Editing Dialectic (section)

{{Short description|Method of reasoning via argumentation and contradiction}}
'''Dialectic''' ({{langx|grc|διαλεκτική|translit=dialektikḗ}}; {{langx|de|Dialektik}}), also known as the '''dialectical method''', refers originally to [[dialogue]] between people holding different [[Opinion|points of view]] about a subject but wishing to arrive at the [[truth]] through reasoned [[argument]]. Dialectic resembles [[debate]], but the concept excludes [[Subjectivity|subjective]] elements such as [[emotional appeal]] and [[rhetoric]].<ref>See ''[[Gorgias (dialogue)|Gorgias]]'', 449B: "Socrates: Would you be willing then, Gorgias, to continue the discussion as we are now doing [Dialectic], by way of question and answer, and to put off to another occasion the (emotional) speeches (rhetoric) that (the sophist) Polus began?"</ref> It has its origins in [[ancient philosophy]] and continued to be developed in the [[Medieval philosophy|Middle Ages]].

[[Hegelianism]] refigured "dialectic" to no longer refer to a literal dialogue. Instead, the term takes on the specialized meaning of development by way of overcoming internal [[contradiction]]s. [[Dialectical materialism]], a theory advanced by [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]], adapted the Hegelian dialectic into a [[materialist]] theory of history. The legacy of Hegelian and Marxian dialectics has been criticized by philosophers, such as [[Karl Popper]] and [[Mario Bunge]], who considered it unscientific.

Dialectic implies a developmental process and so does not fit naturally within [[classical logic]]. Nevertheless, some twentieth-century logicians have attempted to formalize it.