Dialectics

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

"Dialectic" is a term I've encountered numerous times in my intellectual wanderings. I think I have a good sense of what it means, and I think I really like it. But I thought I'd run my understanding of the term by everyone here at P&S to make sure I'm using it correctly.

"Dialectic" comes from the Greek roots for "through speech". From what I understand, it is a subtle form of verbal give-and-take where people with different viewpoints on an issue offer their viewpoints in turn, both on the original issue and other participants' expressed viewpoints on that issue. Unlike debate (as is found in courtrooms, for example), the object of dialectics is not to prove your viewpoint correct and others' wrong, though that can and does happen. In fact, a dialectic can be deemed successful even if no participants end up changing their minds substantially on the issue. The aim of dialactics, rather, is for each participant to gain an increased appreciation for the complexity of the issue, and the non-negligible effect of personal life circumstances (i.e. the subjective factors) that can lead a person to take one side or another on the issue. Dialectics do not ask participants to change their minds, but do cultivate compassion and understanding for those who don't agree, and usually do end in most participants revising and error-correcting their viewpoints.

Is this understanding fairly accurate? If so, why are dialectics not a more taught and encouraged intellectual exercise in today's educational institutions?

 

[psood0nym]

That sounds right to me, and I agree wholeheartedly. I've been in love with and inspired by dialectical discussion since reading the stories of Socrates and his dialectical methods. He had the right idea in that he was arguing in order to try to be wrong through sincere and open discussion rather than to be perceived as the "winner." He (or the character of Socrates) truly loved knowledge and so in pursuit of it he put his ego behind him where it belongs. As in those stories as now, people who think this way and act in kind annoy the hell out of people, which in my opinion is a great tragedy and is indicative of the biggest reason why dialectics are not popular: pride.

Most people I've talked to don't seem to conceive of argument or rhetoric as tools for improving understanding in practice. Rather, they assume there's something combative and offensive motivating people who try to engage them this way. Dialectics are perceived by them as a competition where the "loser" is proved inferior rather than what they're understood to be by any honest participant worth a damn: a cooperative enterprise that's a boon to the knowledge of all parties involved. It doesn't help that the people who are most likely to engage others in dialectics tend to have the best arguments, and are thus most often seen as coming out "on top." Neither does it help that for every honest participant there's 10 cheap brutish sophists out to stroke their egos. This gets the honest dialectician perceived as all sorts of things: cruel, domineering, snobbish, superior, pretentious, etc.

Most people on the "losing" end don't seem to appreciate they can't just be given "their fair turn" at having the best defense in an argument -- that of course would defeat the whole point. Having this sort of winners and losers attitude naturally makes people averse to actually learning anything dialectically and prone to curt dismissals or other evasive maneuvers of the ego, which in turn engenders pettiness, spitefulness, and ignorance.

I think the best way to spread the exercise of dialectics in higher learning is to teach children that there's no shame in ignorance, but there is shame in working to preserve it to protect one’s pride.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

psood0nym, one of the hardest (but most valuable) lessons I learned from getting into medicine was learning how to say "I don't know". It's not something that comes naturally to me, and I think this is true of a lot of people. I've tried to carry this learning over into serious discussions I have with all people on all kinds of topics. If I'm out of my element, talking with someone who clearly has read or experienced much more about the subject we're discussing than me, I'll readily admit this. If a person brings up so-called facts that I am in no position to either verify or falsify, I'll admit this. I won't even try, because to try and fail at this only hurts my overall credibility and integrity, even if the other person's "facts" don't turn out to be wholly accurate.

I find that taking the position of "I don't know, can you teach me?" can be very disarming in approaching people who are defensive about their viewpoints. Sometimes I'll even come right out and say, "I'm not trying to argue with you or shut you down, you just have a different take on all this than I've heard before. I don't promise I'll agree with you, but I'm interested in hearing your side of the story." Most importantly, though, I find it's crucial to watch my body language and tone of voice carefully, to make sure it portrays an "open and listening" posture, rather than an adversarial or disdainful one.

Interestingly enough, I have met and had heavy discussions with people who are so used to having tense, adversarial, zero-sum-game type arguments with people, that my willingness to engage them without any promise to agree with them has weirded some people out. I've had conversations with patients who were clearly very used to defending their disabled and disease-ridden state to healthcare practitioners who did not take their claims seriously, and have been utterly confused when I've taken them seriously, but then proposed a plan of action they hadn't thought of. I've had a couple of conversations with Black Muslims in the US, some of whom I was fairly sure in retrospect were spoiling for a fight, and kind of disappointed I didn't fall for any of their rhetorical traps and instigate one.

It's a powerful natural high to be right, to be smug, to change someone's mind entirely by what you tell them. But like any high, it's best enjoyed in moderation. Chasing this high can squander opportunities for connection with others through quality conversation, and ultimately sets people up to be unprepared for the inevitable times when they're wrong.

 

[ebola?]

I think that the dialectic can also refer to something entirely distinct, namely the form of reasoning used by Hegel and then imported by Marx (put briefly, examination of a particular set of logical relations to see how current conceptual oppositions may be reconciled (sublated, superseded, moved beyond) by a wider conceptual framework that realizes latent potentialities implicit in the original conceptual opposition). Here, "the dialect" stands opposed to the typical "if-then" type reasoning realized via first and higher order logics.

ebola

 

[psood0nym]

^Hegel's dialectics of aesthetics makes for fascinating reading, even if much of it does amount (IMO) to little more than thrilling intellectual gymnastics (I'm thinking here, IIRC, about his ideas regarding the eminence of sculpture and architecture and transcending the art object through the dialectical process). The way MDAO is using the term strikes me as having far more general and practical importance.