dialect (dialekt)

[F. dialecte = Sp. Pg. dialecto It. dialetto = G. dialect = D. Dan. Sw. dialekt, II. n. [= F. dialect i que = Sp. dialéctica = Pg. dialectic a = It. dialettica = G. Dan. Sw. dialektik, dialectic a , τέχνη ), the dialectic art, the art of discu ion, logical debate, also the logic of probabilities, fem. of διαλεκτικός, belonging to disputation: see I.] 1. Logic, or a branch of logic; specifically, the art of critical examination into the truth of an opinion; inductive logic applied to philosophy; the logic of probable reasoning; the art of discu ion and of disputation; logic applied to rhetoric and refutation. The invention of the art of dialectic is attributed to Zeno the Eleatic, whose arguments against motion are examples of the origi nal meaning of the Greek word. The famous dialectic of So crates and Plato, their chief instrument of philosophical inquiry, was a conversational discu ion with inductive appeals to special instances. Dialectic was limited by Aristotle to logic accommodated to the uses of the rhetorician, appealing only to general belief, but not to first principles. The Stoics, who probably introduced the term logic , divided that art into rhetoric and dialectic, the former be ing the art of continuous discourse, the latter that of discu ion with an interlocutor. Cicero and other Latin writers, influenced by Stoic doctrine, understand by dialectic Dialecticism, phoneticism, ellipsis, and so forth. The Academy, Jan. 14, 1888, p. 27. [Pl. of dialectic: