Sociology: concepts and methods

Sociology

How can dialectal thinking help to over come rectification?

Dialectical thinking was one of the primary ways that Plato's Socrates and other ancient Greek authors attempted to discover the 'truth' of any one particular issue. Socrates engaged in dialects with other individuals, questioning them about their assumptions to the point where they began to understand their logical fallacies in reasoning and their fallacious understandings of life. However, by engaging in dialectical thinking on one's own, one may subject one's own cultural assumptions to a similarly rigorous standard.

Dialectical thinking is one of the most effective ways an individual can attain a balanced perspective of an issue where there are potentially 'two sides' to any matter or query. On the simplest level, an individual engages in dialectical thinking when he or she sits down and attempts to critically engage with him or her self. He or she essentially enters into an argument with him or herself. On the simplest of levels, this may result in the presentation of two options, a weighing of comparative advantages and a decision to make a particular choice. On a more complex level, this can take the form of an individual subjecting his or her most dearly held beliefs to rigorous scrutiny, assuming them to be wrong on one hand, and right on the other. By boiling one's thoughts down into two opposite extremes, one understands which idea is more valid and is more rationally rather than subjectively based.