Dialectical method, sometimes referred to as the Socratic Method, is where there are two points of opinion that lie on opposite ends of a spectrum that "debate." Through the process of debate the participants as well as the audience can acquire a deeper understanding of the topic being investigated. The participants will institute a reasoned argument from each point-of-view and present this during the course of the dialectic. The dialectical method is heavily rooted in logic and reason and does not make provisions for emotional or ethical appeals; which would be included in "rhetoric."
In Classical Philosophy, Socrates and his dialogues represent the ideal representation of the dialectic. Through reason and debate two individuals could tease out inconsistencies with different theories to attempt to continually get closer to the truth. When an inconsistency is identified, it can be thought of as more of a starting point than an end. That is, it is the nature of the inconsistency to warrant further...
The ultimate truth, in Socrates opinion, would come from the position in which no more contradictions were possible, however such a position is extremely uncommon.
Although these ideas permeated through different cultures throughout history, they were not popularized again until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Friedrich Hegel is credited with giving the dialectic a new renaissance. He proposed a dialectical model of nature and of history and that the dialectic was a fundamental aspect to the nature of reality. Many other philosophers also picked up on Hegel's work; including most notably, Karl Marx. Marx took some of Hegel's ideas and applied them to the material structure of societies.
Marx's ideas were that there was a dialectical relationship between the owners of capital and of the laboring masses. The owners of capital would continually increase their power over society until it reach a point in which it was so out of balance that there would be no choice but for the workers to revolt. Many examples of this can be seen throughout world history. The powerful would grow their power until the laborers of society would eventually overthrow the power structures in hopes of creating something more fair. Marx believed that there would be a natural evolution to this cycle that would occur. The last stage of this evolution in his opinion would be some form of a communist system in which power and material wealth was more equally shared amongst…
Plato conceived that there were two great causes of human corruption, viz., bad or ill-directed education, and the corrupt influence of the body on the soul. His ethical discussions, therefore, have for their object, the limiting of the desires, and the cure of the diseases produced by them in the soul; while his political discussions have for their immediate object, the laying down of right principles of education, and enforcing
A woman can be neither a political leader nor a judge; she must only appear in public modestly dressed, and her natural and sacred task is to keep the household smoothly functioning and to raise and instruct her children to be good Muslims. Men, for their part, must shoulder the burden of providing for the family in material ways. Liberation for a woman does not mean being like a
His viewpoint is neither traditionally Christian and therefore subject to Church doctrine, nor strictly pagan and therefore subject to strict rationality. Hegel's working out of the thesis and antithesis of life and death, and the synthesis, which is love, is a kind of mystical interpretation of the Christian mysteries. What Hegel could not understand in light of objectivity destroyed, he attempts to explain in light of Love as the
Culture Psych Culture and Human Psychology: An Examination of Gift-Giving in Different Nations Culture is a complex phenomenon that evades being defined in terms that are at once comprehensive and concrete -- any entirely firm definition of culture is bound to leave out some elements of some cultures, and any definition that is all-inclusive is necessarily unspecific in certain regards. Put broadly, culture can be thought of as the sum total of
From this came our insistence on the drama of the doorstep" (cited by Hardy 14-15). Grierson also notes that the early documentary filmmakers were concerned about the way the world was going and wanted to use all the tools at hand to push the public towards greater civic participation. With the success of Drifters, Grierson was able to further his ideas, but rather than directing other films, he devoted his time
Marx Hegel German philosopher Hegel developed a philosophy that can be called phenomenology, or Philosophy and the Actual World. Whereas previous philosophers concerned themselves with abstractions, Hegel wanted to apply philosophical inquiry to the world that we can know directly. Hegel appears to be more concerned with effects than with causes. However, Hegel is a philosopher and as such he is eminently concerned with reason. Like the ancient Greeks, Hegel appreciated the
