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Dialectic: Logic Through Conversation
Dialectic is a term used in philosophy, and the fact that it is closely connected to the ideas of Socrates and Plato is completely logical—even from an etymological point of view. Plato’s famous dialogues frequently presented Socrates playing a leading role, and dialogue comes from the Greek roots dia- (“through” or “across”) and -logue (“discourse” or “talk”). Dialect and dialectic come from dialecktos (“conversation” or “dialect”) and ultimately back to the Greek word dialegesthai, meaning “to converse.”
Conversation or dialogue was indeed at the heart of the “Socratic method,” through which Socrates would ask probing questions which cumulatively revealed his students’ unsupported assumptions and misconceptions. The goal, according to the definition in our Unabridged Dictionary, was to “elicit a clear and consistent expression of something supposed to be implicitly known by all rational beings.”
Other philosophers had specific uses of the term dialectic, including Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Kantianism, Hegelianism, and Marxism. Asking a series of questions was considered by Socrates a method of “giving birth” to the truth, and a related word, maieutic, defined as “relating to or resembling the Socratic method of eliciting new ideas from another,” comes from the Greek word meaning “of midwifery.”
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Examples of dialogue in a Sentence
Eugenia Last, The Mercury News, 12 Nov. 2024
On the same day in June that Putin visited Pyongyang, Chinese and South Korean officials held a security dialogue in Seoul—the first such meeting in nine years.
—Sungmin Cho, Foreign Affairs, 12 Nov. 2024
Laura Newberry, Los Angeles Times, 19 Dec. 2023
And do the living and dead continue to dialogue?
—Hamilton Cain, WSJ, 17 Jan. 2022
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Cite this Entry
“Dialogue.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialogue. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
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