School of Athens,(realist and idealist walk side by side) Raphael, Vatican collection, Rome.
Dialectical means having contradicting qualities.
Plato and Aristotle, are painted in red and blue togas from the above fresco entitled the School of Athens, by Raphael in 1510-1511, had opposing beliefs about the character, origins and function of the world.
from dialectic, dialect, dialectical method. To investigate logically.
Greek meaning: The art of argument. Aristotle
di [two] + lect [spoken] = dialektos Ôdiscourse, way of speaking,Õ
The logical investigation describes contradictions in concepts and ideas that bias our understanding of the facts. The inquiry into the existence of contradictions is performed to determine the truth of an assertion, and was at the core of the Greek, Roman and later Medieval comprehension of the world. The dialectic, or the means to distinguish the contrasts among varieties of things, discovering opposing relations in order to recognize patterns, or examine divergences between contrary means to order objects or experiences.
Dialectic was one of seven steps to practice in the mastery of knowledge in the Middle Ages.
Jacob Bronowski argues that
“There have always been two ways of looking at truth”
1. faith in self evident truths
2. doubt (skeptically), be skeptical“by doubt we are led to inquire and by inquiry we perceive the truth.”
quotes Peter Abelard.
Knowledge of opposites is called a synthesis.
For example:
School of Athens meaning |
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| Plato | Aristotle
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| This apparent material world is an illusory reflection of universal forms eternally persisting in the living Cosmos. | The Cosmos is composed dialectically of four material elements we intuit from our sense (several senses) that the world is real. Existence is reality that informs us about our origins, character and moral duties to one another |
We are born with knowledge of everything but on birth we forget what is known and must spend our life recalling what we have forgotten. Through dialogue we interrogate one another to determine the verity of our recall. Humans are moral agents with a duty to ethically take responsibility for our actions.
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Knowledge is acquired by analytically inspecting the world empirically and then comparing that evidence we observe to what we rationally theorize must be true. Thus to comprehend the world we must engage it to learn the moral lessons to promote the "Good." |
Realist
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| Aesthetics and Ethics are guides for our public duty and rules. | NOMOS - law is our defense against the tyranny of custom. |
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Knowledge or gnosis comes from dialectical argumentation that means the comparison from two different means of analysis, or a negation of the original concept in order to ascertain the power of any evidence to influence a correct conclusion.
¥ for Philosophy see Ð http://plato.stanford.edu/
The four varieties of knowledge are order, patterns, relation, & objects. These four categories, in an open mind, should lead to wisdom, but there is no guarantee that dialectical thinking will always end at wisdom.
| Beliefs | |
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| A belief expressing the equality of impacts | A wave's apparent motion is illusory. |
Bateson's laws and questions.
For example see Murray Gell-Mann's division of the world into two opposing systems.
Ten ecological laws that describe natural relations among living creatures and between populations and their coevolving communities.
words | landscape | photographs
Dialectic was one of the original seven liberal arts.
meaning using opposites, or contrary ideas to argue.
Literally:
The practice of logical discussion as a means of examining critically the truth of a theory or opinion.
Dialectic of Solitude, Octavio Paz.
Figuratively:
A means of presenting contrasts as in photos or painting contrasts bring out the desired image can reveal the essential qualities underlying any complex or simple subjects may mislead due to over dramatization or simplification of two sides of otherwise many sided argument.
Octavio Paz interprets dialectical thought.
Dialectical approaches to thinking about the world and analyzing significant questions is basic to all real knowledge. In a fundamental sense, dialectic perspectives are necessary for effective decision making.
Dialect
A divergence from the original, ancestral or root, colloquial expressions in any language distinct from the more widely spoken forms of language.
diad 
What
in the chapel appears to be arranged in pairs or opposite sides?
