DIALECTICS

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) This name was originally used by Plato as synonymous with metaphysics, or the highest philosophy. Strictly speaking, it can only be regarded as a preparatory disciplme for sucli investigations, or at most as a scientific method of prosecuting them. The most splendid examples of dialectical subtilty that exist are to be found in the Dialogues of Plato, especially in those entitled Par me nides, the Statesman and Sophist. Aristotle expre es himself with some contempt of dialectics. It is certain, however, that its own logic owes its existence to the dialectical exercises of the Platonic schools; and that It may, in one point of view, be regarded as a body of canons and directions for their legitimate use. {See Platonic Philosophy.) In modern times various systems of dialectics have been propounded in different countries; but by no -philosophers, either ancient or modern, has this science been more succe fully cultivated than by the Germans, who, among a host of other names more or le distinguished, can boast of a Fichte, Kant, Leibnitz, Hegel, Schelling, and Schlegel, as the propounders each of a peculiar dialectical system. [s. 349]