotal question here is that of the driving force of such a process at
the cosmological level where nature-as-a-whole is concerned. And here a
tradition in philosophy that runs from the Plato of the Timeus through
Leibniz and Hegel to the present writer7 that sees rationality/intelligence as
____________________________________________________________
Display 3
DEVELOPMENTAL DIALECTIC IN NEO-HEGELIAN

PERSPECTIVE
Start initial enforced transformed

stage revision conditions
____________________________________________________________
79
providing the key. Such a cosmological nootropism envisions a course of

cosmic evolution which develops a framework of lawful stability that ini-
tially possibilizes and ultimately actualizes the emergence of intelligent be-
ings able to grasp the modus operandi of the universe.
The governing idea here is that the real is rational in that it effectively
favors the emergence and the operation of intelligent beings by creating the
conditions of lawful stability and complex order which both possibilizes
the emergence of rational beings and provides an environment conducive
to the deployment of their intelligence. (Even as the body needs digestible
food and could not exist if nature did not provide it; so minds need tracta-
ble stimulation and could not be there if nature did not provide it.)
Thinking in a Marxist vein, the English philosopher Maurice Cornforth
wrote:
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics is not a mode of inquiry but a ... [theory]

that refuses to think of things each by itself, as having a fixed nature and
fixed properties ... [but as functioning] in a process of complicated and ever-
changing inter-relationship in which they each exist only in its connection
with other things and going through a series of transformations.8
But while the emphasis on natural processes is perfectly appropriate, this

proposed alternative to metaphysics is in fact little more than the endorse-
ment of a process metaphysics of the sort that has been on the agenda vir-
tually since Presocratic times.9 But once this is recognized, one need not be
materialistic about ones dialectically based ontology. There is, after all,
more in heaven and on earth that is dreamt of in the materialists philoso-
phy. The materialists distaste for rational order in nature is not a scientific
inference but a mere prejudice.
3. A FUNDAMENTAL PARALLELISM
A cognitive dialectic of inquiry is predicated on a selective pressure to-

wards steps that facilitate realizing rationally warranted answers to the
question posed by intelligent beings. And analogously an ontological dia-
lectic of actual development is predicated on a selective pressure towards
steps that facilitate realizing the interests of intelligence in a rational order
of things. Either way, there is a substantially parallel process of dialectic
that enables and enhances the realization of rationality be it in thought or in
nature.
80
In rough outline the guiding thread of thought here is predicated on the

following set of ideas:
1. To constitute itself in a way that realizes a cosmos able to perpetuate

itself through time a world must assume an orderly, rationally coor-
dinated structure. (Noomorphism)
2. It must thereby constitute itself in such a way that it functions as

though a supervising intelligence had created it. The processes it
manifests must tend towards intelligent arrangements. (Nootropism)
3. Intelligent arrangements will favor intelligence itself. Conditions that

are user-friendly for intelligent beings will possibilize and foster the
eventual emergence of intelligent beings. (Noophilia)
4. Intelligent beings (cannot emerge) and thrive in a world that does not
provide grist to their mill. Only in a substantially intelligible world
can they emerge and flourish. (Noocosmology)
This situation leads to an overall arrangement of affairs that is made

graphic in Display 4.
Display 4
THE CYCLIC CLOSURE THAT MESHES REALITYS PRODUCTION

OF RATIONAL BEINGS ABLE TO GRASP REALTYS OWN
RATIONAL MODUS OPERANDI
an intelligently
combined nature
cognitive evolutionary
realization actualization
an intelligence
unification
creature
81
Cognitive dialectics and ontological dialectics are thus locked together in a

cycle of mutual support. The rational dialectic of inquiry is able to bring to
use an intelligence-geared dialectic of development in nature. And the on-
tological dialectic of natural development is able to bring to realization an
intelligent being capable of understanding natures modus operandi.
From this perspective, reality manifests its rationality by bringing to re-
alization intelligent beings able to get a cognitive grasp on its own rational
design.
In the ontological order, a rationally constituted world is a necessary
condition for the emergence (the causal realization) of rational beings. And
in the epistemological order the existence of rational beings is a sufficient
condition for discerning (the cognitive realization) of a rationally consti-
tuted world.
4. WHY SHOULD IT BE SO? THE RATIONALE OF RATIONALITY
But why should reality favor reason? Why should the real be rational via
the parallelism of a dialectical development in ontology with a dialectic
progress in epistemology?
The answer here runs somewhat as follows. The crux of rationality lies
in meeting circumstantially mandated requisites in effective and efficient
ways. Nature has certain critical ontological problems to solve in the line
of self-organization for self-perpetuation. And here the rational economy
of means becomes paramount. If nature did not solve its problems of self-
constitution and self-continuation effectively, it would not be here to tell
the tale. And much the same could be said for us: were our thinking not
able to create a viable home for such frail creatures in a different world.10
There is, accordingly, bound to be a functional parallelism between the
ontological rationality of an evolving reality and the rationality in thought
of a being for whom thinking is an instrument for action within reality. As
Display 5 illustrates, we and the universe must act and act comparatively
and it is rationality that is the lifeblood of effective action.
It thus isor shouldbecome clear that epistemic and ontological dia-
lectic are mutually reinforcing; epistemic dialectic should wholly and in
answering the fundamentally epistemological question Why is it that one
should accept the idea of an ontological dialectic? and ontological dialec-
tic should ideally and in answering the question How does it come about
that an epistemic dialectics is practicable? The resulting structure of recip-
rocal enmeshment is sketched in Display 5. The overall process so func-
82
Display 5
CLOSING OF THE CIRCLES

(ONTOLOGICAL EMBEDDING OF THE DIALECTIC OF INQUIRY)
SUBSTANTIVE RESULTS Application

our picture of reality and
of our place within it VALIDATING EXPLANATION
of how and why our
Implementation inquiry process should
processes should succeed
RATIONAL INQUIRY
The Cycle of Rationalization

Epistemic Dialectic
NOTE: The closing of the circle provides a retrospective justification

(retrojustification) from our cognitive dialectics.
tions as to the explanation of how it comes about that there evolves in na-
ture a creature which, by proceeding rationally in its endeavor to form a
view of nature, is able to achieve a reasonable degree of success in this
venture.
For overall validation, then, there must be a closing of the circle in the
way that Display 6 renders graphic. An inquiry process continued through
the dialectic of reason should in the end yield a view of nature that can ac-
count for the fact that an intelligent being who proceeds in this way within
nature is able to form a generally effective view of it.11
The epistemology by which we constrict our world-picture does not
stand entirely on its own feet. We must apply its products for the guidance
of our actions in the real world. And here the issue of success or failure
provides a thought-external quality control. It is now ontology that is in
charge. And the pragmatic dialectic inherent in the processes sketched in
Display 6 provides an account of this reality-based quality control over our
theorizing cognition.
83
Display 6
THE CYCLE OF PRAGMATIC QUALITY CONTROL
Theory
Revision
START Theory Application Failure

and imple-
mentation Success
Theory
confirmation
So in the end the rationality of the real should not be deemed surprising.
With realityeven as with ourselvesif rationality were absent, neither
the cosmos nor we ourselves would be there to tell the tale.
5. AN APOLOGETIC POSTSCRIPT
In an informative and insightful overview of the present authors discus-

sions of dialectic, Wulf Kellerwessel has maintained that, with their em-
phasis on the epistemological side of the matter, they overlook, or at least
slight, the underlying ontological underpinnings of dialectics. He writes:
Reschers version of dialectic should be characterized as epistemlogical. By

contrast ... [a more Hegelian version of dialectic] goes beyond this in being
ontological and is thus decidedly more comprehensive. ... For Reschers dia-
lectic lies in the setting of a conceptual idealism geared to the development
of linguistic concepts and thereby without an ontological dimension ... [This
contrasts with] an objective idealism concerned not purely with conceptual
relationships ... but also with the ontological underpinnings of dialectic ...
[Such a dialectical theory] is, in comparison with Reschers, rather more am-
bitious in its aspirations and more comprehensive in its theoretical range, al-
beit also more vulnerable to objections in view of its greater fertility.12
84
This view of the matter is not so much incorrect as incomplete. It is indeed

correct in that most of my discussions of dialectic proceed in an epistemo-
logical context to highlight the dialectics of inquiry and its conceptual rami-
fications. But neither in my discussions nor yet in actual fact is this the end
of the matter. For any adequate accounting for the modus operandi of cogni-
tive dialectic unavoidably demands an account of why it is that cognitive
dialectic has the features it doesand first and foremost why it is that the
ground rules of plausibility and presumption is rational discourse and in-
quiry should be as is. And here the essentially pragmatic, functional-efficacy
orientation of the account (as given here and elsewhere in various publica-
tions from my 1973 Methodological Pragmatism onwards) becomes a cru-
cial consideration. And it calls for a realistically geared dialectic of applica-
tive testing in a way that imposes an ontologically geared quality control
over the cognitive dimension of dialectic. In just this way, the fusion of a re-
alistic pragmatism with an evolutionary epistemology geared to rational se-
lection (as I have set it out in various earlier publications13) provide the ma-
terials for an ontologically geared dialectic of coordinated development and
justification that constitutes an ontological underpinning for the epistemic
dialectic at work in cognition. On this basis, the ontology of the matter pro-
vides for the developmental emergence of intelligent beings by natural se-
lection within a cosmos evolved through physical selection. And thereupon
the inquiry methods employed by these intelligent beings develop by ra-
tional selection in a way that leads ultimately to a cognitive realization of
the modus operandi of reality. With these several developmental processes
envisioned in essentially dialectical terms, we arrive at the threefold onto-
logical dialectic at issue in the evolutionary process as a whole, enfolding
cosmic, biological, and rational evolution in overall unification.
In an intelligently contrived universe (which need not necessarily be
one contrived by intelligence) there must be a fundamental parallelism
structural coordination and harmonizationbetween the intellect of ra-
tional inquiry and the dialectics of unfolding process. In this way the spe-
cifically epistemic dialectic that lies at the forefront of our deliberations is
seen to have a groundingat once developmental and justificatory
through the ontological mechanisms of a broadly dialectical feedback
process at the foundational level of developmental ontology.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 5
1
G. W. Hegel, The Science of Logic (=Part I of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophi-
cal Sciences), sect. 79.
85
2
G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic, sect. 81.
3
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hegels Dialectic, tr. by P. S. Smith (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1976), p. 105.
4
On Hegels dialectic see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hegels Dialectic, tr. by P. C.
Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976); Terry Pinkard, Hegels Dialectic
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and Michael Wolffs Die Begriff
des Widerspruchs (op. cit.). The development of Hegels thought regarding dialec-
tic is examined in detail in P. Kondyles, Die Entstehung der Dialektik (Stuttgart:
Kleet-Cotta, 1979), and Manfred Baum, Die Entstehung Der Hegelschen DialektiK
(Bonn: Boonview Verlag, 1986).
5
In this regard as in others Hegels concept of dialectic departs radically from that
of the ancients, as comments have long emphasized. See, for example, K. L. W.
Heyden, Kritische Darstelling der Aristotelischen und Hegelschen Dialektik (Er-
langen: Carl Herder, 1845).
6
7
For the details of such an approach see the authors The Riddle of Existence (Wash-
ington, DC: University Press of America, 1984), and Nature and Understanding
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).
8
Maurice Cornforth, Materialism and the Dialectical Method (New York: Interna-
tional Publications, 1971).
9
See the authors Process Metaphysics (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1995).
10
A Useful Inheritance: Evolutionary Epistemology in Philosophical Perspective
(Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1989); German tran. Warum sind wir nicht
klger (Stuttgart: Hirzel Verlag, 1994).
11
The story of how this comes to be so is sketched in my Cognitive Pragmatism
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).
12
Wulf Kellerwessel, Reschers idealistische Dialektik in Wolfgang Neuhauser et.
al. (eds.), Logik, Mathematik und Natur im Objektiven Idealismus (Wrzburg: K-
nigshausen & Neumann, 2003), pp. 25364; see p. 262.
13
See Cognitive Economy (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989) and
Realistic Pragmatism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000).
86
Chapter 6
PHILOSOPHICAL DIALECTIC
1. THE PERVASIVENESS OF APORIES
A lthough dialectical philosophy has been much discussed over the

years, this has transpired in such a way that the issue of process rather
than product has been neglected. For the discussions have focused on con-
crete results in the kind of this or that practitioner while generic method of
dialectical inquiry in philosophy has remained relatively underdeveloped. 1
To be sure, under Hegels influence various thinkers have maintained
that the historical development of philosophical thinking proceeded along
dialectical lines. Thus Friedrich Schleiermacher, for example, viewed dia-
lectics as a developmental process of philosophical thinking over the
agesa matter of the unfolding of philosophical ideas through the doc-
trines and counter-doctrines of successive generations of thinkers. Such an
approach has it that the historical development of philosophizing at large
will itself exhibit the character of a dialectical process. Yet while there is
much to be said for this perspective, its details have gone largely unex-
plained and unexamined.
Philosophy begins in puzzlement. Its starting point is the manifold of
commonplace knowledgethe range of things we ordinarily take our-
selves to know. But indispensably useful though they are, philosophys
data constitute a plethora of fact (or purported fact) so ample as to
threaten to sink any ship freighted with so heavy a cargo. The difficulty
isand always has beenthat the data of philosophy afford an embar-
rassment of riches. They generally engender aporetic paralogisms
through involving a situation of cognitive overcommitment within which
inconsistencies arise.
Philosophical dialectic is, in the main, a matter of aporetics and the
drive to consistency in systematizing the datathe basic material with
which philosophy has to workis one of the prime missions of the enter-
prise. For here the Aristotelian idea of endoxa is at the forefront once
more, since we must draw not only upon the deliverances of common ex-
perience, but also the more sophisticated teachings of science and the ex-
planatory speculations of philosophers. It is the task of aporetic dialectics

to impart systemic coherence and consistency to this body of philosophi-
cally relevant material and bring rational order into the chaos.
An apory is a group of contentions that are individually plausible but
collectively inconsistent.2 This occurs about whenever the things we in-
cline to maintain nevertheless issue in inconsistency and self-contradiction
in the aggregate. An aporetic cluster is accordingly a family of philosophi-
cally relevant contentions of such a sort that:
(1) as far as the on first view considerations go, there appears to be

good reason for accepting them allthe available evidence speaks
well for each and every one of them, but, nevertheless,
(2) taken together, they are mutually conflicting; the entire family is
collectively incompatible.
Such a cluster is a set of otherwise congenial propositions that, unfortu-

nately, happen to be inconsistent. They cannot all be righttheir mutual
inconsistency precludes that prospect; but they are all plausible; each of
them is seemingly acceptable and to some extent appealing. Whatever may
be our inclination towards the individual theses that collectively make up
such an inconsistent group, simple logic demands that one of them at least
must be rejectedand so its denial must be accepted. While K. R. Popper
has observed, contradictions are problematic only because we try to avoid
them3the reality of it goes in reverse.
Consider, for example, the following aporetic cluster, which sets the
stage for a substantial section of seventeenth century metaphysics where
the belief-inclinations of the day, formed under the inspection of Descartes,
included the following ideas:
(1) Extension is substantial (in constituting material res extensa).
(2) Thought is substantial (in constituting immaterial res cogitans).
(3) Thought and extension are coordinate items that have the same
standing and status.
(4) Substance as such is uniform: at the bottom it has but one type and
is a genus of one single species.
88
Clearly, these contentions are mutually incompatible. The inconsistency

can, of course, be removed by deletions, and this is obviously the appropri-
ate course. But as always, the weeding-out needed to restore consistency
can be accomplished in different ways. The following alternatives are
open:
Abandon (1) and (2): Metaphysical aspectivalism and, in particular, a

theory that takes both thought and material extension to be mere at-
tributes of a single all-encompassing substance (Spinoza).
Abandon (1) and (3): Idealism of a type that regards extended matter as
merely phenomenal (Leibniz and Berkeley).
Abandon (2) and (3): Materialism in the form of a theory that sees
thought as the causal product of the operations of matter (Gassendi
and Hobbes).
Abandon (4): Thought/matter dualism (Descartes).
All of these exits from inconsistency were available at the time, and all
were in fact used by one or another thinker of the period.
In such situations the bare demand of mere logical consistency requires
the elimination of some of these theses. Doing nothing is not a rationally
viable option. Something has to give way. Some one (at least) of those in-
compatible contentions at issue must be abandoned. But there just is no
easy way outone that is relatively cost-free. Apories constitute situations
of forced choice among alternative positions since no matter which way we
turn, we find ourselves having to abandon something which on the surface
seems to be plausiblesome contention that we would want to maintain,
circumstances permitting, and whose abandonment makes a real difference
in the larger scheme of things.
But how to proceed? What is our standard of priority to be? Here we
face a situation very different from that of reductio ad absurdum or of evi-
dential reasoning. And in philosophy, our guidance for making these cur-
tailments lies in the factor of systematicity. The operative principle here is
that of achieving the optimum alignment with experiencethe best overall
balance of informativeness (answering questions and resolving problems)
with plausibility by way of accommodating the claims which, on the basis
of our relevant experience, there is good reason to regard as true. We want
89
answers to our questions but we want these answers to make up a coherent

systematic whole. It is neither just answers we want (regardless of their
substantiation) nor just safe claims (regardless of their lack of informative-
ness) but a reasonable mix of the twoa judicious balance that systema-
tizes our commitments in a functionally effective way.4 The situation in
philosophy is accordingly neither one of pure speculation, where informa-
tiveness alone governs conflict resolution, nor one of scientific/inductive
inquiry where evidential coherence governs this process, but a judicious
combination of the two.5
In such a case we could, in theory, simply throw up our hands and
abandon the entire cluster. But this total suspension of judgment is too
great a price to pay. For taking this course of wholesale abandonment
would plunge us into vacuity by foregoing answers to pressing questions.
We would curtail our information not only beyond necessity but beyond
comfort as well, seeing that we have some degree of commitment to all
members of the cluster and do not want to abandon more of them than we
have to. Our best optionor only sensible optionis to try to localize the
difficulty in order to save what we can.
Apories structure the philosophical landscape. They show how various
positions are interlocked in a mutual interrelationship that does not meet
the eye at first view because the topical areas at issue may be quite dispa-
rate.
Consider, for example, the following apory arising in philosophical de-
liberation about facts and values:
(1) All knowledge is based on observation. (Empiricism)
(2) We can only observe matters of empirical fact. (Naturalism)
(3) Knowledge about values is possible. (Value cognitivism)
(4) We cannot infer values from empirical facts alone. (Axiological

autonomy)
On first view, these theses seem altogether disparate and disconnected be-
cause they stem from regions separated by disciplinary divisions. Thus the-
sis (1)(3) are squarely epistemological, while (4) looks to be distinctly
axiological. But their aporetic interrelationship puts matters into a very dif-
ferent light. For mere logic connects what disciplines put asunder.
90
Since theses (2) and (4) entail that value statements cannot be inferred
from observations, we arrive via (1) at the denial of (3). Inconsistency is
upon us. There are four ways out of this trap:
Deny 1: There is also non-observationalintuitive or instinctive

knowledge of various kindsspecifically of matters of value (value-
intuitionism; moral-sense theories).
Deny 2: Observation is not only sensory but also affective (sympa-

thetic, empathetic). It thus can yield not only factual information but
value information as well (value-sensibility theories).
Deny 3: Knowledge about values is impossible (positivism, value

skepticism).
Deny 4: While we cannot deduce values form empirical facts, we

can certainly infer them from the facts, by various sorts of plausible
reasoning, such as inference to the best explanation (values-as-
fact theories).
In linking empiricism and fact-value separation, such an analysis can bring

to light significant interrelationships that obtain among disparate topics. It
makes strange bedfellows of very different philosophical doctrines in ex-
actly the way that we have been considering above, connecting issues that
appear substantively disjoint and seem to belong to different disciplines
(epistemology and axiology is the example).
By its very nature, an apory delineates a definite range of interrelated
positions. It maps out a small sector of the possibility space of philosophi-
cal deliberation. And this typifies the situation in philosophical aporetics
where several distinct and discordant resolutions to a given issue or prob-
lem are inevitably available, none of which our cognitive data can exclude
in an altogether decisive way. Here any particular resolution of an aporetic
cluster is bound to be simply one way among others. The single most cru-
cial fact about an aporetic cluster is that there will always be a variety of
distinct ways of averting the inconsistency into which it plunges us. We are
not only forced to choose but also constrained to operate within a narrowly
circumscribed range of choice.
91
2. APORY ENGENDERS A DIVERSITY OF RESOLUTIONS
Consider the following aporetic cluster:
1. Some facts can be explained satisfactorily.
2. No explanation of a fact is (fully) satisfactory if it uses unexplained

facts.
3. Any satisfactory explanation must be noncircular: it must always in-

volve some further facts (facts distinct from the fact that is being ex-
plained) to provide materials for its explanatory work.
Premise (3) indicates the need for unexplained explainers. Premise (2) as-
serts that the presence of unexplained explainers prevents explanations
from being satisfactory. Together they entail that there are no (fully) satis-
factory explanations. But premise (1) insists that satisfactory explanations
exist. And so we face a contradiction. A forced choice among a fixed spec-
trum of alternatives confronts us. And there are just three exits from this
inconsistency:
1-Abandonment: Explanatory skepticism.
2-Abandonment: Explanatory foundationalism. Insist that some facts

are obvious or self-evident in a way that exempts them from any
need for being explained and make them available as cost-free in-
puts for the explanation of other facts.
3-Abandonment: Explanatory coherentism. Accept circular explanations

as adequate in some cases (very large circles).
In such cases there is, of course, the prospect of alternative resolutions but
they arise within a well-defined range of alternatives.
As such examples show, any particular resolution of an aporetic cluster
is bound to be simply one way among others for restoring consistency. The
single most crucial fact about an aporetic cluster is that there will always
be a variety of distinct ways of averting the inconsistency into which it
plunges us. We are not just forced to choose, but specifically constrained to
operate within a narrowly circumscribed range of choice.
92
Apories so function as to map out a small sector of the possibility space

of philosophical deliberation. And this typifies the situation in philosophi-
cal problem-solving, where, almost invariably, several distinct and discor-
dant resolutions to a given issue or problem are available, none of which
our cognitive data can exclude in an altogether decisive way.
Apories confront us with forced choices but not forced resolutions.
Whenever we have an aporetic cluster, a plurality of resolutions is always
available. Any resolution of an apory calls for the rejection of some con-
tentions for the sake of maintaining others. Strict logic alone dictates only
that something must be abandoned; it does not indicate what. No particular
resolutions are imposed by abstract rationality aloneby the mere logic
of the situation. (In philosophical argumentation one persons modus po-
nens is anothers modus tollens.) It is always a matter of trade-offs, of ne-
gotiation, of giving up a bit of this in order to retain a bit of that.
In situations of aporetic conflict we face a situation very different from
that of reductio ad absurdum or of evidential reasoning. For in philosophy,
our guidance for making these curtailments lies in the factor of systematic-
ity. The operative principle at work here is that of achieving the optimum
alignment with experiencethe best overall balance of informativeness
(answering questions and resolving problems) with plausibility by way of
negotiating with the claims which on the basis of our relevant experience
there is good reason to regard as true. We want answers to our questions
but we want these answers to make up a coherent systematic whole. It is
neither just answers we want (regardless of their substantiation) nor just
safe claims (regardless of their lack of informativeness) but a reasonable
mix of the twoa judicious balance that systematizes our commitments in
a functionally effective way.6 Our best optionor only sensible optionis
to try to localize the difficulty in order to save what we can. Let us con-
sider some examples.
3. SOME EXAMPLES
The theory of morality developed in Greek ethical thought affords a good

example of such an aporetic situation. Greek moral thinking inclined to the
view that the distinction between right and wrong:
(1) Does matter,
(2) Is based on custom (nomos),
93
(3) Can only matter if grounded in the objective nature of things

(phusei) rather than in mere custom.
Here, too, an aporetic problem arises. The inconsistency of these conten-

tions led to the following resolutions:
Deny (1): Issues of right and wrong just dont matterthey are a mere
question of power, of who gets to lay down the law
(Thrasymachus).
Deny (2): The difference between right and wrong is not a matter of
custom but resides in the nature of things (the Stoics).
Deny (3): The difference between right and wrong is only customary
(nomoi) but does really matter all the same (Heraclitus).
We have here a paradigmatic example of an antinomy: a theme provided

by an aporetic cluster of propositions, with variations set by the various
ways of resolving this inconsistency. The problem of the philosopher is not
one of inductive ampliation but of systemic reductionof a restoration of
consistency. And philosophers fail to reach a uniform result because this
objective can always be accomplished in very different ways.
If we have firm confidence in our reasonings, then it follows by the in-
ferential principle of modus tollens that whenever a belief is rejected, one
must also call into question some of the various (collectively compelling)
reasons on whose basis this belief had been adopted. For example, if one
rejects free will, then one must also reject one of the following (presump-
tive) initial reasons for espousing freedom of the will: People are usually
responsible for their acts, People are only morally responsible for those
acts that are done freely. The rejection of an accepted thesis at once turns
the family of reasons for its adoption into an aporetic cluster. Apory, once
present, tends to spread like wildfire through any rational system.
This line of consideration accounts for what is, on first view, a puzzling
aspect of the field, namely, the prominence in the philosophical literature
of counter-argumentation and refutatory discussions. In mathematics no
one troubles to argue that fourteen or thirty-two is not a satisfactory solu-
tion to a certain problem. This would be pointless because the number of
incorrect answers is endless. But when there is only a limited number of
94
viable alternative candidates in the running, negative and eliminative ar-

gumentation will obviously come to play a much more substantial part.
The Greek theory of virtue affords another example:
(1) If virtue does not produce happiness/pleasure, then it is pointless.
(2) Virtue is not pointlessindeed it is extremely important.
(3) Virtue does not always yield happiness.
Three ways of averting inconsistency are available here:
Deny (1): Maintain that virtue is worthwhile entirely in itself, even if it

does not produce happiness/pleasure (Stoics, Epictetus, Mar-
cus Aurelius).
Deny (2): Maintain that virtue is ultimately pointless and can be dis-
missed as folly of the weak (nihilistic sophists, e.g., Platos
Thrasymachus).
Deny (3): Maintain that virtue is automatically bound to produce happi-

ness (of itself always yields real pleasure)so that the two
are inseparably interconnected (Plato, the Epicureans).
The whole of the group (1)(3) represents an aporetic cluster that reflects a
cognitive over-commitment. And this situation is typical: the problem con-
text of philosophical issues standardly arises from a clash among individu-
ally tempting but collectively incompatible over-commitments. Philoso-
phical issues standardly center about an aporetic cluster of this sorta
family of plausible theses that is assertorically over-determinative in claim-
ing so much as to lead into inconsistency.
To put matters to rights, in such cases, something obviously has to go.
Whatever favorable disposition there may be toward these plausible theses,
they cannot be maintained in the aggregate. We are confronted by a (many-
sided) cognitive dilemma and must find one way out or another. In particu-
lar, we can proceed:
To reason from (2)(3) to the denial of (1),
95
To reason from (1), (3) to the denial of (2),
To reason from (1)(2) to the denial of (3),
An apory gives rise to a group of valid arguments leading to mutually con-

tradictory conclusions, yet each having only plausible theses as premises. It
is clear in such cases that something has gone amiss, though it may well be
quite unclear just where the source of difficulty lies.
It lies in the logical nature of things that there will always be multiple
exits from aporetic inconsistency. For whenever such an antinomy con-
fronts us, then no matter which particular resolution we ourselves may fa-
vor, and no matter how firmly we are persuaded of its merits, the fact re-
mains that there will also be other, alternative ways of resolving the incon-
sistency. For a contradiction that arises from over-commitment can always
be averted by abandoning various subgroups among the conflicting conten-
tions, so that distinct awareness to averting inconsistency can always be
found. As far as abstract rationality goes, alternative resolutions always
remain openresolutions leading to mutually contrary and inconsistent re-
sults. An aporetic cluster is thus an invitation to conflict: its resolution will
be only one of a coordinated group of mutually discordant doctrines (posi-
tions, teachings, doxa). The cluster accordingly sets the stage for divergent
schools of thought and provides the bone of contention for an ongoing
controversy among them. In philosophy, any family of inconsistent theses
spans a doctrinal spectrum that encompasses a variety of interrelated al-
beit incompatible positions.
Philosophical doctrines are accordingly not discrete and separate units
that stand in splendid isolation. They are articulated and developed in re-
ciprocal interaction. But their natural mode of interaction is not by way of
mutual supportiveness. (How could it be, given the mutual exclusiveness
of conflicting doctrines?) Rather, competition and controversy prevail. The
search of the ancient Stoics and Epicureans (notably Hippias) for a univer-
sally natural belief system based on what is common to different groups
(espousing different doctrines, customs, moralities, religions) is of no avail
because no single element remains unaffected as one moves across the
range of variation. Given that rival schools resolve an aporetic cluster in
different and discordant ways, the area of agreement between them, though
always there, is bound to be too narrow to prevent conflict. Alternative po-
sition make different priorities, and different priorities are by nature in-
compatible and irreconcilable.
96
4. DIALECTICS A MECHANISM OF SYSTEM GROWTH AND DE-

VELOPMENT AND THE ROLE OF DISTINCTIONS
One important insight that a resort to plausibility aporetics puts at our

disposal relates to its revelation of developmental dialectics.
To be sure, Aristotle was right in saying that philosophy begins in won-
der and that securing concerns to our questions is the aim of the enterprise.
But of course we do not just want answers but cogent answers, seeing that
these alone have a chance of being collectively true. The quest for consis-
tency is an indispensable part of the quest for truth and thereby constitutes
one of the driving dynamic forces of philosophy. But the cruel fact is that
theorizing itself yields contradictory results. In moving from empirical ob-
servation to philosophical theorizing, we do not leave contradiction be-
hindit continues to dog our footsteps. And just as reason must correct
sensation, so more refined and elaborate reason is always needed as a cor-
rective for less refined and elaborate reason. The source of contradiction is
not just in the domain of sensation but in that of reasoned reflection as
well. We are not just led into philosophy by the urge to consistency, we are
ultimately kept at it by this same urge.
In breaking out of the cycle of inconsistency created by an aporetic
cluster one has no choice but to abandon one or the other of the proposi-
tions involved. But in jettisoning this item it is oftenperhaps even gener-
allypossible to embody a distinction that makes it possible to retain
something of what is being abandoned. Consider the following example:
(1) Every occurrence in nature is caused.
(2) Causes necessitate their consequences.
(3) Necessitation precludes contingency.
(4) Some occurrences in nature are contingent.
Someone who decides to break the cycle of inconsistency by dropping the-

sis (3) might distinguish between a natural and a logical mode of necessita-
tions, where only the latter would preclude contingency. On this basis the
inconsistency inherent in this aporetic cluster of conflicting theses could be
sidelined in such a ways that even thesis (3) is partially salvaged in a quali-
fied form.
97
To restore consistency among incompatible beliefs calls for abandoning

some of them as they stand. In general, however, philosophers do not pro-
vide for consistency-restoration wholly by way of rejection. Rather, they
have recourse to modification, replacing the abandoned belief with a duly
qualified revision thereof. Since (by hypothesis) each thesis belonging to
an aporetic cluster is individually attractive, simple rejection lets the case
for the rejected thesis go unacknowledged. Only by modifying the thesis
through a resort to distinctions can one manage to give proper recognition
to the full range of considerations that initially led into aporetic difficulty.
Distinctions enable the philosopher to remove inconsistencies not just
by the brute negativism of thesis rejection but by the more subtle and con-
structive device of thesis qualification. The crux of a distinction is not
mere negation or denial, but the amendment of an untenable thesis into
something positive that does the job better. By way of example, consider
the following aporetic cluster:
(1) All events are caused.
(2) If an action issues from free choice, then it is causally uncon-

strained.
(3) Free will existspeople can and do make and act upon free choices.
Clearly one way to exit from inconsistency is to abandon thesis (2). We

might well, however, do this not by way of outright abandonment but
rather by speaking of the causally unconstrained only in Spinozas man-
ner of externally originating casualty. For consider the result of deploying
a distinction that divides the second premise into two parts:
(2.1) Actions based on free choice are unconstrained by external

causes.
(2.2) Actions based on free choice are unconstrained by internal

causes.
Once (2) is so divided, the initial inconsistent triad (1)(3) gives way to the
quartet (1), (2.1), (2.2), (3). But we can resolve this aporetic cluster by re-
jecting (2.2) while yet retaining (2.1)thus in effect replacing (2) by a
weakened version. Such recourse to a distinctionhere that between inter-
98
nal and external causesmakes it possible to avert the aporetic inconsis-

tency and does so in a way that minimally disrupts the plausibility situa-
tion.
Aporetic inconsistency can always be resolved in this way; we can al-
ways save the phenomenathat is, retain the crucial core of our various
beliefs in the face of apparent considerationby introducing suitable dis-
tinctions and qualifications. Once apory breaks out, we can thus salvage
our philosophical commitments by complicating them, through revisions in
the light of appropriate distinctions, rather than abandoning them alto-
gether.
The exfoliative development of philosophical systems is driven by the
quest for consistency. Once an apory is resolved through the decision to
drop one or another member of the inconsistent family at issue, it is only
sensible and prudent to try to salvage some part of what is sacrificed by in-
troducing a distinction. Yet all too often inconsistency will break out once
more within the revised family of propositions that issues from the needed
readjustments. And then the entire process is carried back to its starting
point. The overall course of development thus exhibits the overall cyclical
structure depicted in Display 1.
The unfolding of distinctions has important ramifications in philosophi-
cal inquiry. As new concepts crop up in the wake of distinctions, new
questions arise regarding their bearing on the issues. In the course of secur-
ing answers to our old questions we open up further questions, questions
that could not even be asked before.
The historical course thus tracks an evolving process of apory resolution
by means of distinctions. And this process of dialectical development im-
poses certain characteristic structural features upon the course of philoso-
phical history:
Concept proliferationever more elaborate concept manifolds

evolve.
Concept sophisticationever more subtle and fine-drawn distinc-

tions.
Doctrinal complexificationever more extensively formulated the-

ses and doctrines.
System elaborateever more elaborately articulated systems.
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Display 1
APORETIC DIALECTICS
Detection Thesis abandon- Introduction of a

of inconsistent ment: removal of distinction to
commitments inconsistency provide for thesis
through deletion qualification
Thesis restoration
via distinction-
induced revisions
However, this generic characterization of the matter does not do adequate

justice to how things actually work. To improve matters it is advisable to
look at some actual real-life examples from the history of philosophy.
To be sure, distinctions are not needed if all that concerns us is averting
inconsistency; simple thesis abandonment, mere refusal to assert, will suf-
fice for that end. One can guard against inconsistency by avoiding com-
mitment. But such skeptical refrainings create a vacuum. Distinctions are
indispensable instruments in the (potentially never-ending) work of rescu-
ing the philosophers assertoric commitments from inconsistency while yet
salvaging what one can. They become necessary if we are to maintain in-
formative positions and provide answers to our questions. Whenever a par-
ticular aporetic thesis is rejected, the optimal course is not to abandon it al-
together, but rather to minimize the loss by introducing a distinction by
whose aid it may be retained in part. After all, we do have some commit-
ment to the data that we reject, and are committed to saving as much as we
can. (This, of course, is implicit in our treating those data as such in the
first place.)
A distinction accordingly reflects a concession, an acknowledgment of
some element of acceptability in the thesis that is being rejected. However,
distinctions always bring a new concept upon the stage of consideration
and thus put a new topic on the agenda. And they thereby present invita-
tions to carry the discussion further, opening up new issues that were here-
100
tofore inaccessible. Distinctions are the doors through which philosophy

moves on to new questions and problems. They bring new concepts and
new theses to the fore.
To be sure, philosophical distinctions are creative innovations. There is
nothing routine or automatic about themtheir discernment is an act of
inventive ingenuity. They do not elaborate preexisting ideas but introduce
new ones. They not only provide a basis for understanding better some-
thing heretofore grasped imperfectly but shift the discussion to a new level
of sophistication and complexity. Thus, to some extent they change the
subject. (In this regard they are like the conceptual innovations of science
which revise rather than explain prior ideas.) And this can only come from
the functional setting of the enterprisethe range of purpose at issue with
the particular application of the dialectical processuality that is being envi-
sioned.
Philosophys recourse to ongoing conceptual refinement and innovation
means that a philosophical position, doctrine, or system is never closed,
finished, and complete. It is something organic, every growing and ever
changinga mere tendency that is in need of ongoing development. Its
philosophical position is never actually thatit is inherently unstable, in
need of further articulation and development. Philosophical systematiza-
tion is a process whose elements develop in stages of interactive feed-
backits exfoliation is a matter of dialectic, if you will.
6. THE ROLE OF DISTINCTIONS
When an aporetic thesis is rejected, the usual course among philosophers is

not to abandon it altogether, but rather to introduce a distinction by whose
aid it may be retained in part.
In this way, dialectic is an instrument of damage controlit affords a
means to salvage what we can in the face of the disaster of inconsistency.
Consider the following aporetic cluster, which sets the stage for the tra-
ditional problem of evil:
1. The world was created by God.
2. The world contains evil.
3. A creator is responsible for all defects of his creation.
101
4. God is not responsible for the evils of this world.
On this basis we have it that God, who is responsible for all aspects of na-
ture, by (1), is also responsible for evil, by (3). And this contradicts conten-
tion (4). Suppose, however, that one introduces the distinction between
causal responsibility and moral responsibility, holding that the causal re-
sponsibility of an agent does not necessarily entail a moral responsibility
for the consequences of his acts. Then for causal responsibility, (3) is true
but (4) false. And for moral responsibility, the reverse holds: (4) is true but
(3) false. Once the distinction at issue is introduced, then no matter which
way one turns in construing responsibility, the inconsistency operative in
the apory at issue is averted.
Thus someone who adopts this distinction can retain all the aporetic
theses(1) and (2) unproblematically and, as it were, half of each of (3)
and (4)each in the sense of one side of the distinction at issue. The dis-
tinction enables us to make peace in the aporetic family at issue, by split-
ting certain aporetic theses into acceptable and unacceptable parts.
Chalybaeus objected to Hegel that negation is in general equivocally
multi-directional. While negation indeed affirms (omnis negatio est deter-
minatio) nevertheless it does so without definiteness. When we deny that
there are three Muses we must move on to there being either more or
fewer. When we deny that grass is blue we must go on to red or green or
such. In denying something we must proceed to the specifics of having it
by something else. If it is to advance at all, a dialectical negation must go
on to move in some particular direction. And negation of itself does not ac-
complish this. It is this condition that renders a purely abstract logical
dialectic bloodless and in need of some sort of substantive directional
supplementation. And just this holds for distinctions, which represent ne-
gations that split the difference.
fice for that end. But distinctions are necessary if we are to maintain in-
formative positions and provide answers to our questions. We can guard
against inconsistency by avoiding commitment. But such skeptical refrain-
ings leave us empty handed. Distinctions are the instruments we use in the
(potentially never-ending) work of rescuing our assertoric commitments
from inconsistency while yet salvaging what we can.
Accordingly, one generally does not respond to cogent counterargu-
ments in philosophy by abandoning ones position but rather by making it
102
more sophisticatedby complicating it. One can never entrap any philoso-
phical doctrine in a finally and decisively destructive inconsistency, be-
cause a sufficiently clever exponent can always escape from difficulty by
means of suitable distinctions.
Faced with an inconsistent group of beliefs, it clearly becomes neces-
sary to abandon one (or more) of them. In general, however, philosophers
do not achieve this end wholly by way of rejection. Instead, they have re-
course to modification, replacing the abandoned beliefs with something
roughly similar yet consistency maintaining. Trying to salvage as much as
one can from the shipwreck of inconsistency, one introduces distinctions.
Since each thesis of an aporetic cluster is individually attractive, simply re-
jection lets the case for the rejected thesis go unacknowledged. Only by
modifying (rather than rejecting) the thesis can we hope to give proper rec-
ognition to the full range of considerations that initially led us into the
aporetic cluster.
Consider an aporetic cluster that set the stage for various theories of
early Greek philosophy:
(1) Reality is one (homogeneous).
(2) Matter is real.
(3) Form is real.
(4) Matter and form are distinct sorts of things (heterogeneous).
In looking for a resolution here, one might consider rejecting (2). This
could be done, however, not by simply abandoning it, but rather by replac-
ing iton the idealistic precedent of Zeno and Platowith something
along the following lines:
(2) Matter is not real as an independent mode of existence; rather it is

merely quasi-real, a mere phenomenon, an appearance somehow
grounded in immaterial reality.
The new quartet (1), (2), (3), (4) is entirely cotenable.

Now in adopting this resolution, one again resorts to a distinction,
namely that between
103
(i) Strict reality as self-sufficiently independent existence
and
(ii) Derivative or attenuated reality as a (merely phenomenal) product

of the operation of the unqualifiedly real.
Use of such a distinction between unqualified and phenomenal reality

makes it possible to resolve an aporetic clusteryet not by simply aban-
doning one of those paradox-engendering theses but rather by qualifying it.
(Note, however, that once we follow Zeno and Plato in replacing (2) by
(2)and accordingly reinterpret matter as representing a mere phenome-
nonthe substance of thesis (4) is profoundly altered; the old contention
can still be maintained, but it now gains a new significance in the light of
new distinctions.)
Alternatively, one might abandon thesis (3). However, one would then
presumably not simply adopt form is not real but rather would go over to
the qualified contention that form is not independently real; it is no more
than a transitory (changeable) state of matter. And this can be looked at
the other way around, as saying form is (in a way) real, although only in-
sofar as it is taken to be no more than a transitory state of matter. This, in
effect, would be the position of the atomists, who incline to see as implau-
sible any recourse to mechanisms outside the realm of the material.
Antinomies can always be resolved in this way; we can always save
the phenomenathat is, retain the crucial core of our various beliefs in
the face of apparent considerationby introducing suitable distinctions
and qualifications. When apory breaks out, we can thus salvage our phi-
losophical commitments by complicating them, through revisions in the
light of appropriate distinctions, rather than abandoning them altogether.
fice for that end. But distinctions are necessary if we are to maintain in-
formative positions and provide answers to our questions. We can guard
against inconsistency by keeping from commitment. But that leaves us
empty handed. Distinctions are the instruments we use in the (never-
ending) work of rescuing our assertoric commitments from inconsistency
while yet salvaging what we can.
And so the history of philosophy is shot through with distinctions intro-
duced to avert aporetic difficulties. Already in the dialogues of Plato, the
104
first systematic writings in philosophy, we encounter distinctions at every

turn. In Book I of the Republic, for example, Socrates interlocutor quickly
falls into the following apory:
1. Rational people always pursue their own interests.
2. Nothing that is in a persons interest can be disadvantageous to him.
3. Even rational people sometimes do things that prove disadvanta-

geous.
Here, inconsistency is averted by distinguishing between two senses of the

interests of a personnamely what is actually advantageous to him and
what he merely thinks to be so, that is, between real and seeming interests.
Again, in the discussion of nonbeing in the Sophist, the Eleatic stranger
entraps Theaetetus in an inconsistency from which he endeavors to extri-
cate himself by distinguishing between nonbeing in the sense of not ex-
isting at all and in the sense of not existing in a certain mode. For the most
part, the Platonic dialogues present a dramatic unfolding of one distinction
after another.
Distinctions enable the philosopher to remove inconsistencies not just
by the brute negativism of thesis rejection but by the more subtle and con-
structive device of thesis qualification. The crux of a distinction is not
mere negation or denial, but the amendment of an untenable thesis into
something positive that does the job better.
7. DIALECTICAL DEVELOPMENT
Distinctions enable us to implement the idea that a satisfactory resolution

of aporetic clusters must somehow make room for all parties to the contra-
diction. The introduction of distinctions thus represents a Hegelian ascent-
rising above the level of antagonistic positions to that of a higher con-
ception, in which the opposites are reconciled. In introducing the qualify-
ing distinction, we abandon the initial thesis and move toward its counter-
thesis, but we do so only by way of a duly hedged synthesis. In this regard,
distinction is a dialectical process. This role of distinctions is also con-
nected with the thesis often designated as Ramseys Maxim. With regard
to disputes about fundamental questions that do not seem capable of a de-
cisive settlement, Frank Plumpton Ramsey wrote: In such cases it is a
105
heuristic maxim that the truth lies not in one of the two disputed views but
in some third possibility which has not yet been thought of, which we can
only discover by rejecting something assumed as obvious by both the dis-
putants.7 On this view, too, distinctions provide for a higher synthesis of
opposing views. They prevent thesis abandonment from being an entirely
negative process, affording us a way of salvaging something, of giving
credit where credit is due even to those theses we ultimately reject. They
make it possible to remove inconsistency not just by the brute force of the-
sis rejection, but by the more subtle and constructive device of thesis quali-
fication.
A distinction reflects a concession, an acknowledgment of some ele-
ment of acceptability in the thesis that is being rejected. However, distinc-
tions always bring a new concept upon the stage of consideration and thus
put a new topic on the agenda. And they thereby present invitations to
carry the discussion further, opening up new issues that were heretofore in-
accessible. Distinctions are the doors through which philosophy moves on
to new questions and problems. They bring new concepts and new theses
to the fore.
Philosophical distinctions are thus creative innovations. They do not
elaborate preexistent ideas but introduce new ones. They not only provide
a basis for understanding better something heretofore grasped less rigor-
ously, they shift the discussion to a new level of sophistication and com-
plexity. Thus to some extent they change the subject. (In this regard they
are like the conceptual innovations of science, that revise rather than ex-
plain prior ideas.) New concepts and new theses come constantly to the
fore.
The continual introduction of new concepts via new distinctions means
that the ground of philosophy is always shifting beneath our feet. New dis-
tinctions for our concepts and new contexts for our theses alter the very
substance of the old theses. The development is dialecticalan exchange
of objection and response that constantly moves the discussion onto new
ground. The resolution of antinomies through new distinctions is a matter
of creative innovation whose outcome cannot be foreseen.
8. FURTHER HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATION
The unfolding of distinctions has important ramifications in philosophical

inquiry. As new concepts crop up in the wake of distinctions, new ques-
tions arise regarding their bearing on the issues. In the course of securing
106
answers to our old questions we open up further questions, questions that

could not even be asked before.
Let us consider the inherent dynamic of this dialectic. The speculations
of the early Ionian philosophers revolved about four theses:
(1) There is one single material substrate (arche) of all things.
(2) The material substrate must be capable of transforming into any-

thing and everything (and thus specifically into each of the various
elements).
(3) The only extant materials are the four material elements: earth
(solid), water (liquid), air (gaseous), and fire (volatile).
(4) The four elements are independentnone gives rise to the rest.
Different thinkers proposed different ways out of this apory:
Thales rejected (4) and opted for water as the arch.
Anaximines rejected (4) and opted for air as the arch.
Heraclitus rejected (4) and opted for fire as the arch.
The Atomists rejected (4) and opted for earth as the arch.
Anaximander rejected (3) and postulated an indeterminate apeiron.
Empedocles rejected (1), and thus also (2), holding that everything
consists in mixtures of the four elements.
Thus virtually all of the available exits from inconsistency were actually
used. The thinkers involved either resolved to a distinction between genu-
inely primacy and merely derivative elements or, in the case of Empedo-
cles, stressed the distinction between mixtures and transformation. But all
of them addressed the same basic problem albeit in the light of different
plausibility appraisals.
As the Presocratics worked their way through the relevant ideas, the fol-
lowing conceptions came to figure prominently on the agenda:
107
(1) Whatever is ultimately real persists through change.

(I) (2) The four elementsearth (solid), water (liquid), air (gaseous),
and fire (volatile)do not persist through change as such.
(3) The four elements encompass all there is by way of extant real-
ity.
Three basic positions are now available:
(1)-abandonment: Nothing persists through changepanta rhei, all is in

flux (Heraclitus).
(2)-abandonment: One single elements persists through changeit

alone is the arch of all things; all else is simply some altered form
of it. This uniquely unchanging element is: earth (atomists), water
(Thales), air (Anaximines). Or again, all the elements persist through
change, which is only a matter of a variation in mix and proportion
(Empedocles).
(3)-abandonment: Matter itself is not all there isthere is also its inher-
ent geometrical structure (Pythagoras) or its external arrangement in
an environing void (atomists). Or again, there is also an immaterial
motive force that endows matter with motionto wit, mind (nous)
(Anaxagoras).
Let us follow along in the track of atomism by abandoning (3) though the
distinction between material and non-material existence. With this cycle of
dialectical development completed, the following aporetic impasse arose in
pursuing the line of thought at issue:
(1) Change really occurs.

(II) (2) Matter (solid material substance) does not change.
(3) Matter is all there is.
As always, different ways of escaping from contradiction are available:
(1)-abandonment: Change is an illusion (Parmenides, Zeno, Eleatics).
(2)-abandonment: Matter (indeed everything) changes (Heraclitus).
108
(3)-abandonment: Matter is not all there is; there is also the voidand
the changing configurations of matter within it (atomism).
Taking up the third course, let us continue to follow the atomistic route.
Note that this does not just call for abandoning (3), but also calls for so-
phisticating (2) to
(2) Matter as such is not changeableit only changes in point of its

variable rearrangements.
The distinction between positional changes and compositional changes

comes to the fore here. This line of development has recourse to a saving
distinction by introducing the new topic of variable configurations (as
contrasted with such necessary and invariable states as the shapes of the
atoms themselves).
To be sure, matters do not end here. A new cycle of inconsistency
looms ahead. For this new topic paves the way for the following apory:
(1) All possibilities of variation are actually realized.

(III) (2) Various different world arrangements are possible.
(3) Only one world is real.
Again different resolutions are obviously available here:
(1)-rejection: A theory of real chance (tuch) or contingency that sees

various possibilities as going unrealized (Empedocles).
(2)-rejection: A doctrine of universal necessitation (the block universe

of Parmenides).
(3)-rejection: A theory of many worlds (Democritus and atomism in

general).
As the atomistic resolution represented by the second course was devel-

oped, apory broke out again:
109
(1) Matter as such never changesthe only change it admits of are

its rearrangements.
(2) The nature of matter is indifferent to change. Its
(IV) rearrangements are contingent and potentially variable.
(3) It changes of condition are inherent in the (unchanging) nature
of matterthey are necessary, not contingent.
Here the orthodox atomistic solution would lie in abandoning (3) and re-
placing it with
(3) Its changes of condition are not necessitated by the nature of matter.
They are indeed quasi-necessitated by being law determined, but
law is something independent of the nature of matter.
The distinction between internally necessitated changes and externally and

accidentally imposed ones enters upon the scene. This resolution intro-
duces a new theme, namely law determination (as introduced by the Sto-
ics).
Yet when one seeks to apply this idea it seems plausible to add:
(V) (4) Certain material changes (contingencies, concomitant with free

human actions) are not law determined.
Apory now breaks out once more; the need for an exit from inconsistency
again arises. And such an exit was afforded by (4)-abandonment, as with
the law abrogation envisaged in the notorious swerve of Epicurus, or by
(3)-abandonment, as with the more rigoristic atomism of Lucretius.
The developmental sequence from (I) through (V) represents an evolu-
tion of philosophical reflection through successive layers of aporetic in-
consistency, duly separated from one another by successive distinctions.
This process led from the crude doctrines of Ionian theorists to the vastly
more elaborate and sophisticated doctrines of later Greek atomism.
9. PHILOSOPHICAL DIALECTICS AT WORK
As the preceding account indicates, the historical evolution of philosophy

illustrates and exemplifies a dialectical process of development. As Plato
already emphasized in such later dialogues as the Philebus it is a prime
110
Display 2
APORETIC DIALECTIC
Map out the Survey the Resolve these

Analysis of endoxa (the aporetic conflicts through
a problem relevant plausible conflicts distinctions
solutions) that arise
task of dialectic to uncover the apories whose dissolution through division

or distinction (dihairesis) makes out the pathway to philosophical elucida-
tion. Display 2 presents a schematic sketch of the process involved.
Throughout such a course of dialectical development, inconsistency be-
comes resolved by dropping one of the aporetic theses at issue, replacing it
with a duly revised version on the basis of a suitable distinction. The pro-
cedure is one of subjecting an apory-engendering thesis T to an apory-
dissolving distinction d with the result that: T + d yields T1 and T2. where
T1 is seen as tenable, but T2 is not. The dialectical nature of such a proc-
ess is manifest in the pattern:
thesis: T
antithesis: not -T (since T2 is untenable)
synthesis: T1
The synthesis may be seen as doing justice to both the element of truth in
the aporetic thesis T and to the antithetical recognition that T is not tenable
as such.
All the classical distinctions of early Greek philosophy were in fact ar-
rived at through just this process:
elemental/derivative
permanent/changing
111
being/becoming
structure/quantity
form/matter
one/many
natural/artificial
chance/necessity
free/constrained
All these concepts are signposts of the natural evolution of Greek thought
toward the great synthetic systems of Democritus, Pythagoras, Plato, and
Aristotlesystems where coordinated apories are resolved en masse by a
handful of duly adjusted distinctions.
The history of philosophy is a chronicle of distinctions introduced to re-
solve aporetic problems but yet not quite able to bring off the trick. All
such philosophical dichotomies as
objective/subjective
sense/nonsense
real/ideal
analytic/synthetic
meaningful/meaningless
represent distinctions we find useful yet ultimately wanting. In the fullness

of time such distinctions go soft on us and call for yet further qualifica-
tions and limitations to remain operable.8
Such a course of development, however, never manages to achieve a to-
tal stability and finality. Recourse to a distinction always places a new
categorical topic on the agenda of explanation. And as we explore the
ramifications of the new concept, apory breaks out again. The resolutions
we provide for philosophical apories invariably lead to further difficulties
in other sectors of the terrain. In philosophical deliberation, distinctions
keep the wolf of inconsistency from the doorbut, alas, always only for a
limited time. As the dialectical tradition insists throughout, any formula-
112
tion of a philosophical thesis eventually gives rise to difficulties that com-

pel its revision.
A sort of entropy principle is at issue: the dissonance or conceptual fric-
tion we remove at one point is increased at another. All of the experiential
concepts deployed in philosophy contain an element of the factually surd
that we can never quite remove. Even as thermodynamic situations gener-
ally do not admit of processes that increase the overall amount of available
energy, so philosophical situations generally do not admit of processes that
increase the overall amount of conceptual clarity. The distinctions that re-
duce aporetic frictions at some points engender new ones at others. No sys-
tem can provide a perfectly efficient engine for our thought about these
philosophical issues. Systemic perfection lies beyond our grasp in this do-
main.9 Whatever we say is only a rough approximation in need of qualifi-
cation and amendment. (The seeming self-contradiction of this statement
illustrates rather than refutes the point at issue.)
The ongoing elaboration of a philosophical position constitutes a proc-
ess of expository development that brings its various aspects into clearer
and sharper focus. The continuing development of conceptual machinery
provides a process of ideational magnification analogous to the process of
visual magnification that accompanies the ongoing development of the
physical machinery of microscopy. And there is no reason of principle why
this process of ongoing elaboration and sophistication need ever stop; it
can continue as long as our patience and energy and interest hold out.
When we stop, it is because we are sufficiently wearied to rest content, and
not because the project as such is completed.
10. DIALECTIC AND FIRST PRINCIPLES
The drive to system in philosophical inquiry embodies an imperative to

broaden the range of our experience, to extend and expand the database
from which our theoretical triangulations proceed. In the course of this
process, it may well eventuate that our existing systematizationshowever
adequate they may seem at the timeare untenable and must be over-
thrown in the interest of constructing ampler and tighter systems.
The dialectical process at work in philosophy may thus be clarified in a
schematic way as follows. One begins with the presumptive trial assump-
tion or provisional hypothesis of a certain cognitive mechanisman in-
strumentality (process, method) for issue-resolution. One then proceeds to
employ this instrumentality so as to determine a body of putative know-
113
Display 3
ELABORATIVE DIALECTIC
Putative Reformulation
Problem solution Critique and Elaboration
edgean overall system. Thereupon, one deploys this knowledge to pro-

vide a rational accommodation for our experiencean information at
large. Then, one revises the initial trial assumption (provisional hypothe-
ses) with a view to the successes and failures of these applications. And
then starts the process all over again at the first step. What is at issue
throughout is not just a merely retrospective revalidation in the theoretical
order of justification, but an actual revision or improvement in the dialecti-
cal order of development, a cognitive upgrading of suppositions initially
adopted on a tentative basis. Display 3 sketches the overall process at work
here.
Reflection on this process makes it clear that if this is how the first prin-
ciples of inquiry in question-resolution are legitimated, then the status of
such principles is defeasible in the light of the course of experienceit
becomes a posteriori and contingent. This circumstance is one whose im-
portance cannot be overemphasized. It means that no particular formula-
tion of a philosophical positionno explicitly stated substantive resolution
to a philosophical problemcan be altogether adequate as it actually
stands, without further explanation, qualification, and explanatory exposi-
tion. Further questions will always arise that need to be addressed in the
larger scheme of things.
Descartes says that only physical things and intelligent beings exist. But
what then of animals? Plato maintains that mathematical objects like
shapes and numbers exist in a separate realm altogether apart from the ma-
terial world. But how then can we embodied humans know them? Once a
substantive philosophical thesis is formulated, further questions about its
meaning, implications, bearing, and purport will always arise. As it stands,
in its actual and overt formulation, the thesis is not complete, not quite cor-
rect, not altogether adequate to what needs to be said on the subject.
114
Under the pressure of an ongoing readjustment to an ever-widening

context of considerations, it admits of various alternative interpretations,
constructions, elaborations; it presents further issues that must be resolved;
it requires explanation, exposition, qualification. Taken just as it stands,
without further elaboration, the exposition is not satisfactory: it leaves
loose ends and admits of undermining objections.
In examining our first principlesand thus the philosophical theses that
hinge upon themwe accordingly embark on a cyclic (and thus in theory
nonterminating) process of elaboration and reformulation as per Display 3.
Such a dialectic of contention and elaborative explanation engenders an
ever more fine-graved detail the inner commitments and involvements of
the initial position that was the starting point of our endeavor to answer the
philosophical question at issue. With any substantive philosophical issue,
the process of problem-solving and issue resolution can thus be repeated at
ever more elaborate levels of sophistication.
It emerges on this perspective that the first principles that are basic to
philosophical understanding are first (and ultimate questions ultimate)
only in the first instance or in the first analysis and not in the final instance
and the final analysis. Their fundamentality represents but a single mo-
ment in the larger picture of the dialectic of legitimation. They do not
mark the dead-end of a ne plus ultra that admits no further elaboration and
substantiation. The question Why these principles rather than something
else? is certainly not illegitimate here. It is something we cannot only ask
but also answer, even if only provisionally and imperfectly, in terms of the
complex dialectic afforded by the cyclic structure of legitimation as
sketched above.
11. CRITIQUE
In his classic work on The Open Society and its Enemies, K. R. Popper
launched a vigorous critique of dialectics. He objected to it on grounds that
its inherent generality betokens its vacuity:
Dialectic is vague and elastic enough to interpret and to explain this [particu-
lar] unforeseen situation just as well as it explained and foretold the other
situation which happened not to come true: Any development whatsoever
will fit the dialectic scheme; the dialectician need never be afraid of any
refutation by forthcoming experiences.10
115
Surely, however, such a critique tells only against those over-enthusiastic

partisans of dialectic who viewed it as an unrestrictedly universal mecha-
nism. In actual fact, after all, the idea that dialectical explanation is appro-
priately applicable always and everywhere is itself refuted by experience.
With regard to dialectical philosophy K. R. Popper maintains that the
whole development of dialectic should be warning against speculative phi-
losophy.11 But this conclusion is base on two premises: (1) that dialectic
itself constitutes a version of speculative philosophy, and (2) that as such it
has proven to be bankrupt and counter-productive. Both of these conten-
tions may (arguably) be true of certain specific versions of dialectical phi-
losophizing. But it does not hold across the board (as even Popper himself
seems prepared to acknowledge).12 Poppers critique touches only a hyper-
bolic version of dialectic.
Curiouslyand not altogether consistentlyPopper accused the Hege-
lian dialectics as encouraging both dogmatism and indecisiveness. For on
the one hand stands the idea that in a dialectical conflict there is something
to be said for both sides undermined and eventually weakened the tradi-
tional standards of intellectual responsibility and honesty.13 And on the
other hand stands the idea that the resolution of dialectical conflicts issues
in a superiorhigherresult by contributing to historicism and to an
identification of might and right, encouraged totalitarian modes of
thought.14 Ironically, there is something decidedly dialectical about Pop-
pers critique of dialectics.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 6

1
See, for example, Wolfgang Rd, Die dialektische Philosophie der Neuzeit, 2 vols.
(Mnchen: C. H. Beck, 1974). This excellent work is rather an account of modern
philosophy in dialectical terms than an account of the modus operandi of modern
philosophical dialectics as such. It deals rather with product than process.
2
The word derives from the Greek aporia on analogy with the derivation of har-
mony or melody or indeed analogy itself.
3
K. R. Popper, What is Dialectic, Mind, vol. 44 (1940), pp. 40326.
4
To be sure, philosophers positioned in different experiential contexts will accom-
plish this differently because their judgments of priority are bound to differ.
5
The aporetic nature of philosophy and its implications are explored in detail in the
authors The Strife of Systems (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985).
The book is also available in Spanish, Italian, and German translations.
116
6
This again should not be seen as surprising since people differ in their judgments of
priority.
7
Frank P. Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics, pp. 11516.
8
See, for example, the interesting account in C. G. Hempels Problems and
Changes in the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning, Revue International de Philoso-
phie, vol. 11 (1950), pp. 4163, rpt. in A. J. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism (Glencoe,
Ill.: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 10829.
9
As Friederich Schlegel stressed, following Kant, philosophy is rather a striving af-
ter scientific knowledge than itself a science (mehr ein Streben nach Wissenschaft,
als selbst eine Wissenschaft). Quoted in Braun, LHistoire de lhistoire de la philo-
sophie, pp. 27879. Where the old-school metaphysicians (Wolff, Baumgarten)
saw an evolving science actually unfolding bit by bit under our very eyes, their
post-Kantian successors saw simply the emergence of a blueprint for a possible fu-
ture science (ibid., p. 228).
10
K. R. Popper, What is Dialectic, Mind, vol. 49 (1940), pp. 39026 (see p. 424).
11
What is Dialectic?, p. 426
12
It must be admitted that such a way of interpreting a certain development is some-
times very satisfactory(What is Dialectic, p. 406).
13
What is Dialectic?, p. 395.
14
Ibid.
117
Chapter 7
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DIALECTIC
1. INTRODUCTION
T he history of dialectic proceeds along a road with many sharp twists

and turns. As one scholar has put it,
Dialectic has acquired multiple, often conflicting, meanings in the history

of western philosophy. It has been identified with rhetoric, sophistry, So-
cratic cross-examination, Platonic ascent from the sensible to the spiritual,
late-Platonic definition by division into genera and species, Aristotelian sift-
ing of opinions pro and con, Kantian transcendental illusions of the under-
standing, Marxian socioeconomic stages through capitalism to socialism,
etc.1
Overall, dialectic has evoked so many different ideas in so many different

thinkers that it is not far off the mark to claim that The history of the term
dialectic would by itself constitute a considerable history of philosophy.2
Since the time when Kant reestablished dialectic as a significant topic in
modern philosophy, various schools of thought have assigned very differ-
ent sorts of tasks to this process: viewed this discipline in substantially dif-
ferent ways: as explanation for causal pattern of historical development, as
a branch of philosophical ontology, as a means for organizing the history
of thought, as a sector of rhetorical tradition, and as a way of systematizing
the testing process for scientific theories.3 Thus for dialectic is, as it were,
the alchemy of philosophy. It is all things to all men: to some, the most
rigorous procedure for exact and cogent thinking; to others, a way of oper-
ating outside the established rulesan anything goes process for break-
ing through to unfettered innovations of thinking. For some it is the quin-
tessential method of inquiring thought, for others the quintessential anti-
method.4
2. PRE-SOCRATICS AND THE SOPHISTS
The root idea of dialectic lies in the Heraclitean conception of an oscilla-

tion between opposing forces in a productive tension where each turning
makes a constructive contribution to the effective functioning of the overall
process. From the very outset, however, this idea was given a discursive or
rhetorical construction. For the ancient Sophists viewed dialectic from the
vantage point of disputationof verbal challenges presented in ques-
tion/answer form.5 Their substantially rhetorical version of dialectic was
termed eristic by Plato (from the Greek eris meaning strife), and such ar-
gumentative gymnastics was ridiculed in his dialogue Euthydeimus. Ac-
cording to Xenophon, Socrates said that engaging in dialectic (to
dialegesthai) was so called because it is an inquiry pursued by persons
who take counsel together.6
The aim of this early dialectic was in the main negative. It generally
proceeded by showing that in defending a thesis against objections the
proponent is ultimately led ad absurdum, by being driven into self-contra-
diction. This is evident in the paradox mongering of Eubulides of Miletus
(b. ca. 400 BC),7 an influential exponent of eristic whose discussion stand
alongside the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea as early milestones of Greek dia-
lectic as a mode of puzzle-mongering. In practical effect, this venture soon
disintegrated into pettifogging and hairsplitting, turning to absurdities that
gave the designationsophistryto the entire enterprise. In the hands of
the followers of Euclides of Megara8the teacher of Eubulides and, ac-
cording to Diogenes Laertius, the founding father of eristicthe enterprise
was an exercise in puzzlementa negativism little beyond mere argumen-
tative showmanship.9 Against this background the Sophists viewed their
eristic version of dialectic not with the cognitive aim of establishing some
thesis, but as an instrument of training (paideia), a sort of mental gymnas-
tics, a mind meshing with mind. The object of such exercise was not in-
quiry into the truth but evolving ingenuity in working out the best possible
case for a problematic contention.
The Sophistical eristic at issue was controversy-oriented and consisted
of an exchange of reciprocally conflicting theses and thesis-negations (an-
titheses), propositions and counter-propositions. The practice was oriented
primarily to refutationto ways of arguing that refute or confound the po-
sition of an opponent. In their hands, eristic was a kind of intellectual
jousting match where some master knight stands prepared to take on all
commers on either side of an issue. Its aim is merely negative and refuta-
120
tory. And while sensible people in general take such things as space and
time, change and motion for granted, the Sophists and their followers such
as Diodorus Chronus developed ingenious arguments to the contrary. Thus
in the hands of the much-maligned Sophists of Greek antiquity dialectic
was a process of arguing persuasively on both sides of an issueof sheer
verbal acrobatics which (as Plato has it) Protagoras used to make the
worse argument seem the better. It constituted that part of the rhetoric of
persuasion dealing with the conduct of counter-argumentation in rational
debate.
According to Diogenes Laertius, Aristotle in his (now-lost) Sophist
named Zeno of Elea, the eminent paradoxer, as the true originator of phi-
losophical dialectic in bending Sophistical practice to the needs of philoso-
phical investigation.10 But be this as it may, dialectic as a philosophical re-
source was clearly at work in the endeavors of the Platonic Socrates to util-
ize the discursive rhetorical theory and practice of the Sophists as an
instrument of rational inquiry. And Plato himself was the first philosopher
who pointedly and explicitly assigned a pivotal philosophical role to dia-
lectic as such. Hegel rightly called Platos Parmenides the masterpiece of
ancient dialectics.11
All the same, the ideas of the Sophists had sufficient cogency to provide
Plato and Aristotle, their proper heirs, with some constructive inspiration.12
They paved the way. For while Plato received their discussions to be the
sort of mischief that was to give sophistry its bad name, he nevertheless
devoted much effort to resume dialectics from such degradation.
3. THE MEGARIANS
In the interests of expository convenience let us adopt the following abbre-

viation:
A B is to stand for the course of dialectical discussion embodies a

line of reasoning that leads from A to B where A is to be some basis of
assumption, supposition, or (ideally) conceded fact, and B is a thesis
that emerges as an upshot.
To be sure, a good deal of meaning is packed into this little symbol . For
what is to be at issue is a rational discussion, cogently conducted by a pro-
ponent and a respondent proceeding substantially in the challenge-response
manner of a question/answer interrogation, with the specific aim of assess-
121
ing the pros and cons of some target contention or thesis. And here it does
not matter in the final analysis whether that interlocutor is someone else or
is oneself in the context of a discussion combinated through deliberation
in foro interno. Moreover, will stand for a blank (empty, assumption-
free) starting point, and represents absurdity.
Viewed on this basis, the Megarian refuting dialectic proceeded by way
of a course of reasoning taking the essentially self-distinctive format:
p ~p
However, the difference between the rigorously deductive reductio ad ab-

surdum argumentation that was already familiar in Greek mathematics and
a dialectical argument of this analogous format is that the former estab-
lishes the negation of denial of the contention at issue but the latter its ab-
surdity or meaninglessness. So while the reasoning of the mathematicians
reductio takes the truth-refuting form
p ~p ~p
that of the Megarians has taken the form
p ~p p (where betokens nullity in point of meaning).
The aim here is to establish the inner incoherence (and not just the falsity)
of that basic thesis p. Thus in the case of the liar paradox, we cannot
merely conclude the falsity of
S = This statement (S itself) is false
For if S is indeed false, thenthis being exactly what it claimsS is true,

and we are caught in the web of absurdity once more. In the final analysis,
the task of the Megarian dialectic was not to disprove a proposition by way
of a refutatory via negativa, but rather to demolish it as meaningless.
4. SOCRATES AND PLATO
In Platos Euthydemus the Socratic dialectic still functions in the negative

manner of the Megarian eristic. Only gradually did it dawn on people that
even as in wrestling it need not be the strongest but rather the most adroit
122
wrestler who prevails, so in argumentation it need not be the most power-

ful arguer but rather the party with the best case who will win out. And so
in due course dialectic came to be transmuted in the hands of Socrates and
Plato into a process of question/answer inquiry and investigation designed
to ferret out the meaning of concepts and the truth of statements by way of
best-case inquiry. Once one takes the line that truth is on the side of the
best arguments rather than as that of the best arguer such an evolution is
only natural. This sea-change characterized the dialectic of Socrates as dis-
cussed and practiced in the dialogues of Plato. It led to the sort of cross-
examination which has come to be known as the Socratic Method whose
aim is not merely the gymnastics of honing the minds muscles, but rather
the pursuit of rational inquiry into the subsurface truth of things.
With Socrates, dialectic was an eroteticthat is question-oriented
inquiry into the meaning of ideas conducted through discussionthe
aim of the enterprise was concept-clarification. His specialty was the sort
of process which Aristotle later designated epagg that proceeded by in-
ducing a discussant to grant a concept-explicative general thesis by leading
him there through a series of particular instances and examples. Aristotle
saw general definition and epagogic reasoning as Socratic innovations,13
and he contrasted such positivity with the earlier, destructive mode of
eristic dialectic.
Platos only statement about the origin of dialectics is that it was
brought down from the gods by some Prometheus (Philebus 16c). But to
whom was it delivered? Presumably to Socrates who transmuted the
Megarian negativity into something positive. Books VII and VIII of the
Republic expound the aims of Socratic dialectic which Plato elsewhere de-
scribes as an enquiring into the truth of things by arguments (Phaedo
99e5). Here Platos Socrates has it that: Dialectic seeks through rational
discourse alone, without using sense-perception to discern the true nature
of a thing (VII 532a). It is a method of discursively interactive inquiry for
grasping authentic ideas of each thing (VII 533b). And so for Plato, dialec-
ticbased on the Socratic model of a discursive exchange between a ques-
tioner and respondentis a rational procedure for investigating first prin-
ciples of things, determining the range and substance of the basic concep-
tions of philosophical concern such as truth, beauty, justice, pleasure, and
the likethe Platonic Forms in short.14 In these matters of philosophical
elucidation, the consecutive interchanges of a carefully conducted rational
debate between questioner and respondent can ultimately bring the truth of
the matter to light, so that, as Plato saw it:
123
Dialectic does not treat its hypotheses as first principles, but as hypotheses in
the literal sense, things laid down as a flight of steps which mount up to
something that is not hypothetical but the first principle of all. Then having
grasped this dialectic turns back, and proceeding via the consequences that
depend upon it, it descends to a conclusion, using no sensible objects at all,
but only Forms, moving from one to another and terminating with the same.
... [In this way, dialectic is superior to the special sciences because] their stu-
dents do not go back to first principles but proceed from [otherwise unexam-
ined] hypotheses. (Republic VI, 511 b-d.)
For Plato, accordingly, dialecticcharacterized in the Republic as the

keystone of the sciencesfigures as an instrument of rational inquiry in
matters where, like philosophy, we are not in a position to work with pre-
determined fixities (along the lines of the definitions, axioms, and postu-
lates of geometry). As he saw it, dialectic provides the methodology of ra-
tional inquiry into fundamentals: it furnishes the means for effecting a
transit from the tentative and conditioned to the transcendent Forms that
constitute the fundamental Ideas at stake in philosophical deliberation. On
this basis, Plato viewed dialectic as the proper method of philosophy by
providing an effective and reliable pathway to the understanding of funda-
mentals, and he accordingly contrasted this productive dialectic with the
sophistic pseudo-dialectics of the Sophists. As Plato saw it, dialection pro-
vided the entryway to a world of Reality accessible not to everyday experi-
ence but to reflective thought alone. And for Plato it is dialectic that pro-
vides the instrumentality for effecting the transit from Appearance (the
world of everyday life) to Reality (the realm of Form or Ideas, the
bearers of essence). For it is only through transcending the conflicts and
contradictions of ordinary thought that the mind is led to those deeper re-
alizations that bring capital R-Reality into view.15 In Platos Republic dia-
lectic accordingly came to reign supreme; constituted by knowing how to
ask and answer questions,16 it becomes the copying stone, as it were,
placed above all the sciences.17The idea of a philosophically constructive
dialectic proper goes back to Platos contrast between the merely rhetorical
eristic of the Sophists concern with anomalies and paradoxes, and an in-
vestigative discussion geared to a serious inquiry to ferret out the truth of
things. As Plato saw it, the Sophists engaged in pseudo-dialectic abusea
misuse of discursive reasoning (logos) that issued in sophistry and eristic
rather than in a properly managed rational dialectic as such. For him, Soph-
istry represented the inappropriate mis-application of an inherently valu-
able and useful instrument.
124
Proper dialectic has a constructive use, as is illustrated in the dialogue

Meno. For as far as geometry goes, the slave boy of the Meno is a blank
tablet. At the level of theoretical knowledge he knows nothing, and is, in
effect a cognitive void (here symbolized by ). But when dialectical
elaborations educe a geometric fact p from this emphasis, that is when
p, then it transpires that p has been established dialectically (rather
than being demonstrated systemically). It is not proved by deduction for
axioms but established by a systemically dialectic analysis.
The fact of it is that Plato envisioned two fundamental modes of rational
inquiry. First there is the demonstrative and deductive procedure typified
by the systematization of Euclidean geometry. And this is where dialectic
comes in. Here we established our claims by subordinating them demon-
stratively to certain fundamental propositions (axioms, definitions) and
propositions obtain because they derive from an appropriate axiomatic ba-
sis. But in philosophy there is no self-evident axiomatic basis. Here what-
ever we can achieve must be obtained by dialectical inquiry as a means to
the paramount ideal of alignment to the idea of the good which illuminates
the fundamental purpose of a thing in the light of a knowledge of the
truth.18
For while falsity emerges for introduction the fundamental idea of dia-
lectic as it functions with the Platonic Socrates seems to be that the truth is
that which distinguishes itself through prevailing against counter-argumen-
tation in a process of dialogical controversy.19 Falsity, by contrast, makes
itself manifest through conflict and contradiction. On this basis, the dialec-
tical procedure followed in Platos Pamenides so proceeds as to draw con-
tradictory conclusions from a single hypothesis as a means to refutation
of establishing a certain claims incoherence:
p q and p not-q not-p
Its enmeshment in a self-contradiction marks that original thesis (p) as in-

escapably false. What we have here is once again a fundamentally refuta-
tory employment of dialectic. Here dialectic does useful work, but still
only on the negative side. Plato proposed to go much further.
Plato already stresses that dialectic as method of inquiry through ra-
tional discourse (h dialektik methodos at Republic 533c and h methodos
tn logn Sophist 227a). And he sees it as the best method of inquiry and
peculiarly suited to philosophy.20 But while Plato uses and praises dialectic
125
he nowhere argues for its efficacy: he simply affirms that dialectic is the
proper method for elucidating the ideas but does not explain why.21
Although Platos dialectic was geared specifically to dialogue, it is
nonetheless a something rather more ambitious position since the silently
occurring internal dialogue of the soul with itself is specifically given the
name of thought.22 And Plato took the matter further yet. For him dialec-
tic is the characteristic instrument of philosophy thorough its capacity to
lead thought away the imprecisions of common discourse to an apprehen-
sion and appreciation of the fundamental ideas that a proper understanding
of reality demands.23
And so, as Plato saw it, dialectic is no longer merely an instrument of
sophistical refutation but one of substantiation as well. For one thing, it can
be used probatively as per:
p,
But there is also the prospect of reasoning as per:
~p p p
Since of course p p we see that p is inevitable: whether you shift for p or

~p you will arrive at p either way.
This dialectical way of substantiating a conclusion is clearly different
from a mathematical demonstration that depends on the availability of
prior premises as per
q & (q p) p
For now the conclusion obtains on the effectively commitment-free basis

of the reasoning: If you grant p then well and good. But even if you insist
on ~p you will have p also. Either way you must grant that p obtains. This
premise-free mode of substantiation is particularly significant as Plato sees
it, since philosophy for Plato has no stipulative axioms and no deductive
demonstrations.
All in all, then, while rejecting the negativism of the sophistical eristic
Plato sought to use dialectic for constructive purposes. And here distinc-
tion and differentiation (dihaireses) comes to play a prominent role. Even
when a thesis must be given up in the face of something along the lines of
the negative version of Socratic dialectic, nevertheless distinction can
126
come to the rescue to salvage something from the mishap.24 The underly-
ing idea can be brought to light as follows. Suppose that a dialectical
analysis falsifies the generalization that all M is P because some Ms just
are not Ps. But let it further be that a saving distinction so functions that
while it is indeed false that all M is P, nevertheless when we divide the Ms
into the M1s and non-M1s, it then transpires that all the Ms of type M1 in-
deed are, so that
All M1 is P
The distinction at issue enables that situation to be rescued at least in part.

The dialectical situation runs as follows:
Question: How closely are the Ms related to the Ps?
Proponent: All the Ms are Ps,
Opponent: But the Xs are Ms and they are not Ps.
Proponent: But the Xs are not Ys and all of the Ms that are Ys are
Ps.
The point is that once the proper division is effected (with the Ms divided
into those that are Ys and those that are not), the initial thesis can then be
maintained against dialectical objections, albeit in a qualified form.
A situation of this sort exemplifies the positive thrust of a Platonic dis-
tinction-dialectic. The introduction of distinctions thus enables dialectic to
play a more far-reachingly positive role as an instrument for the explana-
tion and precisification of concepts.
5. ARISTOTLE
Aristotle took matters much further yet.25 Aristotles Topics is the first full-
fledged account of dialectics we have, and Aristotle himself claimed that
prior to his own discussions of the idea it [dialectic] did not exist at all
but remained rudimentary, crude and unsystematic (atechnos).26 In the
Topics, Aristotle undertook a systematic investigation of dialectical proc-
esses, being careful, however, to differentiate dialectical inquiry from
mathematico-logical proof processes, seeing that it is the course of wis-
127
dom to realize the extent to which exactness and certainty can reasonably
be expected in different sphere of deliberation. However, an acknowl-
edgement that dialectic does not demonstrate should not be construed to
mean that it is tentative and uncertain or that it fails to establish its product.
Granted, since it does not demonstrate it does not produce demonstrative
knowledge (apodeixis) of the sort at issue in the Analytics. But demonstra-
tion is not the only route to knowledge (epistm) and not the only road to
the rational validation of claims. For in addition to demonstrative reason-
ing that establishes knowledge there is also the plausible (sub-demonstra-
tive) reasoning that establishes mere credibility or what later philosophers
called warranted assertability.
It seems generally agreed that he distinguishes between a merely rhe-
torical dialectic (a training ground of sorts for engaging in critical disuse,
pervasive argument, legal and political debate, etc.) and an investigative
zeitetic dialectic that has a role in serious inquiry. The latter in turn seems
to have two versions, a tentative, exploratory, experimental (peirastic) dia-
lectic for seeing what can be made of an hypothesisto test-drive it as it
were27and a probative, proto-scientific dialectic aimed at establishing
some fact. These distinctions set the stage for how to coordinate what is
said about dialectic with what is said in the Analytic and Metaphysic B, ,
as well as the practice combinated in such works in the Physics. A closer
look at the details of differentiation can here be waived, since what is sali-
ent for present purposes is the specifically probative sort of investigative
dialecticthe use of dialectic not for training or clarification but for actu-
ally establishing something importantthe undemonstrable first principles
of demonstrative inquiries.
While Aristotle devotes considerable attention to the former, rhetorical
or discursive dialectic in the Topics and Soph. Elen., it functions promi-
nently as a means to merely apparent wisdom (sophia).28 But he also envi-
sions a proto-scientific and investigative and experimental (peirastic) dia-
lectics29 as a means securing the undemonstrable first principles (archai) of
the special sciencesthe basic generalities upon which they are predicated
and which are reflected in the shared fundamentals (koinai archai) used for
exact reasoning in one or another of the sciences.
Rhetorical discourse dialectic, as Aristotle conceived of it, is fundamen-
tally erotetica matter of questions and answers geared to concept clarifi-
cation, much as Socrates had pictured it. There is an initiator who poses a
question, a respondent who suggests an answer. Thereupon the innovator
proceeds to act as a critic who challenges its claim asking further questions
128
Display 1
ARISTOTLES QUESTION-ANSWER DIALECTICS
A proposed A difficulty
A question response to the response
Question revision
to meet the
difficulty
that challenge its tenability. The way in which this question/answer process
functions is sketched in Display 1. But as Aristotle depicted the matter in
his Sophistical Refutations rhetorical dialectic was a second-best, a re-
source for obtaining plausible information in matters where a secure
knowledge based on reasoning from uncontestable principles was not prac-
ticable. For Aristotle did not have all that much faith in rhetorical or dis-
cursive dialectic thanks to the ease with which deception and distortion can
arise in colloquy with others.30 But (proto-)scientific, investigative dialec-
tic is another matter altogether which proceeds rather differently. Dialectic
so understood is not a disputational practice but an investigative proce-
durea process of inquiry, a cognitive methodology or art intermediate in
cogency between the suggestiveness of mere rhetoric and the discoveries
of actual demonstration.
However, a science cannot establish its own ultimate principles, for sci-
entific demonstration has to proceed from premises which must ultimately
come from outside the science itself. Science reasons from but never to its
ultimate premises. Accordingly, Aristotle is emphatic in insisting that
while the first principles (archai) of the sciences cannot themselves be
demonstratedfor then they just would not be what they arethey can
nevertheless be substantiated, and that it is dialectic that provides the in-
strumentality for their substantiation. As he sees it, the principles are prior
to all else, and it is by winnowing the generally shared opinions regarding
the issues that those principles have to be secured. It is just this task that
falls properly and preeminently to dialectic.
129
And so as Aristotle saw it, dialectic is the process of sifting that pro-
vides the pathway to the principles for any [scientific] inquiry.31 Accord-
ingly, he distinguishes clearly between, on the one hand, scientific demon-
stration (apodeixis) which proceeds by inference (syllogismos) from prin-
ciples which, being self-evident as basic truths (prta kai altha), and on
the other the experimental dialectical inferences from merely plausible the-
ses (endoxa).32 And Aristotle viewed this sort of proto-scientific dialectic
as something not only proper but indeed even necessary and indispensable.
The crux of Aristotelian dialectic lies in the cogency of argumentation
of the format
Both q p and ~q p, therefore p
And this reasoning at once generalizes to:
If for all i we have qi p (where the qi constitute a manifold of exhaus-

tive alternatives), then p.
But Aristotle carries this idea one step further. He subscribes to the pre-
sumption that a careful canvas of all the alternative solutions that have
proposed to a problemthe manifold of the endoxa, in shorteffectively
constitute an exhaustive survey, so that the previous principle applies. He
writes:
It is the craft (techn) of the dialecticians to examine the information on all

sides ... For if we know that in some matter the endoxa yield a common con-
clusion [i.e., that each endoxon p entails some shared conclusion q, so that pi
q for all i], then we thereby have refuted the contradictory of this item
[i.e., have thereby refuted ~q since q is now bound to obtain]. For refutation
is the antithesis of demonstration so that what is antitheoretical to some
proofs is thereby refuted.33
For if those endoxa are seen as spanning the whole range of what we are
prepared to consider as the real possibilities, then certainty can be secured
via the logical principle
[(p q) & (~p q)] q
If q emerges from a dialectic that scrutinizes the consequence both of p and

of not-pthat is, of each member of complete inventory of possibilities
130
then we may clearly take it as something that obtains for sure. In sum, if
those endoxa span the entire range of (realistic) possibilities, then dialectic
argumentation in principle extracts (realistic) certainty from them. The up-
shot here is that, as G. E. L. Owen put it, for Aristotle dialectic is merely a
preliminary technique for clarifying and hardening those ideas in current
use which they [i.e., the special sciences] can take over and put to more ac-
curate work.34
Dialectic is peirastic (peirastik = experimental) regarding those things
about which philosophy is gnoristic (gnristik = knowledgeable).35
Whereas philosophy (like any science) proceeds on the basis of established
fact dialectic we try matters out to see where those conflicting positions
lead, looking to find the common ground here. Commonalities amidst con-
flict are a salient aim of the enterprise.
To all visible intents and purposes we have it that in standard demon-
strative reasoning truth is secured by inferences of the format
p and p q p
By contrast, Aristotelian dialectic proceeds to elicit truth via reasoning in

the format:
q p and ~q p p
The former is obtained by outright deduction from a previously secured

premise (viz. p). But the latter proceeds by arguing to a commonality
among conflicting alternativesa process which requires no prior com-
mitment whatsoever but only a survey of alternatives. And just here lies
the reason why Aristotle has it that dialectic calls for arguing both sides of
a case. For it is this feature which, as Aristotle sees it, renders dialectic pe-
culiarly suited for establishing the elements (archai) or basic premises of
scientific demonstration:36
Dialectics is useful regarding the basic principles [archai] of a science ... For
the first principles [to prta] are primary to all else. It is necessary to deal
with them via the endoxa (the accepted plausibilities) of each issue. Just this
belongs peculiarly and most appropriately to dialectic ... and points the way
to the fundamental principles of all inquiries.37
In Aristotelian dialectic we sweep the horizon of plausible possibilities

(endoxa) and show that something obtains irrespective of ones commit-
131
ment to any particular alternative by identifying it as an implied common-

ality on all sides. (Note that if X and Y disagree on some matter what must
be common to them to achieve such disagreement is exactly the definition
of the terms involved!) It is heart and core of Aristotelian dialectic that a
contention that holds in common across the manifold of issue-specific en-
doxa thereby qualifies for acceptance as true. And on this basis Aristotle
has it that dialectical arguments are those that reason from the endoxa (the
generally accepted premises) to something [viz., a common conclusion].38
Aristotelian proto-scientific dialectic thus involves two projects: (1)
clarifying issues through a survey of the endoxathe rival plausible an-
swers to a question duly evaluated via their varying pro- and con-conside-
rations, and thereupon (2) exploring (experimentally as it were) where
these various alternatives lead by way of inferential consequences, and fi-
nally (3) accepting as an established given any commonalities that one en-
counters here. For in the end it is exactly those theses that are indifferent to
the variation of doctrinal position in being shared by every alternative posi-
tion on a particular subject that are qualified to count among the first prin-
ciples of the subject at issue.39 It is this manner of dialectic which, as Aris-
totle sees it, renders the process uniquely fitted to determine the basic prin-
ciples (archai) of a demonstrative science. For there will and must be
certain commonalities to any disputed issuesnamely the terms of refer-
ence that fix the issues under discussion.40
Accordingly, much of Topics Z and H is devoted to the role of definitions
in dialectics of how to deal with definitionsseeing that they are (and must
be) commonalities in coherent deliberations. And Physics IV 1014 affords
a particularly clear illustration of how these three stages of aporetics
namely opinion-compilation/discord-discernment/resolution analysiswill
proceed in practice.41
Where Platos dialectic aimed at effecting distinctions and differences,
Aristotle wanted to push matters further, namely to establish the principles
(archai) in a science. Aristotle thus proceeded differently, surveying alter-
natives with a view to discerning commonalities and generally shared opin-
ionwhich in turn may of course lead to differentiation, distinction, and
definition. For shared opinions willor shouldprove to be significant
and decisive, namely in relation to the meaning of wordsthat is, in mat-
ters of definition.
[While] demonstration proceeds from established (proven and demonstrated)

premises, dialectical reasoning proceeds from opinions that are generally ac-
132
cepted [i.e., shared by all the discussantsall of the rival disputant on a

given issue.]42
But what can this be, this material that is shared in common way all the ri-
val disputants on an issue? The answer is simple: the meaning of the terms
which of course explains the key role of definitionism dialectic. Instead an
agreement on terms is a necessary condition for disagreement on sub-
stance. (We would not really be in disagreement in our claims about Xs
unless by Xs we both mean one and the same thing.) For without a com-
monality of meaning there just is no dispute. And it is effectively on this
basis that Aristotle maintains that: Prior to Socrates dialectic was not yet
at that time sufficiently developed to be able to examine [dialectical] con-
trariety and definition as separate issues.43 And of course the prime candi-
date for agreement among the parties to any controversy will have to be the
meaning of the terms of reference at issue.
Just here lies the rationale of Aristotles insistence on that importance of
securing commonalities among the rival positions of ones opponent in dia-
lectics.44 For the definitions of the key terms must be shared by proponent
and opponent alike if their discussion is to establish contact. Definitions
thus have an epistemological feature that is crucial for Aristotle in that they
provide the fundamentals (archai) of a science, and they constitute a com-
monality in dialectic. And it is just this duality that renders dialectics
uniquely suited to provide for the archai of the sciences. Against Platos
idea of dialectic as a master science, Aristotle took the view of it as merely
preparatory for authentically scientific work. For the principles of a science
do not follow from something yet more fundamental, as the theses of a sci-
ence dofor there is nothing more fundamental. Rather they obtain be-
cause they would on a presupposition-indifferent basis.
Platonic dialectic aimed at fixing the boundaries between concepts via a
separation (dihairesis) that put significant conceptual distinctions into
place. And it sought this conceptual clarity in the interest of achieving a
clear grasp of the ideas on whose basic fundamental truths becomes acces-
sible. In this way, the Platonic dialectic was a dialectic of distinction aimed
at the realization of ultimate truth. But Aristotles dialectic was in a way
the very reverse of Platos. Where the Platonic dialectic aimed at ultimate
truth, the Aristotelian dialectic aimed at basic or fundamental truth: the
embryonic start rather than the full-grown finish of the cognitive enter-
prise. The aim of Aristotelian dialectic was to discern basic definitions and
133
postulations on whose basis a body of scientific understanding can be de-

veloped.
And so, with Aristotle, too, the discernment of basic ideasdefinitions
and postulationswas also crucial of understanding with dialectic provid-
ing the needed instrument here. So in this regard he and Plato were agreed.
But while for Plato the grasp of ideas through definitions was itself to the
end, and goal of dialectic, for Aristotle it was only the starting point.
Aristotle insists that demonstrative knowledge (apodexis) is unable to
establish the nature (ti esti) or anything.45 This, as he sees it, is the proper
work of dialectics. It is not the task of Aristotelian dialectics to justify the
basic principles of the sciencesto argue for or to themfor then they
would not be basic. And of course arguing from them is the work of the
science itself.46 Rather, the work of Aristotelian dialectic is neither to vali-
date these basic principles nor to employ them, but to reveal or identify
them. (In point of validation they are self-evident or humanly inevitable).47
So it is not that dialectics is inferior to apodictics. To be sure, it cannot
manage to do what apodictics canviz., to afford cogent demonstrations.
But then again apodictics cannot do the work of dialectics either: first prin-
ciples are beyond its reach.
Substantiation is indeed at issue in Aristotelian dialectic, but not dem-
onstration. For Aristotle, science is based on demonstration. And here dia-
lectic, its frailties notwithstanding, has a certain advantage. Thus Aristotle
has it that one of the prime uses of dialectic is to establish the basic prem-
ises (foundations, ultimate premises) of the various special sciences. This
sort of mission cannot, of course, be contained by (or within) the science
itself.48 For since demonstration demands premises it follows that not eve-
rything can be demonstrated (without circularity at any rate). And here dia-
lectic can come into its own seeing that it points the way to the fundamen-
tal principles (archai) in all inquiries.49
5. RETROSPECT: THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK DIALECTIC TO

ARISTOTLE
On the basis of the previous considerations, the history of Greek dialectic

can be outlined in telegraphic brevity (and perhaps even in caricature) as
follows, relying on the aforementioned specifications of , , and . On
this basis two main factors characterize early Greek dialectic:
A course of discursive reasoning (as represented by ).
134
The interrelating of a thesis and its contradictory (p and ~p)
The Megarians adopted a reductio-ad-absurdum analogous line of argu-

mentation with respect to meaningfulness (instead of mere truth):
p ~p p
With Socrates it is truth/falsity that is the foreground rather than meaning:
Socrates (Negativeor RefutatoryDialectic)
q p and q ~p ~p
Argumentation of this format effectively destroys a thesis by exhibiting its

self-contradictory character. This sort of dialectic merely establishes fal-
sity. But Socrates moved beyond it. Thus in the Meno we have:
Socrates (Ex nihiloor CreativeDialectic)
p p (proof by extraction ex nihilo)
However, Socrates also provided another positive version of dialectic

one that inspired by reductio ad absurdum reasoning in mathematics and
running essentially as follows:
Socrates (Positive Dialectic)
As a variant if the preceding argumentation can manage to establish a the-

sis by showing that its negation self-destructs through inconsistency.
~p p p (proof by indirectionmoving from denial to concession)
Here substantiation proceeds not ex nihilo, but actually from even less,
namely a denial of the very thesis that is being argued for.
Plato sought to find yet another, rather different positivity in negative
dialectic.
135
Plato (Rescue from inconsistency by distinctions)
(p has been seriously maintained but has significant objections)

( p )(p & [p p]).
Here is to mean is a substantial part of
The idea is that with plausible falsehoods there is a kernel of truth which
can be brought to view by means of distinctions. The key idea here is that
of deploying a distinction to rescue a kernel of truth in a plausible false-
hood.
Aristotle (premise-less proof via a canvas of alternatives)
Aristotle prepared to use dialectic to extract truth from a survey of alterna-

tives. His procedure was based on the principle:
q p and ~q p p
Logicians came to call this format of reasoning a constructive dilemma.

Here Aristotle insisted that Dialectical alternatives must be exclusive and
exhaustive: a yes or a no must always be applicable.50 Such reasoning is
effectively assumption free. Its point is that independently of whether or
not you accept q, p is available either way.
However, Aristotle extended this form of reasoning via two additional
steps, first to the pluralized generalization:
Throughout a range of exclusive and exhaustive alternatives qi we have:

qi p p
and then having the manifold of alternatives he defined by the endoxa on

the issue:
For every issue-relevant endoxon e we have: e p p
The manifold of actually considered alternatives is presumed to be exhaus-

tive. In effect this approach proceeds by seeing the endoxa as spanning the
whole spectrum of real possibilities. And it is just this dialectical mode of
reasoning that Aristotle views as key to the first principles of science.
136
***
As these deliberations indicate, Greek dialectics underwent an ongoing de-

velopment in point of the logical modus operandi of the enterprise. The
Megarians began matters with a dialectic of incoherence: yielding the
negative result that something or other is untenable in point of meaningful-
ness. Socrates shifted such a nihilistic dialectic to a positive direction;
something affirmative now emergeseven from a dialectic of refutation.
Plato then added the idea of a presupposition-free dialectic where some-
thing positive emerges ex nihilo. And finally Aristotle adds the idea of a
presupposition-indifferent dialectic where a certain conclusion emerges
amidst the spectrum of alternative possibilities. Moreover, while Platos
dialectic saw the clarification of ideas as and end in itself, Aristotle inte-
grated the process into a broader theory of science as rational inquiry and
gave dialectic a critical task here, namely the establishment of first princi-
ples. The history of Greek philosophy from the pre-Socratics to Aristotle
accordingly saw dialectic as undergoing a steady process of transformation
and thereby as assuming an ever more significant role.
7. STOICS AND EPICUREANS
The Greek philosophers of the post-Aristotelian era divide into three main
groups in their position with regard to dialectic.
Some, mainly among the Epicureans, kept the rhetorical sector of Aris-
totles dialectic in the forefront and thereby saw it as addressing matters of
plausibility and probability rather than knowledge properly speaking. On
this basis the Pyrrhonian skeptics, who demanded rigorous science or noth-
ingand deemed the former unavailablehad only contempt and distrust
for dialectic, and given to the very term a pejorative and derogatory sense.
Others, mainly among the Stoics, defended dialectic against the skep-
tics51 and proposed to identify dialectic with rigorous reasoning at large
in two regards: (1) the determination of categorical truth, and (2) the de-
termination of conditional truths relative to hypothetical givens. On this
basis Posidonius of Apamea (b. ca. 135 BC), a Stoic of the middle period,
characterized dialectic as aimed at the assessment of categorical truth and
falsity,52 and distinguished it from demonstration which deals with infer-
ence and conditional truth relationships. (Logiclogiknow came to be
conceptualized as the broader enterprise that encompasses both.) Other
Stoics divided logic into rhetoric and demonstrationthat is, into persua-
137
sive and probative reasoning. They then sometimes identified dialectic

with logic as a whole (rhetoric included) and sometimes as rigorously de-
monstrative reasoning alone. But either way, dialectic achieved a status of
definite logical respectability in Stoic thought.
In late antiquity, however, a demotion of dialectic to a level inferior and
subordinate to logic became established, with dialectic relegated to the
lesser status that Aristotle has envisioned for it in the context of plausible,
sub-demonstrative reasoning. The Epicurean school inclined in this direc-
tion.
Ciceros Topica resembled Aristotles in its concern for the plausible
answers to controversial questions.53 Cicero, however, under the influence
of both Stoic and Epicurean inspirations, assumed a compromise position.
He viewed dialectic as an ars judicandi designed to guide judgments in
matters where certainty is not available and we must settle for plausibility
and probability. (Topics, by contrast, he deemed a matter of an ars inveni-
endi, geared to determining the subjects and issues regarding which further
inquiry can profitably be directed.)
8. PLOTINUS AND NEO-PLATONISM
In keeping faith with Plato, Plotinus maintained that dialectic is not simply
an instrument of philosophy but actually forms an integral part of it. He
held that this must be so because the fundamental rationality of being en-
joins a structural identity between the rational dialectic of intelligent
thought (nous) and its processual unfolding in the ontology of being
(ousa). Dialectic as such will accordingly be required for an adequate the-
ory of reality. In this insistence that dialectic as something essential to and
fundamental for philosophical deliberation Plotinus stood closer to Plato
than to Aristotle.
In subsequent neo-Platonism the dialectics of contrastive opposition
played a prominent role. This pivots on the idea of a linking function be-
tween opposites. For example
Knowledge as mediating between a knowing subject on the one hand

and a known object on the other.
or more ambitiously:
138
The Incarnate Christ as mediating between man on the one hand and
God on the other.
In contrast to Aristotle, this sort of neo-Platonic dialectic aimed more at

mediation than at commonality. And in extending this perspective further,
the contrastive triad of sub/standard/hyper or again of insufficiency/suffi-
ciency/superfluity also came into prominence as a theme for dialectical
mediation. Thus the negative dialectic of the neo-Platonist Proclus
brought to particular prominence that contrast: nothing/something/every-
thing (the all-encompassing).54
The dialectical interconnection of opposites plays a significant role in
the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, where it figures still in such oppo-
site forms as being/nothing, unity/plurality, identity/difference, immanence/
transcendence, knowledge/ignorance, potentiality/causality, possibility/ne-
cessity, order/disorder. No such concept could be conceived or understood
without an at least tacit grasp of its contrary. And the arrangements of real-
ity represented a constant re-negotiation between such opposites in the af-
fairs of their realization.
Platos Timaeus has it that as cosmic rationality persuades matter to
take on the form of a rationally structured lawful order. On this basis, neo-
Platonism managed to forge a link between the dialectics of Plato and Aris-
totle and the metaphysics of reality. Dialectic now is not just a matter of
rhetoric and epistemology, but of metaphysics as well. In due course this
reality-conditioning view of dialectics came into prominence among the
medievals and thereafter became a major force in German idealism.
***
Modern discussions of dialectics often exhibit a lamentable indifference

regarding exactly what is at issue here. What dialectic is; how it works; the
procedural methodology of the ways and means of proceeding dialecti-
callyall these are matters of unconcern. Instead of elucidating the proc-
ess of dialectic itself, the discussion at issue often does not focus upon its
results, addressing what it is supposed to accomplish and what useful
workor, as the case may be, mischiefcan be wrought by proceeding
dialectically. The ancients, to their credit, do not open themselves to this
complaint. Plato provides ample examples of dialectical procedurequite
sufficient to indicate what he sees to be at issue. Aristotle explicitly devel-
ops a substantial theory of dialectic. And in generally identifying dialectic
139
with logic the Stoics unburdened themselves of the obligation to provide a

separate account. Even as late as Kant we are given a detailed account of
how dialectic functions and why it is fallacious. But with the post-Kantian
moderns we only too often encounter exaltation or derogation of dialectic
without entering into detail regarding just exactly what dialectical proc-
esses and procedures actually are.
9. THE SCHOOLMEN
In Chapter IV of his De dialectica entitled De artibus ac disciplines liber,

Boethius transmitted the idea of dialectic to the early Middle Ages in its
substantially Stoic form as logic in toto. On this basis dialectics became,
for the earlier medievals, the science of exact reasoning at large, and
thereby encompassed both matters of language as used in formulating
propositions and matters of inference as used in relating propositions to
one another. Thus seen as a science, dialectic stood in contrast to mere
rhetoric as a linguistic art.
Dialectic consolidated its elevated status with the revival of Aristotelian
teachings in the 12th century, and among various schoolmen it eventually
came to embrace and encompass just about the whole of logic. Some, how-
ever, were more reserved and St. Thomas was ambivalent. On the one
hand, he followed Aristotle in contrasting dialectic with demonstration. On
the other hand, he accepted it as a part of logic, albeit not the logic of dem-
onstration but of mere plausibility.
Nevertheless, the very mode of exposition of St. Thomas magnus opus,
the Summa Theologica, is dialectical in structure: posing disputed ques-
tions and assessing the pros and cons of various plausible-appearing an-
swers. And this general policy of position assessment by a systemic
pro/con survey of competing views was to become a standard practice in
European philosophy until the Renaissance when this sort of dialectic
shifted from philosophy proper to the realm of rhetoric.55
And because Averroes insists in his tract On the Harmony of Religion
and Philosophy that dialectical reasoning from plausible suppositions has a
constructive role in theology whenever statements that are not certain but
merely suggestive or figurative are under consideration.
For many medievals, however, dialectics was in effect logic at large, the
science of demonstration through which rational inquiry sought veritatis
seu falsitatis discretio.56 And as such dialectic constituted a key part of the
institutional trivium of grammar, rhetoric and dialectic (i.e., logic). Thus
140
while the medieval treatment of dialectic forms an important chapter in

the history of logic, a considerable part of this discussion can be left aside
in the context of the history of dialectic as traditionally understood in its
relation to specifically philosophical methodology.57
Many scholastics, however, viewed dialectic as the art of reasoning in
general, the whole of logicand accordingly spoke simply of logic, with
the term dialectic falling into disuse. This tightening linkage of dialectic to
logic, rendered the traditional link of discourse and rhetoric in danger of
being broken. This was, ultimately averted alike by the widening apprecia-
tion of the Aristotelian corpus reinforced by the instructional embedding of
disputation in the burgeoning university system.
Insofar as dialectic is a feature of the actual practice of academic dispu-
tation, it continued to play an important role in higher education through-
out the middle ages.58
Along with grammar and logic dialectics constituted one member of the
medieval triviumthe basic liberal arts of the academic curriculum. The
schoolmen saw dialectic as a two sided venturean ars et via docendi that
constituted a mode of rational investigation and a procedure which could,
in practice, serve to teach people the process of rational inquiry. It repre-
sented the pursuit of knowledge through dialogic exchange of the sort typi-
fied by medieval academic disputations. The aim was to evaluate the pro-
bative credentials of various contentions and thereby to serve as an instru-
ment of inquirya touch-stone for assessing the truth of things. In this
way Boethius of Dacia (ca. 12301284) saw dialectic as traversing a via
media between actual knowing (scientia) and blank ignorance (ignoran-
tia),59 based not on proper reasons (rationes propriale) but on mere endoxa
(rationes communes et probabiles).
And as late as John Buridan (d. 1358) and William of Ockham (d. ca.
1348), in commenting on Aristotles Topics discussed his dialectical syl-
logisms under the title argumentatio dialectica with its establishing of a
plausible conviction (persuasio probabilis) based on the exploitation of
endoxa (opinio).60 And in the same vein late medieval neo-Scholastics such
as Johannes Versor (d. 1482) drew from Aristotles Topics the idea of a
logic of verisimilitude/probability dealing in plausible opinions, to contract
with a more rigorously secured scientia demonstrative.61
Among the medievals, then, alike Muslims (Averroes) and Christians
(Albert the Great), dialectic, following Aristotle, was generally seen as a
method of inquiry which seeks to answer our questions on the basis of
probabilities rather than certainties, of mere plausibility rather than cer-
141
tain truth. On such an approach, dialectic belongs not to science proper, but
to science light, so the speak.
Under the influence of Cicero and Boethius, the medievals increasingly
saw the disputational dialectic of pro and con as a means of addressing
problems and resolving questions in theology and practical philosophy.62
And in general theyand especially those who identified dialectic with
logicsaw dialectic as a method of thinking in philosophy and not as a
substantive part of the subject.
But its very prominence created problems, and as dialectics became in-
creasingly identified with rational inquiry dialectician became a term of
theological derogation for those who sought to make reason and logic the
ruling standard for everythingtheology included.63
However, with the humanists of the 15th century, the ancient views re-
garding dialectic enjoyed a resurgence. Thus the Dialecticae disputatines
of Laurentius Valla (c. 14021457) compares logic with the issues of Aris-
totles Topics, as does Rudolph Agricola (ca. 14441485), whose De in-
ventione dialecticae returns the matter to its Aristotelian basis with the
declaration that the work of dialectics relates to merely probable matters by
way of weighing the conflicting argumentsand the rival authoritiesthat
speak pro and con regarding the rival answers to a debatable question.64
10. KANT AND THE DIALECTICAL MISJUDGMENT
By the time of Descartes with his quest for certainty and his contemptuous
rejection of mere plausibility based on the informed opinions, the critics of
dialectics won a decisive victory. And with the Renaissances rejection of
scholasticism, European thinkers sought to a Novum Organon and dialectic
became downgraded as fallacious, erroneous, and mis-reasoning (the realm
of the Kantian Trugschlsse). As Kant saw it, the work of reason is never
done: it never achieves the completed totality of rational understanding
which dialectical reason mistakenly claims to provide. And so for Kant
analytic is, in effect, right reasoning and sound logic while dialectic is er-
roneous reason and mistaken logicin matters of premature conclusion-
jumping. Reason, as Kant saw it, is subject to a critique because its project
is caught up in a dialectical process where question succeeds question be-
cause every answer itself engenders further questions, thereby precluding
the comprehensively adequate systematization of knowledge which reason
demands. Paradoxical though it seems, reason is not altogether reasonable
142
in its demands, and opens itself to criticism on this basis, a circumstance

that provided the rationale for Kants Critique of Pure Reason.
With Kant, dialectic is a pseudo-logic of error: a process of reasoning
that brings to light the flaws and faults of the mis-reasoning in which we
become enmeshed in taking the mis-step of letting reason go beyond its
proper role in taking its own (self-postulated) instrumentalities as actual
objects (given realities), thereby endowing something of merely subjective
validity with objective reality. Kant accordingly saw dialectics as a matter
of revealing the pathology of reason seeing that reasoning in abstraction
from the sensuous condition under which aloneas Kant sees ita
knowledge of objects is possible:
[Such reasoning will] always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical. For
abstract reason yields nothing whatever about the content of our cognition,
but merely sets the formal conditions of their accordance with the under-
standing, which do not characterize objects and instead are quite indifferent
to them. ... For this reason we have chosen to designate this part of logic Dia-
lectic, in the sense of a critique of dialectical illusion.65
The idea of a transcendental dialectic is one of the centerpieces of Kants

critical philosophy and the section of this title embodies some one-third of
his Critique of Pure Reason. But for Kant, dialectic is a logic of illusion
bringing to light the error arising through a natural and inevitable decep-
tion that rests on subjective [i.e., supported by the mind itself] principles
which pit themselves up in an objective [i.e., inherent in the existing reali-
ties with which the mind is concerned].66 Such illusory logic prevails
where one cannot settle matters convincingly with either a yes or a nay and
arises whenever we inappropriately reify (hypostatize) as an actual object
that exist in reality some item which in fact is a mere contrivance of
thought. We are led not merely into error but into actual self-contradiction
and antinomy. The confusions and contradictions that surface through such
a dialectic are only of a negative, error-revelatory-bearing. And since se-
curing truth is not just a matter of avoiding error, dialectic just is not a
proper instrumentality for inquiry into the truth of things and the very term
dialectical stands for deception and delusion.
As Kant saw it, dialectical thinking is thus an exercise in mis-reasoning,
the product of a fallacythe fallacy of illicit reification, inappropriate hy-
postatizations that arises by treating as an object (thing or substance) some-
thing that is a mere idea. Dialecticthe systematic study of this phenome-
nonthus deals with a natural and unavoidable illusion [of human
143
thought] which arises when subjective principles which impose themselves

upon us as objects.67 Accordingly, in dialectical situations there is a recip-
rocal intertwining of thesis and antithesis. Both T A and A T will now
obtain, where A is effectively not-T. Since in standard logic the former re-
lationship (T not-T) means that not-T obtains, and the latter relationship
(not-T T) means that T obtains, we arrive at the self-contradiction: T and
not-T. The situation that results is thus one of reciprocal annihilation, there
being just as strong an argument for affirming as for denying a claim about
the non-entity at issue. In dialectical situations we have a literal self-con-
tradiction that betokens the fact that our theoretical reasoning cannot reach
beyond the realm of experience into an experience-transcendent realm of
things in themselves. For Kant, dialectic is thus merely a failed logic of er-
rorspecifically error that results when pure thought outreaches itself in
seeking entry on its own basis into the domain of actual reality and objec-
tive fact.68
For Kant, then, dialectic is, in effect, logical thinking gone awry. He
carries the conception back to Platos conception of the Sophists as a mat-
ter of pointless verbal gymnastic. In particular, he sees classical metaphys-
ics as plunged into this all-destructive quicksand through the reification or
hypostatization of expansibility inaccessible totalities such as my self (the
ego) on the same total of my experiences, or reality-at-large (the universe)
as the totality of existing things. When we endorse claims regarding such
problematic objects we fall into contradictions of the sort typified by
Kants antinomies where what we say either way, positively or negatively
alike, can be argued for with equal soundnessor in fact unsoundness.
The result is an over-reachingly transcendental dialectic where nothing
can be resolved because the issues are such that equally cogent arguments
be given on both sides of the issues. We are carried back to the destructive
negativism of the Megarian dialectic and the cognitive catastrophe of
Zenos paradoxes.
11. FICHTE (17751854) AND SCHELLING (17621814)
The interest and to some extent the achievement of J. G. Fichte and F. W.

T. Schelling was to restore dialectic to the place of pride to which it had
aspired in Greek antiquity. They sought to rescue dialectic from Kantian
condemnation and turn it once more into something positive and produc-
tive.
144
One important eventual attempt to rescue dialectic from the strictures of

Kant was Arthur Schopenhauers essay on eristic dialectic.69 Schopen-
hauer, however, approached the issue from the angle of logic in specific,
rather than that of philosophical methodology at large. Here the earlier
post-Kantians had taken a different line.
Fichte in effect turned the Kantian picture of philosophical dialectic up-
side down. For him, dialectical reasoning does not mark a separating
boundary between thought and reality but rather a joining linkage between
these two domains; it explores a boundary that does not so much separate
as adjoin.
With Kant the only reality there is for usthe only reality with which
we finite intelligences can have any cognitive contactis the reality at is-
sue in our thought: the reality that we ourselves construct in the course of
thinking of reality in itself (as such)apart from the reality of our ap-
propriate thinkingis an unalterable function with which we can have
dealings. And dialectic is the realm of illusion and delusion that arises
when we treat this unalterable irreality as part of our domain of knowledge.
Dialectic, in sum, represents a domain of illusion.
Fichte would have none of this. For him, dialectic is the very process by
which we construct that one and only view of reality as one can ever
achieve: it affords the means by which thought at once engenders and de-
vises its view of reality. Dialectic, in short, is the process of rational in-
quiry that we all usenot just as individuals, but as a community of ra-
tional investigatorsin determining the truth which (in virtue of being just
thatnamely truth) gives us our account of the real. Communally under-
stood dialectic is a subject-transcendent (objective) process. The dialectical
interchange through which ones personal instructions-to-think (ones the-
ses) encounter and respond to the apposed difficulties and objections (the
antitheses) arising in the intersection of oneself with others is the path-
way to objectivity and rational certainly. And so the schema
thesis antithesis synthesis
formed a centerpiece of Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre, and for him the corre-

sponding dialectic provides a pathway not to Kantian delusion but to certi-
fied truth.
Fichte maintained that in seeking to attune our concepts to reality we
are constantly faced with their inherent inadequacy. The fit between reality
and concepts is always imperfecta spade is never just exactly a spade:
145
there is always more to it than that. Every conceptualization of reality is in

some way imperfect, and every aspect of reality A bumps up against the
not-a which at once differs from (and yet serves to define) it: omnia deter-
minatio est negatio. We must accept that reality is defined through a unity
of opposites. Neither concord (unity) nor discord (multiplicity) is an ulti-
mate principle for the minds dealing with reality: the two are locked in a
complex union which dialectic seeks to unravel without ever quite suc-
ceeding in the process.
Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre accordingly endeavored to rescue dialectic
from Kantian negativism, transmuting it from a device for refutation to one
of investigation, converting it from the negativity of exclusion to the posi-
tivity of inclusion in matters of cognition. He geared dialectic to truth, and
proposed to investigate this via commonplaces, propositions reminiscent of
Aristotelian endoxa that are conceded universally without contradiction by
anyone.70 The Principle of Identity, A is A served him as a paradigm ex-
ample here. Everything is just exactly itself: self-positing is the crux. And
from here Fichte moved on to the Law of Contradiction A is not-A. Pre-
sumably we are then to go on to A is B where B is something that is more
informative than the merely trivial A and yet different from the falsity not-A.
Accordingly, with Fichte dialectic was once more to be a methodology
of philosophical inquiry rather than refutation.71 His approach roots in the
ideas of self-development, broadly understood and consisting of three
steps, corresponding to the just-validated dichotomy:
Self-realization, self-identification, self-assertion. This is reflected in

the logical Principle of Identity, A is A. Here the item at issue (self,
ego) posits or constitutes itself.
Self-differentiation, self-contrast, self-separation. This is reflected in

the logical Principle of Contradiction, A is not non-A. Here the item
at issue (self, ego) posits or constitutes a contrasting, self differenti-
ated other.
Self-development through interactive engagement between the self

and the self-differentiated other. This is reflected in the manifold of
item-descriptive truth of the format A is B. Here the agent at issue
becomes self-limiting through disfunction by interacting with and re-
lating to that contrasting other.
146
Display 2
FICHTEAN DIALECTIC
Item Item
constitution contrast
(Thesis) (Antithesis)
Rational
elaboration
(Synthesis)
This self-oriented tripartite process yields Fichtes basic dialectical princi-

ple as conveyed in the striking (though not particularly helpful) formula:
The Ego posits a limited ego in opposition to a limited non-ego.
As Fichte saw it there is a process of constructive development at work
here in dialectic, properly understood. At every level of consideration for
natural particulars to human instruments to human societies to the universe
at large. By speaking of items rather than egos, one can delineate Fichtes
overall dialectic in the cyclic manner depicted in Display 2. To Fichtes
mind, such a process pivots on the triad: of thesis/antithesis/synthesis, a
triad of which he was the first to speak in this general context. But clearly
dialectic is now no longer a matter of dialogue or discussion but is trans-
muted into an instrument for the analytical development of thought.
Schelling further extended this line of thought. With both Fichte and
Schelling the transcendental ego, the thinking I, is at the center of the
stage. But while Fichte focused on how the I thinks (i.e., the concepts at is-
sue) Schelling focused upon what the I thinks (the realities its seeks to ad-
dress). Fichte saw dialectics as addressing the developing of knowledge;
Schelling as addressing its developed results: with Fichte mind conceived
of reality, with Shelling mind constituted it. Fichtes idealism is one of
process, Schellings is one of product. Where Fichte held thought to reveal
reality, Schelling sought to infuse reality with thought.72 But both alike saw
dialectic as a crucial means for relating the two. But with Schelling that
knower comes into the background in relation to what is known.
147
12. SCHLEIERMACHER (17681834)
Friedrich Schleiermacher was another German idealist who took a view of

dialectic more favorable than Kant. For even as for the Stoics, dialectic
was simply logic in general, so for Schleiermacher, it was simply the proc-
ess of philosophizing (of ars philosophandi: die Kunst zu philosophie-
ren).73 Schleiermacher gave five series of lectures on dialectic at the Uni-
versity of Berlin during 181131.74 In these lectures he sought to restore
dialectic to the place of pride as the characteristic and proper method of
philosophy. He envisioned for it the role assigned to it in Platos Republic
and characterizes dialectic as the manifold of the (procedural) principles
of the act of philosophizing, in sum, the philosophical method par excel-
lence. Dialectic, he wrote, contains the very principles of philosophy.75
Given that natural philosophy forms part of philosophy at large, dialectic is
thus a matter of the methodology of rational inquiry in general and ber-
haupt, the organon of all the sciences. And so in much of post-Kantian
German idealism dialectic became the methodology of philosophy (at
least) or even Wissenschaft (at large): the rational advance of inquiry from
an achieved stage of development to its successors. Given this synoptic
view of the matter, it is not surprising that Schleiermacher never gave any
definite view of how dialectic works as a precisely defined process. For
him, dialectic was the methodology (organon) of cognitive development at
large which eventuated in a systemicor, as he says, symphonic
coordination within the community of inquirers at large in a way that as-
sures the objective cogency of their findings.
Like Hegel, Schleiermacher rejected the idea of a form/content separa-
tion in matters of cognition. He maintained, contrary to Kant, that constitu-
tive and regulative principles could not be distinguished and separated
from one another. And he insisted that:
What have been called metaphysics and logic in modern time are nothing
other than two parts of dialectic [incorrectly treated] in isolation from each
other and, for this reason, robbed of their proper life.76
Dialectic is to serve as a remedy for addressing the limitations of everyday

language which is not adequate for the characterization of deeper truths.
Despite the obstacles created by an imperfect language, a properly man-
aged dialectical inquiry can nevertheless, enable thought to achieve greater
accuracy with imperfect concepts.
148
However, Schleiermacher sharply rejected Hegels idea of a strictly

logical dialectic of pure thought and rarefied logic alone. Rejecting any
sort of form/content separation, he refused to countenance the idea of
pure, experience-abstractive thinking and saw it as the work of dialectic
to adjust our concepts to the realities of experience.77 He thus viewed that
thought and reality are coordinate in a dialectically interactive relationship
where each coordinates with the other through language via the principle
that truth is adequate to reality (adaequatio ad rem). But here reality is in
the drivers seat and thoughts pursuit of truth must accept its role as sec-
ond fiddle.78 In this regard Schleiermacher was less of an idealist than
Fichte and Schelling who effectively rejected the idea of a reality known
but nowise constituted by thought.79
13. HEGEL (17701831)
In the evolution of transcedentalistic philosophy in post-Kantian German

idealism, dialectic underwent a transformation. After all, if the real is ra-
tional, and if rational deliberation proceeds along the lines of a dialectical
process, then it becomes plausible to accept the mistaken to see dialectic
not as a process of thought in thoughtin experience and reasoningbut
rather as a process of change and development in nature.
Discursive dialectic here gives way to natural-process dialectic, a trans-
formation vividly exemplified in G. W. F. Hegel. But regrettably, the story
of Hegelian dialectic is murky. There are just about as many views of He-
gelian dialectic as there are scholars who endeavor to explain it.80 Matters
have so evolved that any exposition of Hegels dialectic is less a matter of
textual explanation than one of conjectural interpretation. For the reality of
it is that, as one recent author puts it, the generations of scholarship de-
voted to explaining what Hegel said has not led, so far, to any satisfactory
result.81
Overall, Hegel contemplated two versions of dialectic.
On the one hand stood the narrower version of the highly formalized
dialectic of his Logic, whose aim was to provide a theoretical rationale for
the Kantian categories. This version of dialectic is the cognitive revelation
of the lawfulness inherent in the very nature of thought.82 Such a logical
dialectic is in the first instance a theory of thought that addresses the inter-
connections and interlinkages of concepts in the analytical development of
their meaning (in this regard not unlike the procedure of Fichte). The basic
idea could be depicted in terms of a relationship of conceptual involvement
149
in terms of the formula: In the endeavor to think clearly and cogently

about X one will be driven to having to take account of Y. This dialectic
elucidates the relationship of ideas, with dialectical negation as a crucial
factor in developing distinctions. On this approach rigorous thinking on
any matter pushes the issue towards the boundary which separates it from
its negative so as to make it possible to see the original issue in a clearer
light. Hegels dialectic holds that in the elucidation of a concept we are in-
evitably led a contrasting understanding that brings its limits to light and
thereby raises our understanding of the concept at issue to a higher level of
accuracy and adequacy. Hegel accordingly praised Platos Parmenides as
probably the greatest masterpiece of ancient dialectic.
Supplementarily and in contrast to his logical dialectic, Hegel also con-
templated an ontological dialectic of historical developments.
Hegel carried the idea that truth is correspondence to fact to its logical
conclusion of insisting on the structural identity of rational thought with
that of reality itself. And so if a process of dialectics is to coordinate our
thought to the truth of things, then a corresponding dialectic of natural
process must represent the nature of reality itself even as the equation (ob-
viously a thought-object) portrays the circle or ellipse that it represents.
And so as thought unfolds dialectically, so reality itself must exhibit a dia-
lectical process of development. Thus in the end Hegel sees the dialectical
point of view as ones only avenue towards an adequate grasp on the na-
ture of reality. For him dialectical progress is not only a means for the
comprehension of reality but a formative aspect of the reality itself that is
being comprehended. On this basis, Hegel extended dialectic beyond the
category-dialectic of the logic to the more full-blooded developmental dia-
lectic of his historico-cultural concerns. For in moving beyond the formal-
istic dialectic of the Logic Hegel also envisioned a more loosely construed
dialectic of opposed and conflicting tendencies whose working out over
time characterizes the development of thought in human communities. And
so he ultimately moved on to a dialectical dynamic of development as
forms of historical processuality.
For Fichte, our conception of things arises from the activity of personal
thought: First comes the I of subjective awareness, then the objective other
lying beyond our own control and then the complex reality arising through
situations between the two. Here the agent of developmental dialectic is the
activity of a single agent, the transcendental. With Hegel, by contrast,
thought and reality are coordinate and co-equal in the larger scheme of
things and it is through their coordination within a culturally formed body
150
of knowledge that our conception of reality emerges. The historical unfold-

ing of the Hegelian dialectic tells a story not dissimilar from Platos view
in the Timaeus of thought and reason (Geist) endeavoring to tame, do-
mesticate and civilize the recalcitrant reality of the worlds material.
And so, dialectic figures not only in Hegels logic-geared metaphysics
but in his theory of history as well. For Hegel extended the idea of dialec-
tics from thought and discourse to the realm of natural and social proc-
esses. The interplay of the forces and propensities at work in nature and
societyrather than of theoretical thesis and counter-thesiscame to the
fore in Hegels conception of dialectical processes. However because the
real is rational, a coordinating and correlation between thematical and de-
velopmental processes was conserved, so that Hegels dialectic remained
fundamentally rational in its orientation. Accordingly, the difference is not
as large as it might seem on first thought. Thus Hegel writes the The his-
torical succession of philosophical systems is one and the same as the
logico-deductive order in the determination of the Idea.83
While Hegel sometimes talks as though dialectic were simply the gen-
eral method of philosophizingin his own philosophy at any ratehe
generally means something more grandiose by the term, namely the ration-
ally determinate (Geist-managed) developmental process through which
Existence/Reality (das Seiende) unfolds over time with historical necessity.
After all, the self-definition of anything is a matter of distinguishing and
differentiating it from that which it is not, and in this mode of negative
reason dialectic can be productive.84 As such, it is inevitably developmen-
tal because any given mode of conceptionof explanatory understand-
ingleads to inconsistency and contradiction unless and until qualified
and reconfigured through inclusion within a larger framework of under-
standing.85
As Hegel put it:
Everything about us in this world may be viewed as a product of Dialectic.

For we must realize that everything finite, rather than being stable and ulti-
mate, is changeable and merely transient. Just this is what we mean by the
Dialectic of the finite, by which the finite, implicitly encompassing more
than what it is, is forced by and its own immediate or natural being so as to
turn suddenly into its opposite.86
Hegel thus saw dialectic as tracking an unfolding process alike in thought

(discursively) and in nature (developmentally). Such a step from cognitive
to ontological dialectic is pivotal for the philosophy of Hegel, which sees
151
dialectic as being concurrently and conjointly a process in the development

of knowledge and in the development of the universe itselfthe reality
which includes the evaluation of Absolute Thought. For Hegels prede-
cessors, and Fichte in particular, dialectic was an instrument of inquiry
for the development of rational thought about the real. With Hegel, how-
ever, an insistence on the correspondence of true thought with its object
dualized dialectic into a process of information that also yields a conven-
iently ontological and epistemological account of reality.
The Hegelian dialectic is, in effect, the entire process of inquiry, con-
strued two-sidedly, on the one hand in progressively constituting and re-
constituting our view of the world in cognition with, on the other hand, the
world as presented in the world-picture that results. It is thus the complex
composite of (as it were) the map and the terrain it maps conjoined in due
coordination. Dialectic accordingly deals developmentally with the struc-
ture of reality conjointly in its cognition and ontological manifestation.
And developmentally this process comes to an ever more adequate and im-
proved revision increasingly approximating the Absolute Idea towards
which the actually realized situation is tending and, as it were, striving.
The sequential pattern of such a specifically dialogic process is of
course readily generalized to the idea of any cyclically repetitive process of
production where the end product of each cycle furnishes the starting in-
gredient for the next interaction.
The work of Hegelian dialectic is thus two-sided, representing a paral-
lelism in the development not just of a cognition of reality but coordina-
tively of the very reality that is cognized.87 This parallelism is encapsulated
in the thesis that the real is realistthat the rational structure which inquiry
brings to light in its study of reality is at the same time a characteristic of
the structure of that reality itself. Just as a printing press gives physical re-
alization to the cognitive content of a text, so physical reality at once en-
capsulates and encodes a cognitive.
Hegel thus saw dialectic as a process of rationally enforced conver-
gences of our inquiry-based question-resolution on the one hand and the
worlds actual facts on the othera convergence in which the potential
disparity between thought and truth is ultimately overcome in a unity iden-
tification that constitutes absolute knowledge.88
For Hegel, dialectic is the process through the operations of reason
come to be manifest in reality. Since truth corresponds to reality (an
adaquatio ad rem) this correspondence manifests itself two-sidedlyboth
in the character of adequate thought and in the rational investigation of na-
152
ture that such thought portrays. And just as natural reality has an historical
and developmental character, so this is trusted by the cognitive proceed-
ings of the thinking beings whose operationsfrom one part of view
represents the strings of natural reality to come to cognitive terms with it-
self. Understood in this way, dialectic is the interactive process thought
which reality comes to be self-comprehended (and this spiritualized or ra-
tionalized). As such dialectic is a two-sided (epistemically cognitive and
ontologically dialectical) process. Thus as Hegel sets matters in the Ency-
clopedia, dialectic makes manifest two sides of the same coin: that of ac-
tual occurrence as reflected in the parallel duality of physical (material)
and explanatory (intellectual) process. For him, dialectic is a two sided
process that is at once epistemological and ontological, becauseso he
holdsthe studies of explanatory understanding in the development of
knowledge simply link the structure of causality in the ontological devel-
opment of natural reality.
Accordingly, Hegel was in effect the founding father of what the 20th
century has come to know as intelligent design theory: for him physical
reality is the material encoding of a fundamental structure of rationality in
that, for Hegel, the structure of explanatory thought in rational inquiry and
the structure of causal eventuation in the development of nature are simply
one and the same structure. Thought encodes physical reality as a map en-
codes a physical terrain. In any proper causal explanation of events the
structure of evolving understanding and the structure of evolving occur-
rence are parallel. In both cases alike that which is (the natural condition of
things) and that which is not (i.e., not yet) come to terms in yielding an as
yet unrealized result which, overall manifests a process of development
(synthesis) in which these several stages (moments) are linked to-
gether in creating a new status quo, which itself simply sets the stage for
the next interaction of the same developmental pattern. In nature, as in the
development of knowledge, there is always the self-transcendences at issue
when things pull themselves forward by their own bootstraps: their devel-
opment is a matter of self-preservationa process in which things change
(as they must) not only for the sake of preserving something of themselves
at the next stage of development so that there is at once sublation (change)
and continuation (preservation), at work in the dual sense of the German
expression sich aufheben.
With Plato and to a lesser extent Aristotle, dialectic was an instrument
of inquiry, by looking at what can be said on both of the opposed sides of a
question we can realize a judicious intermediation that is apt to be more
153
faithful to the truth of the matter than either of those conflicting extremes.
Thus ancient dialectic is a matter of the search for truth between the ex-
tremes of opposition set by an either-or. With Hegel, on the other hand, we
have a position that wants it both waysthat strives for a (potentially un-
realizable) both-and. As Gadamer puts it: For Hegel, the point of dialectic
is that precisely by pushing a position to the point of self-contradiction it
[the dialectical impetus] makes possible the transition to realizing a higher
truth which embraces both sides of that contradiction.89
This idea of conceptual fluidity casts a shadow of doubt across the en-
tire project of Hegels Logic. For the difficulty of a dialectical logic inheres
is the very aspiration of the project. It seeks to use dialectics to define the
categories of thought. But the very idea of such an inventory is problematic
given the open-endedness of the questioning process. (For instance one can
ask about Xs, or peoples ideas about Xs, about the relation of Xs to Ys,
and aspects of these relationships, etc. etc.)
Moreover, Hegel viewed the process of dialectical development as hav-
ing an inner logic through which the transition from one phrase to the next
is developmentally or (perhaps better) historically necessitated. It is this
aspect of the Hegelian dialectic that has become at once the most influen-
tial (via Marx) and the most sharply criticized. For as Hans-Georg
Gadamer has noted,
Wilhelm Dilthey and others (Jonas Cohn, Nicolai Hartmann) object that the
system of relationships of logical concepts [in Hegels Logic] is more vari-
ous and involves more distinctions than those admitted by Hegel himself,
who forces matters into the monolithically unified level of his own dialecti-
cal progression.90
And as critics of Hegel from Trendelenburg onwards have rightly com-

plained, notwithstanding his insistence on logical necessity in dialectic,
this very feature is prominently absent in the dialectical expositions that
Hegel himself exfoliates in his Logic where he envisions a somewhat mys-
tical existential dialectic in which existence is first posited as pure
nondescript and uncategorizedBeing. The very nondescriptness of such
Being assimilates it to irreality, to non-Being or Nothing. (Nihil sunt nullae
proprietates, as the medieval doctrine had it). But in projecting this con-
trast of Being/Nothing the rudiments of differentialism are set into play
with the result that Becoming centers upon the scene. In developing fea-
tures that heretofore were not (i.e., had non-Being), a fusion of Being and
Non-Being is set in play in a way that constitutes Becoming. Hence we
154
have it that Being involucrates Non-being. But with these two factors in
play one is bound to consider their relationship and ask how it is that the
item has come to be rather than not and this confronts the issue of Becom-
ing. In such a manner Hegels Logic envisions a rational dialectic that
eventually brings all of the categories of thought into play. In a way the
Hegels logical dialectic is a study of the ways in which concepts can inter-
relate and interact to produce others.91 This rather mysterious view of
things made the Hegelian dialectic into something of a blank canvas upon
which later thinkers painted very different pictures to their own liking.
On this basis, Hegels logical dialectic is no less (but also no more!)
than a venture in exploring the conceptual geography of fundamental con-
ceptsor a grammar of thought, to invoke a different analogy. It is a point
of view for looking at familiar communicative-machinery in a systematic
way.92
Yet one can certainly find points of complaint about Hegels logical dia-
lectic. T. W. Adorno, for example, reproved him for taking Being as his
starting point, instead of Something.93 (But perhaps Adorno seems to have
forgotten the scholastic principle that ens et unum convertuntur). More se-
rious, perhaps, is the fact that the move from Being to Becoming invites a
change of condition that demands a reference to time, thereby moving be-
yond the sphere of logic proper into that of metaphysics.
The charge that the Hegelian category-dialectic is too bloodlessly for-
malistic for its own good is as old as that theory itself. Emblematic of its
nature is the objection of Chalybaeus to Hegel that a reconciliation be-
tween thesis and antithesis, affirmation and negation can never be effected
by purely logical means alone but requires a substantive additiona speci-
fication of the purposive aim or teleos in whose light the recommendation
is to be effected.94 Again Eduard von Hartman objected95 that the result of
combining conflicting theses is not a deeper truth but rather the mere vacu-
ity of mutual annihilation.)96
On this basis, the history of philosophy, or as Hegel sees itthe story of
unfolding of the effects of human inquiry into the ways of the world
tracks a dialectical development of thought to ever greater sophistialism.
As established knowledge clashes with new discovery and deeper reflec-
tions, destabilized conflict and contradictions emerge.
Some thinkers condemn Hegels dialectic for welcoming inconsistency.
But this is mistaken. For as McTaggart rightly observed, so far is the [He-
gelian] dialectic from denying the law of contradiction, that it is especially
based on it. The contradictions are the cause of the dialectical process.97
155
The circumstance that dialectic development issues on contradictions and

conflicts was seen by Hegel not (as with Kant) as a token of inappropriate-
ness and fallacy but rather as a goad to improvement. Hegels dialectic
thus revels in paradox. As he sees it, what Zenos paradoxes of motion
show is that the concept of motion is in its inherent nature logically self-
contradictory: it clashes with the demands of logic. But the lesson he pro-
posed to draw from this is not So much the worse for the concept of mo-
tion but rather So much the worse for logic. Seeing that motion is a re-
ality, a fact of life, its conflict with (classical) logic established the
bankruptcy of that enterprise and validates the need for a new, dialectical
logic that is prepared to take contradictions in stride and come to terms
with them in a meaningful and informative way. Dialectic is, in effect, to
constitute the new logic that is able to transcend the shortcomings and de-
ficiencies of the old.
Hegel accordingly expanded the idea of dialectic from an instrumental-
ity for discourse and inquiry to one of progress development at large.
Whenever earlier thinkers dwelt upon the model of controversy Hegel
transmuted it into a mechanism for characterizing processive development
at large. For him there is a cycle of dialectic interaction between our con-
cepts of things and our understanding of laws. Conceptions, too, are fluid:
the concepts through which our grasp of the world reality is mediated are
themselves works in progress subject to ongoing revision as the advance of
science proceeds. As Hegel saw it, every distinction we draw in the inter-
ests of a cognitive domestication of reality is imperfect. Even the distinc-
tion crucial to modern philosophy between subject and object must be
overcome. The real categories of thought cannot be fixed in isolated sepa-
ration, they are fluid and reciprocally interpenetrating. Not the analysis
of distinction but the integration of synthesis in the setting of a dialectical
engagement is the proper instrumentality of adequate understanding.98
From Aristotle to the early Hegel the idea prevailed that the categories
of thought represent a priori the structure of reality as best discourse can
manage to represent it. With Hegels late work the idea emerged to view
that the categories were fluid and represented no more than a work in pro-
gress. They cannot possibly attain the ultimate definiteness by which the
work of rational inquiry is completed.
The Hegelian program proposes to see the history of philosophy
philosophizing as a whole if you willas constructing a superphiloso-
phy, a vast artifice of individual chapters in an overall account in which the
totality of speculative thinking can be accommodated. Here logic is of no
156
help: logically all that p and not-p yield at a deeper truth but a confused
mess. So logic cant help. Can dialectic come to the rescue? Hegel doubt-
less thought so. As he saw it, the dialectically structured succession of in-
tellectual and cultural state-of-the-art stages in the ever-changing panorama
of the thought of the day makes for the march of spirit along the highway
of history. Destabilization through opposition succeeded by accommodat-
ing revisionthe synthesis of oppositeswas taken to constitute the
driving engine of change on human cognition. With Hegel the whole of
human history is characterized by one overall developmental dialectic
whose successive phases mark a progress from tyranny, slavery, subordi-
nation and anonymity to the personal autonomy of a state-of-law constitu-
tionalism where free and equal citizens enjoy the privilege of rational self-
determination within a socially integrated whole.
McTaggarts assessment of the Hegelian dialectic ended on the decid-
edly negative note that the Heglian dialectic is a general principle which
can be carried into particulars or used as a guide to action only in a very
few [special] cases, and in those [only] with great uncertainty.99 He seems
to have been led into this misjudgment by an overly narrow focus on the
logico-categorical dialectic. The broader process, the Hegelian historico-
categorical dialectic, affords a fertile conceptual standpoint which, prop-
erly implemented, can throw substantial light in a considerable variety of
developmental processes.
14. HERBART (17761841)100
Herbarts Method of Respects (Methode der Beziehungen) is predicated on

the idea that all of our concepts are experientially grounded and thereby
subject to perspectival limitations that engender contradictions in the ap-
plication that must be overcome by a continuously renegotiated synthesis
between the original concept and the limitations that its applications bring
to light. Revision in the light of ever-growing experience is the crux of
such a process of conceptual dialectic.101 Accordingly, he saw the survey
of rival opinions and the considerations that speak for and against them as
the proper and appropriate method for addressing philosophical issues.
With Herbart, dialectic provided a format for the development of con-
cepts that makes it an instrument of elucidation and explanation in the de-
velopment of ideas. Herbart thus envisioned and to some extent sketched
out an approach to the dialectical integration of philosophy that pursued
the project from the vantage point of Hegelian ideas.
157
15. J. S. MILL (18061873)
Perhaps no modern writer has supported the importance of the classical

dialectic of open discussion as an instrumentality in the pursuit of truth
more eloquently than John Stuart Mill. His essay On Liberty is a prose
poem in praise of rational controversy, in which Mill holds dialectic to be a
perennial necessity of the rational enterprise, notwithstanding its somewhat
negative aspect as an instrument of criticism:
It is the fashion of the present time to disparage negative logicthat which

points out weaknesses in theory or errors in practice, without establishing
positive truths. Such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as an
ultimate result; but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge or convic-
tion worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly; and until people are
again systematically trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low
general average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical de-
partments of speculation.102
The present book itself can be viewed from the angle of an endeavor to ex-
plain and substantiate such a view of the utility of dialectic as an instru-
ment of rational inquiry.
16. MARX AND ENGELS
Where much of the post-Kantian traditions sought to spiritualize the mate-

riality of physical process, Karl Marx sought to materialize the spiritual
dimension of human thought and action within nature. His dialectic is not
cognitive but physically developmental, somewhat in the manner of the
pattern
tendency counter tendency stable resolution
somewhat in the way in which introducing a hot object into a cold envi-
ronment (a mass of hot coal into a cold room) will collaboratively produce
a new state of balancing things out.
Thus while retaining from Hegel both the dialectical structure of natural
occurrence and the historical necessitation of the process of dialectical de-
velopment, Marx simply lopped off the head of the cognitive and spiri-
tual involvements at issue in the Hegelian view of things, only retaining
the material causality of physical process. The Marxian dialectic, accord-
158
ingly, is not a cognitive resource of inquiry but a characterization of the

material (physical and socio-physical) processes through which (and, as he
sees it, through which alone) natures occurrences eventuate. Marx, in sum,
effectively offers Hegel without Geist.
Marx and Engels set out to expunge the idealism of the Hegelian dialec-
tic. For them dialectic was to be purely and simply the interplay of imper-
sonal causal (and effectively physical) natural forces. Dialectic now be-
comes a feature of the causality of naturein terms of various physical
forces acting upon and reacting against one another. Marxist dialectic ac-
cordingly took a decidedly materialistic turn; as Marx himself put it:
My dialectical method is not only different from that of Hegel, but is its di-
rect opposite. With Hegel, thinking, the life-process of the human brain
which under the name of the Idea, he even makes into an independently ex-
isting objectis the creative force (demoiurgos) of the real world, which is
no more than its externalized, phenomenal form. With me, on the contrary,
the ideal is nothing more than the material world reflected by the human
mind and translated into forms of thought.103
Where Hegel envisioned an historical course of dialectical development of

a process through which natures changes can be expressed at the level of
ideas, Marxist dialectical materialism sought to put physical processes
themselves at the center of things.
Dhring, Marxs nemesis, saw dialectics as a processual feature of im-
personal nature reflected in a mere logic that impels physical change
through the interactive antagonisms of conflicting forces of nature.104
Here Marx in effect retained Dhrings physicalism, but abolished those
conflicting forces and settled for the strictly mechanical interactions of
matter for realizing his dialectical materialism. (However, Engels was
eventually to acknowledge that the machinations of matter were not all that
straightforward either.)
the transformation of quantity into quality to the effect that all quali-
tative differences have a quantitative basis so that quantity becomes
the determinant of all things.
the interpenetration of opposites to the effect that all hinges on there

being more or less of a common parameter and differences in kind
become differences in degree.
159
the law of the negation of the negation to the effect that all processes
become fundamentally dialectical in format.
Marx asserted that one must do away with the [idealistic] mystification
which dialectic suffers at Hegels hands and that [dialectic] must be
turned right side up again, if one would discover the rational kernel within
the mystical shell.105
In Engels hands the dialectics in the form of dialectical materialism
was framed as a theory of social process that was in harmony with the
wave of innovation in technical physics and scientific discovery that
washed over Europe in the nineteenth century. Dialectical advance and sci-
entific progress could be represented as coordinated phases of one funda-
mental process. In dialectical materialism the latter was very much the sen-
ior partner.
Friedrich Engels held that:
An exact representation of the universe, of its evolution, of the development

of mankind, and of the reflection of this evolution in the minds of men, can
therefore only be obtained by the methods of dialectic with its constant re-
gard to the innumerable actions and reactions of life and death, of progres-
sive and anti-progressive changes.106
But in the end, this view of the matter simply comes down to identifying
dialectic with the aggregate of scientific thinking and method.
As Marx and Engels saw it Hegels philosophy is a mixed bag. He was
right in discerning and emphasizing these principles of dialectic. But he
was profoundly wrong in thinking the laws for the development of thought
whereas in fact they are really laws for the development of nature. The dia-
lectical materialists saw it as Hegels profound failing to keep dialectic
within the range of metaphysics rather than branching out into proto-
science on the theory of nature. They insisted that in the wake of such a
change Hegels mysterious principle appears not only quite natural but
even rather obvious.107
But here their opponents answered tit for tat. Engels was made livid by
E. Dhrings contemptuous dismissal of Marxs mysterious dialectical
rubbish which sought to get behind some profound piece of wisdom
where the husked kernel of abstruse things reveals at best the features of
ordinary theories.108
Engels theory of dialectic hinges on three Hegelian laws.
160
Hegel had oriented dialectic to inquiry and viewed it as an instrumental-

ity for understanding reality. Marx was less concerned for cognition than
for politics, his aim was less to understand the world than to change it. The
dialectical motivation he developed in collaboration with Engels viewed
dialectic as a process of historical and above all political development
rather than one of cognitive progress. Marxism dialectics is a matter of the
ebb and flow of material and whose all economically (and thus material)
based social and political processes.
Thus Marx and Engels remained in Hegelian territory in viewing dialec-
tics as an historical process rather than an instrumentality of thoughta
matter of causal occurrence rather than rational comprehension. Engels
writes:
What therefore is the negation of the negation? An extremely general ... law
of development of nature, history and thought; a law which ... holds good in
the animal and plant kingdoms, in geology, in mathematics, in history, and in
philosophy ...109
However this generality of application is purchased at the price of an in-

herent vagueness and equivocation that makes the idea close to vacuous.
For that which holds everywhere without limits has little assertoric sub-
stance to it in the face of Spinozas principle that omnis affirmatio est
negatio.110 Though Marx sought to turn Hegel upside down by recasting
his conceptual dialectic in materialist terms, this approach in effect simply
abandoned dialectic as an instrument of explanation and left the historical
play of materialistically physical processesof whatever nature things turn
out to have. Dialectic disappears from the scene in any historically recog-
nizable guise and natural causality stands in its place. In here assuming the
guise of totality dialectic has, in effect, shrunk to nothingor at any rate to
nothing distinctive.
Recognizing that physical change in generaldialectical or other
often proceeds in small steps and yet eager to have their favored mecha-
nism accomplish significant work, dialectical materialist eagerly adopted
the idea that (as Engels put it) in physics change is a passing of quantity
into quality.111 As illustrations of the quantity quality transition,
Engels offers the process of phase transitions in chemistry such as the
change of water into solid or gaseous form.
A decidedly wise appraisal of Marxs dialectic is that of the 11th edition
of the Encyclopedia Britannica where we read:
161
He [Marx] retained in principle the Hegelian dialective method, of which he

said that in order to be rationally emphasized it must be turned upside
down, i.e., put on a materialist basis. But as a matter of fact he has in many
respects contravened against this presumption. Strict materialist dialectics
cannot conclude much beyond the actual facts. Dialectical materialism is
revolutionary in the sense that it recognizes no [historical] fixity, but other-
wise it is necessarily positivist in the general meaning of that term.112
What really interested Marx was not the abstract play of concepts and ideas
but the causal machinations of the material worldespecially in human
well-being in the material world. The dialectic of Hegel projected a phi-
losophical stairway to religion; that of Marx projected a physicalistic
stairway to politics. To all intents and purposes the two projects were dia-
lectical in name only, addressing two very different ranges of phenomena
in somewhat the same terms. Hegel wanted to reform philosophy; Marx
wanted to reform politics.
As regards politics, the situation, as Marx saw it, is that the develop-
mental dialectic of unfettered capacitive contains the seeds of its own de-
struction. As he remarks in the preface to Capital: It is the ultimate aim of
this work to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society. The
dialectic of the negation of the negation, accordingly spells the doom of
capitalism. The capitalist mode of production ... is the first negation ...
But capitalism begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own
negation. It is the negation of the negation.113 What Marx did not fore-
seenor did anyone elseis this dialectical road would notand in the
wake of technological progress could notlead to the destination he envi-
sioned for it. Rather than presaging a proletarian socialism it actually even-
tuated in a renovation of capitalism albeit in a chaste and more sophisti-
cated version. And this, after all, is really what a more thorough-going dia-
lectic of pouring new wine into old bottles would have expected.
All in all, then, Marx effectively abandoned dialectic as anything like its
traditional role as a cognitive process and trades this in for the physical
causality of natural process and the material productivity of human effort.
His dialectical materialism is causal materialism pure and simple. Thus
while Marx claims to have stood Hegel on his head the net effect of the
violence this does to Hegels ideas is that (as Mure put it) Marxs dialec-
tic is no more than a sham faade for his materialism.114 At any rate, this
is how more orthodox Hegelians would see it.
And dialectical materialism in its later manifestation in Engels and Sta-
lin simply becomes a variant of physicalistic scientism. To quote Stalin:
162
Dialectical materialism in the world view of the Marxist-Leninist party. It is

so called because its approach to the phenomenon of nature, of studying and
apprehending this is dialectical [i.e., interactively collaborative], while its in-
terpretation of those phenomena, its conception of them, is materialistic.115
Then too, in various Marx-influenced postmodernist discussion, dialectic

has come to stand for any sort of interaction between opposed tenden-
ciessocial, economic, psychological or whatever.116 Here any sort of
feedback process is viewed as dialectical, with a result of shifting the idea
to a considerable remove from its historical roots.
In its adherence to materialism, the transition from thought to action be-
came a key aspect of Marxs dialectic, and led him to pen the dictum,
much beloved by Stalin, that Force is the midwife of every old society
pregnant with a new one.117
17. POST-MARXIAN SOCIO-POLITICAL DIALECTICS
Since classical antiquity, the original Greek idea of dialectic has developed
through various phases: in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as initially a
format for discourse and disputation and subsequently an instrumentality
of discursive thought. With Kantianism dialectic became a term of deroga-
tion in philosophy. Then with Fichte, Hegel and German idealism dialectic
re-engaged as a process for cultural and doctrinal development on the one
side and a model of natural evolution on the other. Thereafter, matters took
a very different turn and dialectics become an instrumentality of political
analysis. Throughout the post-Hegelian era dialectic has thus moved fur-
ther and further away from its original model in discursive dialectic until in
the end the idea assumed a socio-political guise which, from any earlier
standpoint, is dialectical in name only. For dialectic now moved ever fur-
ther away from its original inspirations. It now became a theory of cultural
and ideological development based on the idea that social and political his-
tory can and must be understood in dialectical termswith conflicting in-
terests creating conflicts that work themselves through to an eventual ac-
commodation under the philosophically engendered pressures of the
stateit became a hallmark feature of the work of such socio-political
neo-Marxists as Kark Korsch, Georg Lukks, and some members of the
Frankfurt School.
As far as Horkheimer and Adorno are concerned, when Hegels positive
and progressive view of historical dialectic made the historical process a
totality or system and an absolute, he ... lapsed into theology. They
163
wanted something quite different. Wishing to free dialectic from any and
all affirmativeness, Adorno seeks, or at any rate purports only to disestab-
lish rather than establish, and to create an anti-system rather than a system.
Needless to say, such a venture is not ultimately practicable for a German
theoretician and Adornos negative dialectic is in fact an elaborate contriv-
ance for being negative about those things he feels negative about. And so
when Adorno complains that the primacy of contradiction in dialectic
loses sight of the heterogeneous in unifying thought (Einheitsdenken)118
his contention is defective both in point of clarity (the heterogeneous in
unifying thought indeed!) and in point of fairness (since heterogeneity of
conception is exactly what is at issue in the contradictions which classical
dialectic sought to overcome).
In projecting what might be called his dialectic of public opinion,
Adorno and Horkheimer viewed dialectic in terms of the general thought-
tendencies in vogue in the culture of the day as it transacts over time from
one doctrinal orientation to another. In treating their treaties The Dialectic
of Enlightenment (1941) they saw contemporary thought as promising lib-
eration for the unscientific conditions of an earlier time only to impose the
fellows of social contrast through to substantiation of reason to repressive
tendencies of social coordination. They likened this self-defeating ten-
dency of contemporary thought to the situation of Ulysses and the Sirens,
whose call he wanted to resist while yet lacked the increasing self-control.
In a frame of mind made increasingly pessimistic by the rise of Nazi power
in Europe, Adorno and Horkheimer envisioned a dialectical conflict in
contemporary thought between a rationality committed on the one side to a
scientifically enlightened freedom and liberation from superstition, and on
the other side to a scientifically coordinated and technologically enforced
mass culture that blocked the path to enlightened rationality. In this pessi-
mistic mood Adorno and Horkheimer looked to dialectical interaction of
opposing cultural tendencies to that resorted the resolution of a rational
synthesis.
As Horkheimer and Adorno saw it, the dialectic of enlightenment, de-
mocratic, capitalistic, mass-productive in material and cultural terms car-
ried the seeds of its own destruction as its development over the years set
in motion a negative dialectic which unleashed forces of massified pub-
lic opinion influenced by mass media that led from enlightenment to tyr-
anny.119 The sort of ebb and flow of public opinion in politico-social issues
that is at issue here is doubtless dialectical in some sense, though seem-
164
Display 3
ANALYTIC DIALECTIC
THESIS ANTI-THESIS SYNTHESIS
thesis objections to the thesis refinement of the

thesis in the light
of the objections
ingly not one able to cast much light in the way of elucidation or explana-
tion of the matters at issue.
18. DIALECTIC IN TWENTIETH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
Twentieth century analytic philosophy saw a significant revival of dialec-

tic. However this occurred not at the level of deliberations about dialectic
and its methodological issues and general principles, but rather at that of
the actual practice of philosophizing.120
However, what has been at issue here is neither the Aristotelian dialec-
tic of seeking to extract conclusions from a survey of rival positions nor
yet the Hegelian dialectic of seeking to derive a conclusion from the scru-
tiny of a course of kindred development. For the fact of it is that the con-
duct of much of twentieth century philosophy has involved what is in ef-
fect, an analytic employment of dialectic as per the pattern set out in Dis-
play 3. What we have here is the standard dialectical procedure of
interchange between the prospect of a thesis and an opponent who contests
it, the standard pattern, that is to say of contention, counter-contention, and
revised (qualified, amended) contention.
This process is predicated on a certain view of the problem-situation of
philosophy, a view which stands roughly as follows:
The phenomena with which philosophy has to deal are so complex and varie-
gated that no unqualified generalization can actually do them justice.
Moreover, the language to our disposal for philosophical dialection is inade-
quate for the task. The complex realities bust the boards of conceptualization
165
that it makes available. Thus any general philosophical thesis is over-simple

to the point of inadequacy and has to be qualified and enmeshed. The task of
dialectic is to reveal and mitigate the misconceptions at issue by means of
what is to all intents and purposes a cyclic process of dialogical challenge-
and-response. Dialectic thus affords an instrumentality of inquiry that pro-
vides for an ongoing negotiation between philosophical thought and the
complex phenomenon that comprised in the reality that it addresses.
The resultant practice generally conforms to a rather definite format whose

structure is essentially as follows:
Stage 1: Thesis Antithetical Objections Synthetic Revision
1.1 State the thesis.
1.2 State the counter-considerations (objections).
1.3 Qualify the thesis so as to meet (avert) the con-considerations.
Stage 2: Emended Thesis Expository Deficiencies Synthetic Refor-

mulation
2.1 State the duly emended thesis.
2.2 Expose its ambiguities, equivocations, evasions.
2.3 Restate the thesis in sharper/clearer form so as to eliminate misun-

derstandings.
Stage 3: Revised Thesis Reappraisal Synoptic Reevaluation
3.1 Restate the sharpened thesis.
3.2 Explain the implications that the whole process carries for the the-
sis.
3.3 Reevaluate the thesis in the light of these lessons.
166
Display 4
DIALECTICAL ANALYSIS
THESIS ANTITHESIS
Objections
START thesis
imprecisions
qualification and
ramifications
reformulation
SYNTHESIS
As such an account indicates, in dialectical analysis we process a thesis in

a three-fold manner: first by a revision by qualification designed to mini-
mize it against objections; second by a reformulation designed to render it
more exact and perspicuous; and third to highlight the lessons from its
meaning and impact that emerge from the preceding stages of the analysis.
On this basis, the overall structure of a dialectical analysis stands as per
the diagram of Display 4. The overall process being one of refinement and
reformulation in the face of unfolding difficulties.
This sort of analytical dialectic rests on the underlying idea that the
complexity of the issues at stake in philosophical deliberation is such that
philosophical generalizations almost inevitably oversimplify matters in a
way that demands retrenchment, qualification, revision. The aim of dialec-
tical analysis is to implement these general ideas in concrete circum-
stances. And dialectical inquiry serves to refine a general thesis by con-
straining it to come to terms with challenges by way of objections, counter-
examples, and unclarities. The goal of this process is to secure the most
general principle that is capable of accommodating adequately a range of
phenomena, so as to secure a continuously more adequate approximation
to an adequate account of the issue at state.
On its approach, the dialectical analysis of a thesis is a multistage proc-
ess of reexamination and revision with a view not only to rendering the ba-
167
sic idea at issue more perspicuous and acceptable, but also as bringing to
light the lessons of this process from an underlying of what is at issue.
It is instructive to consider some concrete illustrations of a dialectical
inquiry in the envisioned style of philosophical analysis. Displays 57 of-
fer three schematic illustrations. Throughout such dialectical analyses as
were exhibited there the ultimate aim is one whose orientation is pretty
much the same, namely, to exact the larger lesson inherent in the fact that a
certain philosophical thesis runs into problems and to address this circum-
stance by bringing into clearer view the inherent complexity of the relevant
issues.
One particularly common sort of context in which analytical dialectic has
come to prominence in twentieth century philosophy is represented by the
aporetic situations that arise when a collection of individually plausible
contentions turns out to be collectively inconsistent. An instance of this is
afforded by the thesis of the equality of rights. The aporetic situation at is-
sue here is based on three contentions:
(1) All people have equal rights. (Equality of rights).
(2) Everyone has a right to that to which they have a legitimate claim.
(Right-claim coordination).
(3) The legitimate claims of people are not always equal. (Only the
victor can claim the prize.) (Irregularity of claims).
A dialectical situation: (1) as thesis, (2) & (3) as the antithesis. This situa-
tion involves a thesis-qualifying synthesis along the lines of
(1*) All people have equal rights insofar as their legitimate claims are
equal.
At this point a further step of dialectical advance
(4) The rights of people must be honored: a just system will accord to
everyone that to which they have a right.
(5) In situations of unavoidable scarcity the legitimate claims of peo-

ple cannot all be satisfied.
168
Display 5
(I) IMAGINATION AND POSSIBILITY
Stage 1
Thesis (1.1): Whatever someone imagines is possible.
Objection (1.2): People seem able to imagine all sorts of absurdities.
Revised thesis(1.3): Whatever can be cogently managed is possible.

[Qualify with reference to cogent imaginability.]
Stage 2
Revised thesis (2.1): Whatever can be cogently imagined is possible.
Clarification (2.2): The possibility at issue should be seen as logical

possibility.
Sharpened thesis (2.3): Whatever can be cogently imagined is logically

possible.
Stage 3
Sharpened thesis (3.1): Whatever can be cogently imagined is logically

possible.
Reappraisal (3.2): We need to shift to cogent imaginability and consider

this with specifically logical possibility.
Systemic reevaluation (3.3): What ultimately counts for the imagina-

tion/possibility linkage is a matter of logical considerations,
not psychological ones.
169
Display 6
(II) LYING
Stage 1
Thesis (1.1): Never tell a falsehood.
Objection (1.2): In various situations, telling the truth can lead to (mor-
ally) unacceptable results.
Revised thesis (1.3): Never tell a falsehood unless in doing so you

avert a result that is, in the circumstances, morally unaccept-
able.
Stage 2
Thesis (2.1): Never tell a falsehood that does not avert a morally unac-
ceptable result.
Clarification (2.2): Anything due solely for the purpose of self-

satisfaction (or indeed any discreditable motive) ...
Sharpened thesis (2.3): Never tell a falsehood save for the purpose
of ...
Stage 3
Sharpened thesis (3.1): Never tell a falsehood except to realize ...
Reappraisal (3.2): We need to take the motivation into account.
Synthetic reevaluation (3.3): In laying down a rule of action we must

not only look to the status of the act (as negative or positive)
but must look to the motive (rationale) of its preference as
well.
170
Display 7
(III) KNOWLEDGE AND CERTAINTY

Stage 1
Thesis (1.1) Only what is absolutely certain can be known. (It makes no sense to
say I know that p but very possibly it may not be so.)
Objection (1.2): One knows full well that one will not win the lottery [for which
one holds one of 100 million tickets], or again one knows full well that
the first first-page column of tomorrows New York Times will contain
the word THE. But surely neither of these eventuations is absolutely
certain.
Revised thesis (1.3): Only that of which the subject is absolutely certain can be
said to be known by him/her. We must distinguish between objective
and subjective certainty, and collaterally (concomitantly) between war-
ranted and frivolous subjective certainty.
Stage 2
Revised thesis (2.1): Only that of which someone is warrantedly certain can be
designated as something this individual knows.
Clarification (2.2): The warrant at issue here is something that we credit to the in-
dividual on our own account, and not just something to which the indi-
vidual lays a (possibly unjustified) claim.
Sharpened thesis (2.3): Only of that which is certain on the basis of what we (the
knowledge attributions) deem appropriate warrant can this be said to
be something that the individual knows.
Stage 3
Sharpened thesis (3.1): Identical with (2.3).
Reappraisal (3.2): The certainty of knowledge attributions is something that must

appertain both to the attributor and the attributee.
Systemic reevaluation (3.3): In attributing knowledge we not only credit the attrib-
utee with occupying a certain position with relation to the fact at issue
but claim responsibility also on our own account. (Thus is makes no
sense to say X knows that p, but I dont.)121
171
again poses an aporetic conflict, now with (1*) as thesis and (4) & (5) as
the antitheses. This situation under the yet further qualification of (1) as
(1**) All people have equal rights insofar as their legitimate claims are
equal and are capable of being met (equally) in the circum-
stances at hand.
A rather common form of dialectical argument emerges in the context of a

philosophical standardism which holds that philosophical generalizations
should not be construed with strict universality but only qualifiedly with
regard to what obtains standardlythat is, ordinarily, or normally. The
argumentation that unfolds here has the following structure:
Thesis: All Xs are Ys.
Antithesis: A series of counterexamples to the effect that the XAs,

XBs, and XCs constitute groups of Xs that are not Ys.
Synthesis: An argument that since these counterexamples have fea-

tures that explain their exceptionality, it transpires that: the Xs are
standardly (normally, ordinarily) Ys.
In many areas of present-day philosophizing this sort of issue-revision is

not only practicable but virtually essential,122 so that here, too, dialectic is a
significant service of philosophical practice.
As noted above, this concept developmental dialectic rose to promi-
nence in 20th century analytic philosophyhowever not in the work of in-
dividuals but in the way the philosophical community did its work. After
one author or another has propounded some thesis, others would launch
into objections. Then friends of the thesis would leap to its defense by
means of mere revisions, and so the whole dialectical process was well and
truly launched. The net effect is a communally operated dialectic that en-
dows 20th century analytic philosophy with its characteristic feature of an
adversarially collaborative process.
Canonical instances of a dialectical process unfolding along exactly
these lines are afforded by the aftermath of the work of Nelson Goodman
on induction,123 of Roderick Chisholm on cognitive justification,124 and of
Edmund Gettier on knowledge.125 As recent anthologies amply illustrate in
each of these cases there has evolved a history of challenging-response cy-
172
cles that exhibits overall the dialectical structure typical of analytical dia-
lectics as characterized above.
One point should, however, be noted. With Hegel, dialectic is a process
of logical resolution whose unfolding proceeds by a response that is neces-
sitated by the lineament of the situation at issue. For him (as for Marx in
his wake) the resolution of the thesis and antithesis results in a synthesis
that is, in effect, a forced choice and the concept of historical necessity is at
work. In this regard, aporeticsand analytical dialectics in generalis
quite different. To be sure, whenever there is a logical contradiction it is
clear that a resolution is forced upon us. But how that resolution is to be ef-
fected is invariably a matter of a choice among alternativesa choice
whose resolution is not forced upon us by the necessities of things but is,
rather, a free choice whose outcome is determined by our evaluative as-
sessment of the costs and benefits involved.126
19. POSTSCRIPT
Until the time of Hegel, dialectics was essentially logico-epistemic in na-

ture. It had to do with the substantiation or invalidating of thesesand phi-
losophical theses in particular. Hegel shunted the issue onto an ontological
track; dialectic now became a process of existential developmentwith
Hegel himself initially in general history, with his immediate successors
(Herbart and Schleiermacher in the history of philosophy in specific, with
Marx and Engels in the development of nature in general and the nature of
political institutions in specific, and with most post-Marxists as a devel-
opmental approach to socio-ideological issues. In the wake of Marxism,
various interesting things thus happened to dialectic. But they do not bear
upon the metaphysico-epistemological thematic of the present book.
Not until well after the era of aprionistic rigorism came to a close in the
wake of World War I did dialectic in the older sense of an inquiry con-
cerned with validating contentions spring into being once more under the
impetus and within the setting of a thriving informal logic movement.127
Here dialectic has come to enjoy recognition as a process for validating a
commitment to the truth or at least the plausibility of claims and conten-
tions.
There is also one area in which dialectic has stood at the fore in the
course of the 20th century and continues to be very much alive and well,
namely academic debating in the high schools and colleges of North Amer-
ica. Here more than in any other field disputable dialectics continues to
173
figure in energetic and constructive practice. It may not be exactly what the
medieval schoolmen had in mind, and yet one cannot but think that on the
whole they would be pleased.128
The idea of dialectic constitutes a vivid exhibit of a dialectical process
of development under the pressure of new tendencies countervailing
against the old. Indeed, there are few topics that exhibit the dialectical
structure of the history of ideas more vividly than that of dialectic itself. It
emerges that, interestingly enough, the history of dialectic itself manifests
and illustrates a decidedly dialectical course of development. If, as Hegel
insisted, dialectic brings to light the fluidity of ideas, then dialectic is itself
one of its own most dramatic illustrations.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 7

1
Howard P. Kainz, G. W. G. Hegel: The Philosophical System (New York: Twayn
Publishers, 1996), p. 1.
2
Barbara Cassin (ed.), Vocubulaire europen des philosophies (Paris: Le Robert &
Seuel, 2004), p. 306.
3
For (essentially) this taxonomy of dialectical theorizing, and for reference to the li-
terature, see Hans Friedrich Fulda, Unzulngliche Bemerkungen zur Dialektik in
Reinhard Heede and Joachim Richter (eds.), Hegel-Bilanz (Frankfurt am Main:
Vittorio, Klostermann, 1973).
4
Kenneth Burke in A Grammar of Motives (published together with A Rhetoric of
Motives (Cleveland and New York, 1962; Meridian paperback), pp. 403 ff) inven-
tories the bewildering variety of meanings the word dialectic has been asked to
bear. A constructive contribution to the history of dialectic is represented by Karl
Drrs essay Die Entwicklung der Dialektik von Plato bis Hegel, Dialectica,
vol. 1 (1947), pp. 4562.
5
Diogenes Laertius (II 106) tells us that the Megarians came to be called eristics,
and also said that Protogoras not only wrote a tract on The Art (tech) of Eristics
(IX 55) but also that he was the father of the whole host of eristicians now so
much in evidence (IX 52).
6
Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV, v., 12.
7
See Diogenes Laertius, II 108.
8
Diogenes Laertius, II 10708.
9
On the Megarian school see Nicholas Rescher, Paradoxes (Chicago: Open Court,
2001), pp. 7783.
174
10
Diogenes Laertius, op. cit., VIII, 57. On dialectics in early antiquity see Carl Prantl,
Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, Vol. I (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1855), pp. 911.
11
G. W. G. Hegel, Phenomenology, sect. 57.
12
Aristotle regarded Zeno of Eleafamous propounder of the paradoxes of space
and timeas the father of dialectics. (Diogenes Laertius, VIII 57.)
13
Metaphysics, 1078b 3035. These, Aristotle maintains, provides the basis (arch)
of scientifically exact knowledge (epistm).
14
See also Cratylus 390c, Sophist 253CD, Phaedrus 266BC, Philebus 5258, and
compare Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV, 5,12.
15
For an ample accounting for this telegraphic account see Allen Silverman, The
Dialectic of Essence: A Study of Platos Metaphysics (Princeton, Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2002).
16
Republic, 390c.
17
Republic, 534b.
18
See especially Book VII of Platos Republic.
19
For instructive deliberation on these issues see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Dialique and
Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1980).
20
On these points see Richard Robinson, Platos Earlier Dialectics (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1941; see esp. pp. 7379.) Of course the clearest indica-
tion that Plato saw dialectic (discussion) as the proper means for investigating is-
sues of meaning and truth is the very fact that his own writings took the form of
dialogues.
21
On this issues see Robert Robinson, Platos Earlier Dialectics, pp. 8687.
22
Sophist 263e; cp. Theaetetus 189e.
23
See Republic VI, 539. Platos Republic takes the stance that dialectic should not be
taught to young men under 30 because the superficiality of heedless youth renders
them unfit for so serious and demanding an enterprise. Regarding Plato on dialectic
see G. E. L. Owen, Logic, Science and Dialectic (London: Duckworth, 1986).
24
This line of thought is prominent in Platos Phaedrus and Sophist. For the early,
pre-Aristotelian history of dialectics, see Gilbert Ryle, The Academy and Dialec-
175
tic (= Chapter 5) in his Collected Essays (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1971), as
well as Dialectic in the Academy (= Chapter 6), ibid.
25
Aristotles position regarding the nature of dialectic is the subject of a vast and im-
pressively sophisticated literature. See James Hogan, The Dialectics of Aristotle,
Philosophical Studies (Maynooth), vol. 5 (1955), pp. 321. See also D. G. Evans,
Aristotles Concept of Dialectic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977)
and G. E. L. Owen (ed.), Aristotle on Dialectic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).
Robert Bolton, The Epistemological Basis of Aristotelian Dialectic in D. Deve-
reux et Pierre Pellegrin, eds. Biologie, Logique et mtaphysique chez Aristote,
Paris: CNRS, 1990, pp. 185236 (followed by comments from Jacques
Brunschwig and Dan Devereux); Robert Bolton Aristotles Conception of Meta-
physics as a Science in T. Scaltsas, D. Charles and M. L. Gill, eds., Unity, Iden-
tity, and Explanation in Aristotles Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994),
pp. 321354. Alan Code, Aristotles Investigation of a Basic Logical principles;
Which Science Investigates the Principle of Non-Contradiction? Canadian Jour-
nal of Philosophy, vol. 16 (1986), pp. 34158. James Allen, Aristotle on the Dis-
ciplines of Argument: Rhetoric, dialectic, Analytic, Rhetorica, vol. 25 (2007),
pp. 87108.
26
See Soph. Elen, 183b36.
27
See Bolton, Aristotles Conception of Metaphysics as a Science, p. 7.
28
See Metaphysics, 1004b2226.
29
While the terminology is Stoic (Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhonian Hyp.. I, 7), the basic
idea is substantially what Aristotle had in view.
30
Soph. Elen, 169a37.
31
Topics, 100a37101b4.
32
Topics, 10Da25b20.
33
Soph. Elen. 170a40b3.
34
G. E. L. Owen, Logic, Science, and Dialectic (London: Duckworth, 1986), p. 189.
35
Metaphysics 1004b2526. On the experimental/peirastic aspect of dialectic see
Robert Bolton, op. cit., pp. 32154.
36
Topics, 101a34.
37
Topics, 101a36b4. The endoxa and the distinguished (esteemed, respected) theses
that are generally acknowledged either by people at large or by the experts (Topics
I, i, 3; cf Nicomachean Ethics, VII, i, 5; Rhetoric I, i, 11.)
176
38
Soph. Elen. 165b24.
39
Accordingly the first principles of metaphysicsthe science of being qua being,
will be fundamental at every inquiry whatsoever. Metaphysics, p. 34. On the de-
tails see especially Robert Bolton, Aristotles Conception of Metaphysics as a
Science op. cit.
40
It is worth noting that there is thus a basic analogy between Aristotelian scientific
dialectic and philosophical aporetics. In the former one seeks for what is inherently
common among the plausible endoxa; in the latter one seeks for what is harmoni-
ously systemic among the plausible data. (On this latter issue see the authors Strife
of Systems [Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985).
41
Note the medical analogy: examination/diagnosis/therapy.
42
Topics, 100a3031.
43
Metaphysics, 1078b2526.
44
Topics, 158, a31b24.
45
Anal. Post. 92b3538. This passage summarizes a long refutation of the idea that
definitions can be demonstrated (B37).
46
As J. D. G., Evans has it in Aristotles Concept of Dialectic, p. 52.
47
Aristotle maintains (as Anal Post. 19) that scientifically adequate knowledge of the
generalities at issue with first principles can emerge from duly systemic sense ex-
perience thanks to the fact that the human soul is so constituted as to be capable of
this process. And if so then well and good; then this sort of thing is bound to be
among the commonalities present throughout the endoxa.
48
Topics, 101a3664.
49
Topics, 101b34.
50
Topics, 158a1416.
51
Epictetus, Discourses I, vii, viii, and especially II, xx, xxv.
52
Diogenes Laertius, VII, 62. The contrast here is with Chrysippus who saw it as di-
rected not at truth but at meaning.
53
In this regard it has the foundation for a connecting by Boethius (480524) in
whichas in his De differentiis topicis the issues of plausibility assessment were
177
examined. These discussions remained on the Aristotelian ground of what was ac-
ceptable to all or most on the best-respected experts.
54
This negative dialectic of opposing all and nothing was to play a key role in the
theology of (Pseudo-) Dionysius the Aereopagite, who viewed God as at once the
embodiment of all reality but nevertheless the non-bearer of all features character-
izing this worlds constituents.
55
See Whler, Dialektik in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, pp. 19398.
56
Abelard, Dialectica, p. 435. For an English translation of a typical medieval trea-
tise on dialectic see John Buridan, Summulae de dialectica tr. by Gyula Klima
(New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2001). A look at the elaborate table of
its contents shows that with regard to topics that the treatise remains well within
the boundaries of Aristotles logical organon. Not until the Renaissance did Petrus
Ramus reconstitute the idea of dialectic as the art of disputation (doctrina dispu-
tandi). See his Dialecticae constitutiones (1543).
57
Over and above the standard histories of logic, the following treatments of medie-
val dialectic are highly instructive: T. J. Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology in the
Eleventh Century (London: Brill, 1996); J. A. Endres, Die Dialecktik und ihre
Gegner im 11. Jahrhundert, Philosophisches Jahrbuch, vol. 19 (1906), pp. 2033;
N. J. Green-Pelensen, The Tradition of the Topics in the Middle Ages (Munich,
Philosophia Verlag, 1984); and above all, Eleonore Stump, Dialectic and its Place
in the Development of Medieval Logic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1989).
58
On medieval academic disputation see A. G. Little and F. Pelster, Oxford Theology
and Theologians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), pp. 2956. A vivid account of
scholastic disputation is given in Thomas Gilby, O. P., Barbara, Celarent A De-
scription of Scholastic Dialectics (London, New York: Longmans, Green, 1949),
see especially Chapter XXXII on Found Dialectic, pp. 28293; and see also
Bromley Smith, Extracurricular Disputation: 14001650, Quarterly Journal of
Speech, vol. 34 (1948), pp. 47396. On medieval and renaissance discussions of
Platonic dialectic see Raymond Klibansky, Platos Parmenides in the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 1 (1941/43),
pp. 288 ff.
59
Hans-Ulrich Whler, Dialektik in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie (Berlin: Aka-
demie Verlag, 2006).
60
Whler, Dialektik in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, pp. 16980.
61
Whler, Dialektik in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, pp. 17480.
62
Whler, Dialektik in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie gives a very informative ac-
count of the medieval theory and practice of dialectic.
178
63
See Toivo J. Holopainen Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century (London:
E. J. Brill, 1996). As late as the mid-sixteenth century it was respectfully treated in
one of the first philosophical books published in the Western Hemisphere, the Dia-
lectia: Resolutio cum textu Aristotelis of Fray Alonzo de Vera Cruz published in
Mexico City in 1554.
64
For an informative account of medieval dialectics see P. von Moos, Die angese-
hene Meinung: Studien zum endoxon im Mittelalter: Abelard, Freiburger Zeit-
schrift fr Philosophie und Theologie, vol. 45 (1998), pp. 35580.
65
Critique of Pure Reason, A293 = B349.
66
Critique of Pure Reason, A297 = B354.
67
Critique of Pure Reason, A298= B354.
68
On Dialectic in Kant see Michael Wolff, Die Befriff des Widerspruchs: Eine Studie
zur Dialektik Kants und Hegels (Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1981).
69
Arthur Schopenhauer, Eristische Dialektik in Arthur Schopenhauer: der hand-
schriftliche Nachlass, ed. by A. Hbscher, Vol. III (Frankfurt am Main: Kramer,
1970), p. 66695.
70
Grundlegung einer gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, in J. G. Fichte Werke, ed. by
Fritz Medicus (Leipzig: F. Eckardt, 1911), Vol. I, p. 286.
71
Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre, (op. cit.), esp. p. 31.
72
One recent exposition thus speaks of Schellings spiritualization (Vergeisterung)
of nature. Rd (1974), vol. 1, p. 112.
73
Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, Dialektik [1811], ed. by Andreas Arndt (Hamburg:
Felix Meiner, 1986); see also Terence N. Tice (ed.), Friedrich Schleiermacher:
Dialectic or the Art of Doing Philosophy (Atlanta: Schilers Press, 1996).
74
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Dialektik, ed. Rudolf Olbrecht (Berlin: Preussische Aka-
demie der Wissenschaften, 1942), and also ed. Andreas Arndt (Hamburg: Meiner,
1988).
75
Schleiermacher, Dialektik, sect. 3.
76
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Dialectic, On the Act of Doing Philosophy, tr. T. N. Tice
(Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1996), p. 6.
77
On Schleiermachers dialectic see Ueberweg, p. 123.
179
78
Schleiemacher, Dialektik, sect. 43.
79
On these issues see Morfred Franks A Look at Schleiermachers Dialectic in
Jaequeline Maria (ed.), A Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 1534.
80
There are innumerable books on Hegelian dialectic. Two informative treatments
are J. M. E McTaggart, Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1896) and Andres Sarleminjn, Hegelsche Dialektik (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 1971).
81
H. F. Fulda, Unzulngliche Bemerkungen zur Dialecktik in R. Heede and J. Rit-
ter (eds.), Hegel-Bilanz (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1978), pp. 3369, (see
p. 33).
82
Hegel, Encyclopedia, sect., 10.
83
Vorlesungen, p. 34.
84
The Science of Logic, sect. 79.
85
To give a somewhat crude illustration. If we focus exclusively on the even integers
we are led toward the absurd idea that there are all there is, whereas in fact those
evens inevitably lead beyond themselves to the odds and must accordingly be cog-
nized in relation to and coordination approximating with something else that is
very different, calling for comprehension within the broader context of integers-at-
large, thereby manifesting a conceptual impetus toward inclusion in a larger com-
plex.
86
G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic (=Part I of the Encyclopedia of the Philoso-
phical Sciences), sect. 81.
87
In this regard as in others Hegels concept of dialectic departs radically from that
of the ancients, as comments have long emphasized. See, for example, K. L. W.
Heyden, Kritische Darstelling der Aristotelischen und Hegelschen Dialektik (Er-
langen: Carl Herder, 1845).
88
On Hegels dialectic see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hegels Dialectic, tr. by P. C.
Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976); Terry Pinkard, Hegels Dialectic
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and Michael Wolffs Der Begriff
des Widerspruchs (op. cit.). The development of Hegels thought regarding dialec-
tic is examined in detail in P. Kondyles, Die Entstehung der Dialektik (Stuttgart:
Kleet-Cotta, 1979), and Manfred Baum, Die Entstehung der Hegelschen Dialektik
(Bonn: Boonview Verlag, 1986). See also Bernd Bratzel, Vorzge einer Theorie
der Dialektik in Wolfgang Neuser et. al. (eds.), Logik, Mathematik und Natur im
objektiven Idealismus (Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2004), pp. 91111.
180
89
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hegels Dialectic, tr. by P. S. Smith (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1976), p. 105.
90
91
In his aforementioned study of dialectic, Karl Drr explores the prospect of taking
negation (N) conjunction (K) as basic here. The three classical stages of theses, an-
tithesis, synthesis will then be construed as p, Np, N(p & Np), the third of which
represents a truth irrespective of the status of its predecessors.
92
Karl Drr (op. cit., p. 61) makes the good point that while the Hegelian logical dia-
lectic is exfoliative and analytic in eliciting the interrelations among pre-given and
fixed concepts, the Platonic discursive dialectic is progressive and synthetic in pro-
viding for the ongoing introduction of new materials.
93
Adorno, Negative Dialektik, p. 137.
94
See H. M. Chalybaeus, Historical Development of Speculative Philosophy from
Kant to Hegel, tr. A. Edeisheim (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1854); especially pp
42437.
95
Eduard von Hartmann, ber die dialektische Methode (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftli-
che Buchgesellschaft, 1963), pp. 9495 and 11223.
96
A valiant attempt to deal with Hegels logical dialection in contemporary terms of
reference is Francescio Berton, Che Cos le dialettia Hegeliana? (Pactina: Il Poli-
grafo, 2005).
97
McTaggart, Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, p. 9
98
On these issues see H. G. Gadamer, Hegels Dialectic (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1976, especially Chapter 1 Hegel and the Dialectic of the Ancient Phi-
losophers.)
99
McTaggart, Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, p. 253.
100
For an informative account of Herberts dialectic see Friedrich Ueberweg, Die
Deutsche Philosophie des XIX. Jahrhunderts, pp. 16770 in the revised edition by
T. K. Oesterreich (Berlin: Mittler & Sohn, 1923).
101
On Herbarts dialectic see Ueberweg, p. 167.
102
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ed. by Alburey Castell (New York: F. S. Crofts &
Co., 1947), pp. 4445.
103
See Marx and Engels, Capital.
181
104
Eugen Karl Dhring, Natu rliche Dialektik (Berlin: F. S. Rittler und Cohn, 1865).
105
Marx, Karl, Capital, Vol. I, pp. 1920.
106
Anti Dhring, pp. 3637.
107
Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature (New York: International Publishers, 1940).
108
Anti Dhring, p. 169
109
Anti Dhring, Part I, Dialectics: Negation of the Negation.
110
A convinced dialecticism would expect little else, since when there is not negation
a counter-negation cannot take hold: what totally inverses and admits no counter-
pressure of negation can never set in train a dialectic needed for self constructive
development.
111
Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature (New York: International Publishers, 1940.
112
Eduard Bernstein in the 11th ed. of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XVIII, pp.
80711 (see p. 810).
113
Marx and Engels, Capital, I, Ch. 24, 7.
114
G. R. E. Mure, The Philosophy of Hegel (London: Oxford University Press, 1965),
p. 32n.
115
Josef Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism (London: Laurence and Wish-
ert, 1941), p. 5.
116
See, for example. Yvonne Sherratts treatment of Adornos Positive Dialectic
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). In Adorno we find an impenetra-
bly opaque discussion of the decline of enlightened knowledge acquisition
through its dialectical regression into its animistic variant (p. 126). Here dialec-
tic is a black hole into which verbiage vanishes and nothing intelligible emerges.
And this situation is not greatly improved in neo-Marxist ideological dialect, whose
verbal gymnastics are examined in Maurice Merleau-Pontys The Adventures
(Mis-adventures would be more accurate) of Dialectics (initially published in
Paris in 1955 under the title Les aventures de la dialectique).
117
Marx and Engels, Capital as well as J. Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Material-
ism.
118
T. W. Adorno, Negative Dialektik, ed. By C. Menke (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
2006), p. 15.
182
119
M. Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Seab-
way Press, 1944). They spoke of die rtselhafte Bereitschaft der technologisch er-
zogenen Massen, in den Bereich des jeglichen Despotismus zu geraten (p. 13).
120
The only latter-day books on philosophical dialectics that I know of are Chaim
Perelman, Rhtorique et philosophie pour une thorie de largumentation en phi-
losophie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1952), and my own Dialectics: A
Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1977) and see also R. C. Pinto, Dialectic and the
Structure of Argument, Informal Logic, pp. 1620. However, dialectic as a feature
of rhetoric and academic disputation is the subject of an extensive literature. On the
theoretical side there is Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, Trait de largu-
mentation; la nouvelle rhtorique, 2 vols. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France,
1958). And as regards academic debating there is a vast literature, typified by
Austin J. Freeley, Argumentation and Debate (2nd ed., Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth
Pub. Co., 1966).
121
This sort marks a crucial difference between propositional (that p is the case) and
performative (know-how geared) knowledge.
122
See the authors Philosophical Standardism (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1994).
123
Douglas Stalker (ed.), Grue: The New Riddle of Induction (Chicago and La Salle,
Ill: Open Court, 1994).
124
See Ernest Sosa and Juegwon Kim (ed.), Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
125
See J. S. Crumley II (ed.), Reading in Epistemology (Mountain View, CA: May-
field, 1999).
126
On these issues see the authors The Strife of Systems (Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1989).
127
This development can be traced in the pages of the journal Informal Logic.
128
However, with the medievals formal disputation was not discussed under the rubric
of dialectic but rather under that of the discursive art of obligation (ars obligatoria)
geared to the adjudication of disputed questions (quaestiones).On the obligation-
theoretic approach to dialectic see H. Keffer, De obligationbtus: Rekonstruktion
einer sptmittealterlichen Disputationstheorie (Leiden: Brill, 2001); and O. Wei-
jers, La disputatio dans les Faculte des arts au moyen ge (Turnhout: Studia
Artistarum, vol. 10, 2002).
183
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Extensive bibliographies for dialectic can be found in the standard refer-
ence works, and in particular in Jrgen Mittelstrass (ed.), Enzyklopdie
Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie (vol. 2 of the 2nd ed; Stutt-
gart/Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 2005), and Jose Ferrater Mora (ed.),
Diccionario de Filosofia (Vol. 1 of the 7th ed.; Barcelona: Editorial Ariel,
1994). The register presented here will list only those works cited in the
present text.
Abelard, Dialectica.
Adorno, Theodor, Negative Dialektik (Frankfurt: Publisher?, 1966, 2nd ed.

1970; tr. as Negative Dialectics (New York: Seabury Press, 1973).
Allen, James, Aristotle on the Disciplines of Argument: Rhetoric, Dialec-

tic, Analytic, Rhetorica, vol. 25 (2007), pp. 87108.
Aristotle, Metaphysics.
, Posterior Analytics.
, Topics.
Bacon, Francis, Novum Organon.
Baum, Manfred, Die Entstehung der Hegelschen Dialektik (Bonn: Boon-

view Verlag, 1986).
Becker, Werner, Hegels Begriff der Dialektik und das Prinzip des Idea-
lismus (Stuttgart, Berlin, Kln: Mainz, Kohlhammer 1969).
Bennett, John F., Kants Dialectic (Cambridge University Press, 1974).
Bolton, Robert, Aristotles Conception of Metaphysics as a Science in T.

Scaltsas, D. Charles and M. L. Gill (eds.), Unity, Identity, and Ex-
planation in Aristotles Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1994), pp. 321354.
, The Epistemological Basis of Aristotelian Dialectic in D. Deve-

reux et Pierre Pellegrin (eds.), Biologie, logique et mtaphysique
chez Aristote, (Paris: CNRS, 1990), pp. 185236.
Braun, Lucian, LHistoire de lhistoire de la philosophie (Paris: Ophrys,

1973).
Bubner, Rdiger, Dialektik und Wissenschaft (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973).
Bubner, Rdiger and Hans-Georg Gadamer (eds.), Hermeneutik und Dia-

lektik. Aufstze (Tbingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1970).
Buridan, John, Summulae de dialectica, tr. by Gyula Klima (New Haven,

Conn: Yale University Press, 2001).
Cicero, De inventione
Code, Alan, Aristotles Investigation of a Basic Logical Principles: Which

Science Investigates the Principle of Non-Contradiction? Canadian
Journal of Philosophy, vol. 16 (1986), pp. 34158.
Cohn, Jonas, Theorie der Dialektik (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1923).
Cornforth, Maurice, Materialism and the Dialectical Method (New York:

International Publications, 1971).
Costello, W. T., S. J., The Scholastic Curriculum in Early Seventeenth

Century Cambridge (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1958).
Duhring, Eugen Karl, Natrliche Dialektik (Berlin: F. S. Rittler und Cohn,

1865).
Drr, Karl Die Entwicklung der Dialektik von Plato bis Hegel, Dialecti-
ca, vol. 1 (1947), pp. 4562.
Endres, J. A., Die Dialektik und ihre Gegner im 11. Jahrhundert, Philo-
sophisches Jahrbuch, vol. 19 (1906), pp. 2033.
186
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Engels, Friedrich, Dialectics of Nature (1883) [First Published: in Russian

and German in the USSR in 1925, except for Part Played by La-
bour, 1896 and Natural Science and the Spirit World, 1898]; trans-
lated and edited by Clemens Dutt with a preface and notes by J. B. S.
Haldane, F. R. S. (New York: International Publishers, 1940).
Evans, D. G., Aristotles Concept of Dialectic (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1977).
Fichte, J. G. Wissenschaftslehre.
Frank, Helmar G., Kybernetik und Philosophie (Berlin, Duncker u. Hum-

blot, 1966; 2nd ed. 1969).
Frank, Morfred, A Look at Schleiermachers Dialectic in Jaequeline

Maria (ed.), A Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 1534.
Freeley, Austin J., Argumentation and Debate (2nd ed.; Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1966).
Fulda, Hans Friederich, Unzulngliche Bemerkungen zur Dialektik in R.

Heede and J. Richter (eds.), Hegel-Bilanz (Frankfurt am Main: Klo-
stermann, Vittorio; Auflage, 1978), pp. 3369.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg , Hegels Dialectic, tr. by P. C. Smith (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1976)
, Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).
Gilby, Thomas, O. P., Barbara Celarent: A Description of Scholastic Dia-

lectics (London, New York: Longmans, Green, 1949).
Green-Pelensen, N. J., The Tradition of the Topics in the Middle Ages

(Munich, Philosophia Verlag, 1984).
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vols. (Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 197288).
187
Hartmann, Eduard von, Ueber die dialektische Methode (Darmstadt: Wis-

senschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963).
Hegel, G. W., Phenomenology.
, The Science of Logic.
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kegaard, Marx (Kln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1963).
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Meaning, Revue International de Philosophie, vol. 11 (1950),
pp. 4163; rpt. in A. J. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism (Glencoe, Ill.:
The Free Press, 1959), pp. 10829.
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der Aristotelischen und Hegelschen Dialektik (Erlangen: Carl Her-
der, 1845).
Hogan, James, The Dialectics of Aristotle, Philosophical Studies

(Maynooth), vol. 5 (1955), pp. 321.
Holopainen, Toivo J., Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century

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193
Name Index
Abelard, 178n56, 185
Adorno, T. W. 155, 163-164, 181n93, 182n116, 182n118, 183n119, 185,
188
Agricola, Rudolph, 142
Albert the Great 141
Allen, James, 176n25, 185
Anaxagoras, 108
Anaximines, 107-108
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 139-140
Aristotle, 17, 35n12, 35n13, 112, 121, 123, 127-134, 136-139, 141-142,
156, 175n12, 175n13, 176n25, 176n29, 177n47, 178n56, 185
Averroes, 140-141
Axaximander, 107
Bacon, Francis, 57n2, 185

Baer, Karl Ernst von, 10
Baum, Manfred, 86n4, 180n88, 185
Baumgarten, A. G., 117n9
Becker, Werner, 185
Bennett, John F., 185
Berkeley, George, 89
Bernstein, Eduard, 182n112
Berton, Francescio, 181n96
Boethius of Dacia, 141-142
Boethius, 177n53
Bohr, Neils, 51-52
Bolton Robert, 176n25, 176n27, 176n35, 177n39, 185-186
Brandon, Robert N., 14n8
Bratzel, Bernd, 180n88
Braun, Julie, 117n9, 186
Brunschwig, Jacques, 176n25
Bubner, Rdiger, 186
Buridan, John, 141, 178n56, 186
Burke, Kenneth, 174n4
Byrd, Robert, 74n5
Chalybaeus, H. M., 102, 155, 181n94

Chisholm, Roderick, 58n3, 172

Chrysippus, 177n52
Cicero, 17, 34n3, 138, 142, 186
Code, Alan, 176n25, 186
Coffey, P., 58n3
Cohn, Jonas, 79, 14n5, 154, 186
Cornforth, Maurice, 80, 86n8, 186
Costello, W. T., S. J., 34n7, 186
Darwin, 10
Davidson, Donald, 46
de Vera, Fray Alonzo, 179n63
Democritus, 109, 112
Derrida, Jacques, 46
Descartes, Ren, 88-89, 114, 142
Devereux, Daniel, 176n25
Dilthey, Wilhelm, 154
Dingler, Hugo, 73n4
Diodorus Chronus, 121
Diogenes Laertius, 120-121, 174n5, 174n8, 175n10, 175n12, 177n52
Dionysius the Aereopagite, 178n54
Duhem, Pierre Maurice, 53
Dhring, Eugen Karl, 159-160, 182n104, 186
Drr, Karl, 174n4, 181n91, 181n92, 186
Empedocles, 107-109
Endres, J. A., 178n57, 186
Engels, Friedrich, 8, 158-163, 173, 181n103, 182n107, 182n111, 182n113,
182n117, 187, 189
Epictetus, 95, 177n51
Epicurus, 110
Eubulides of Miletus, 120
Euclides of Megara, 120
Evans, D. G., 175n25, 177n46, 187
Fichte, J. G., 4, 50, 163, 144-147, 149-150, 179n70, 179n71, 187

Frank, Helmar G., 73n3, 187
Frank, Morfred, 180n79, 187
Freeley, Austin J., 34n5, 183n120, 187
196
NAME INDEX
Fulda, Hand Friedrich, 174n3, 180n81, 187
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 51, 58n9, 58n10, 76, 78, 86n3, 86n4, 86n6, 154,
175n19, 180n88, 181n89, 181n90, 181n98, 187
Gassendi, Pierre, 89
Gettier, Edmund, 172
Gilby, Thomas, O. P., , 33n2, 35n11, 178n58, 187
Goodman, Nelson, 172
Green-Pelensen, N. J., 178n57, 187
Gnther, Gotthard, 73n3
Hartkopf, Werner, 187

Hartmann, Eduard von, 49, 58n8, 155, 181n95, 188
Hartmann, Nicolai, 79, 154
Hayek, F. A., 74n6
Hegel, G. W. F., 49-51, 58n8, 72, 75-79, 85n1, 86n2, 86n4, 86n5, 87, 102,
121, 148-157, 158-161, 163, 173-174, 175n11, 180n82, 180n86,
180n87, 180n88, 181n96, 188
Heiss, Robert, 188
Hempel, C. G., 117n8, 188
Heraclitus, 94, 107-108
Herbart, J. F., 157, 173, 181n100, 181n101
Heyden, Carl Ludwig Wilhelm, 188
Heyden, K. L. W., 180n87
Hippias, 96
Hobbes, Thomas, 89
Hogan, James, 176n25, 188
Holland, John H., 14n8
Holopainen, Toivo J., 178n57, 179n63, 188
Horkheimer, M., 163-164, 183n119, 188
Horn, Ewald, 34n7, 188
Hbig, C., 189
Hurwitz, Adolf, 34n8
Jaquelot, 35n14, 35n15
Kainz, Howard P., 174n1, 189

Kant, Immanuel, 117n9, 119, 140, 142-145, 148, 156, 179n68, 189
Kaufmann, G., 34n7, 189
197
Keffer, Hajo,183n128, 189

Kellerwessel, Wulf, 84, 86n12, 189
Kepler, Johannes, 72
Keyden, K. L. W., 86n5
Keynes, J. M., 58n6
Klaus, Georg, 73n3
Klibansky, Raymond, 178n58
Kondyles, Panagi t s, 86n4, 180n88, 189
Korsch, Kark, 163
Kulenkampff, Arend, 189
Leibniz, G. W., 35n14, 35n25, 79, 89

Little, A. G., 33n2, 178n58, 189
Lucretius, 110
Lukks, Georg, 163
Marcus, Aurelius, 95
Marx, Karl, 78, 158-163, 173, 181n102, 182n105, 182n113, 182n117, 189
McTaggart, J. M. E., 155, 157, 180n80, 181n97, 181n99, 189
Mercier, D. J., 57n3
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 182n116, 189
Meyer, Michel, 14n3, 190
Mill, John Stuart, 158, 181n102
Montaigne, 42
Moos, P. von, 179n64, 190
Mure, G. R. E., 162, 182n114, 190
Musgrave, Alan, 58n8
Nagel, Ernest, 73n2
Olbnrechts-Tyteca, L., 34n4, 34n5, 183n120

Owen, G. E. L. 131, 175n23, 176n25, 176n34, 190
Parmenides, 108-109
Peirce, C. S., 73n2
Pelster, F., 33n2, 178n58, 189
Perelman, Chaim, 34n4, 34n5, 183n120, 190
Pinkard, Terry, 86n4, 180n88, 190
Pinto, R. C., 183n120, 190
198
NAME INDEX
Planck, Max, 34n8

Plato, 50, 79, 95, 103-104, 110, 112, 120-127, 132-139, 144, 148, 150-151,
153, 175n18, 175n20, 175n23, 175n24, 190
Plotinus, 138
Popper, Karl R., 5, 14n4, 88, 115-116, 116n3, 117n10, 190
Posidonius of Apamea, 137
Prantl, Carl, 190
Proclus, 139
Prometheus, 123
Pythagoras, 108, 112, 121
Ramsey, Frank Plumpton, 4, 14n1, 105, 117n7

Ramus, Petrus, 178n56, 191
Rescher, Nicholas, 84, 174n9, 191
Richardson, Peter J., 74n5
Robinson, Richard, 175n20, 175n21, 191
Rd, Wolfgang, 116n1, 179n72, 192
Rougier, Louis, 74n7
Runge, Carl, 34n8
Ryle, Gilbert, 175n24, 192
Sarleminjn, Andres, 180n80

Schelling, F. W. T., 144-147, 179n72
Schlegel, Friederich, 117n9
Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E., 87, 148-149, 173, 179n73, 179n74,
179n75, 179n76, 179n77, 180n78, 192
Schneider, Peter K., 73n3, 192
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 34n4, 145, 179n69, 192
Sextus Empiricus, 176n29, 192
Sherratt, Yvonne, 182n116, 192
Silverman, Allen, 175n15
Simon-Schaefer, Roland, 39, 57n1, 14n6, 192
Smith, Bromley, 34n6, 178n58, 192
Smith, Robin, 192
Socrates, 14n3, 50, 105, 120-128, 133, 135, 137
Spencer, Herbert, 10, 14n7
Spinoza, 89, 98, 162
Stachowiak, Herbert, 73n3, 192
Stalin, Josef, 162-163, 182n115, 182n117, 192
199
Stenzel, J., 193

Stump, Eleonore, 193, 178n57
Thales, 107
Thrasymachus, 94-95
Tonelli, G., 193
Trendelenburg, Adolf, 79, 154
Ueberweg, Friedrich, 181n100
Valla, Laurentius, 142

Versor, Johannes, 141
Weijers, Olga, 193, 183n128

Weinberg, Stephen, 52
Whately, Richard, 17-18
William of Ockham, 141
Wilpert, Paul, 193
Wlodarczyk, M., 193
Whler, Hans-Ulrich, 178n55, 178n59, 178n60, 178n61, 178n62, 193
Wolff, Michael, 86n4, 117n9, 179n68, 180n88
Xenophon, 120, 174n6, 175n14
Zeno of Elea, 103-104, 108, 120-121, 144, 156, 175n12
200
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Chapter 1: Dialectical Processes: A General View 1

Chapter 2: Disputational Dialectic 17

Chapter 3: Cognitive Dialectic 37

Chapter 4: Methodological Dialectic 61

Chapter 5: Ontological Dialectic: The Hegelian Background 75

Chapter 6: Philosophical Dialectic 87

Chapter 7: A Brief History of Dialectic 119

NAME INDEX 195

F ew ideas have played a more continuously prominent role throughout

Dialectic is an area of crossroads where many philosophical programs

T he characterizing format of a dialectical process can be described in

Initiation (positing, declaration, inauguration)

Response (counter-reaction, reply, opposition, destabilization)

Revision & readjustment (operational modification, sophistication,

THE STRUCTURE OF DIALECTICAL PROCESS

Initial Process-induced Changed

asserting, maintaining, affirming

challenging, denying, questioning

reaffirming, qualifying, enmeshing

cession or of logical consequence. In the course of such a hermeneutic con-

In the course of a discursively dialectic process the initial position becomes

contention counter-contention revision

or, viewed differently

argument counter-argument harmonizing adjudication

The third stage of revision/adjudication is a reworking of the original

Start Thesis Negating Revised and

These considerations point towards what might be called F. P. Ramseys

the thesis or similar position-taking

the anti-thesis or counter-position affording a reaction or response

the syn-thesis or thesis-modifactory response to the antithesis, yield-

In his influential essay What is Dialectic Karl Popper criticized dialectic

Modus Challenges to Modifactory

3. DIALECTIC AND PROCESS THOUGHT

different sorts of results. For whenever a given situation is forced to react

THE DIALECTICS OF NEGOTIATION

Party #1 Party #2 Party #1

the negation of the negation

the transformation of quantity into quality.

tendency reactively evoked interactive

reasoning or to causality, to history or physics. However, dialectics is not a

5. SPENCERS LAW AT THE DIALECTIC COGNITIVE COMPLEXI-

Already well before Darwin, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer

Our cognitive efforts manifest a Manichaean-style struggle between com-

comprehensiveness, the old theory structures become destabilizedthe old

As such deliberations indicate, any productive end-oriented process what-

THE DIALECTIC OF PROCESSUAL DEVELOPMENT

Retain the process

This feature of competitive accommodation is illustrated with particular

WARFARE: THE DIALECTICS OF STRATEGIC

Deployment of Counter-deployment Redeployment by

Then, too, strategic planning can be viewed as a quintessentially dialec-

thought-imposed modeling of the actual processes involved. On this basis

NOTES FOR CHAPTER 1

the theoretical analysis of extralegal argumentation in Whatelys treatment

2. THE FORMALITIES OF A DISPUTATION

A disputation, as we have seen, involves three parties: the two disputing