_Dialectic_ is now widely regarded as a classic of contemporary philosophy. This book, first published in 1993, sets itself three main aims: the development of a general theory of dialectic, of which Hegelian dialectic can be seen to be a special case; the dialectical enrichment and deepening of critical realism, viz. into the system of dialectical critical realism; and the outline of the elements of a totalizing critique of Western philosophy. The first chapter clarifies the rational core of (...) Hegelian dialectic. Chapter two then proceeds to develop a general theory of dialectic. Isolating the fallacy of 'ontological monovalence', Roy Bhaskar then shows how absence and other negating concepts such as contradiction have a legitimate and necessary ontological employment. He then goes on to give a synoptic account of key dialectical concepts such as the concrete universal; to sketch the further dialectical development of critical naturalism through an account of what he calls four-planar social being; and following consideration of the dialectical critique of analytical reason, he moves on to the real definition of dialectic as absenting absence and in the human sphere, the axiology of freedom. Chapter three extends and deepens critical realism’s characteristic concerns with ontology, science, social science and emancipation not only into the realms of negativity and totality, but also into the fields of reference and truth, spatio-temporality, tense and process, the logic of dialectical universalizability and on to the plane of ethics, where it articulates a combination of moral realism and ethical naturalism, whereby consideration of elemental desire involves commitment to the eudaimonistic society. This is then followed by a sublime discussion of key moments in the trajectory of Western philosophy, the tradition of which can now be seen to be based on what the author calls the unholy trinity of the epistemic fallacy or the reduction of being to knowledge, primal squeeze or the collapse of structure and alethic truth, and ontological monovalence. (shrink)

Negative Dialects is a phrase that flouts tradition. As early as Plato, dialectics meant to achieve something positive by means of negation; the thought figure of a 'negation of negation' later became the succinct term. This book seeks to free dialectics from such affirmative traits without reducing its determinacy.

tational background of dialectic: the structure of formal disputation. Formal disputation Perhaps the clearest, and surely historically the most prominent, ...

_Dialectic and Dialogue_ seeks to define the method and the aims of Plato's dialectic in both the "inconclusive" dialogues and the dialogues that describe and practice a method of hypothesis. Departing from most treatments of Plato, Gonzalez argues that the philosophical knowledge at which dialectic aims is nonpropositional, practical, and reflexive. The result is a reassessment of how Plato understood the nature of philosophy.

This work presents a dialectical ontology grounded in the act of differentiation. Being is not posited but unfolds through recursive distinction, where each act generates and transforms the conditions of further differentiation. Forms persist as aspectual configurations of difference. As differentiation recurs, it gives rise to structure, space, time, life, symbol, and society—each as a modulation in a multidimensional aspect-space. The dialectic here is not synthesis but immanent recursion: difference operating on itself. Potentiality is the unformed field enabling this (...) dynamic. Ontology thus arises from within the movement of differentiation itself. (shrink)

Introduction: Natural necessity, being, and becoming -- Accentuate the negative -- Diffracting dialectic -- Opening totality -- Constellating ethics -- Metacritique I : philosophy's primordial failing -- Metacritique II : dialectic and difference -- Conclusion: Natural necessity and the grounds of justice : natural necessity as material meshwork.

Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of (...) contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization. Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book. This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory. (shrink)

Ancient dialectic started as an art of refutation and evolved into a science akin to our logic, grammar and linguistics. Scholars of ancient philosophy have traditionally focused on Plato's and Aristotle's dialectic without paying much attention to the diverse conceptions and uses of dialectic presented by philosophers after the classical period. To bridge this gap, this volume aims at a comprehensive understanding of the competing Hellenistic and Imperial definitions of dialectic and their connections with those of the classical period. It (...) starts from the Megaric school of the fourth century BCE and the early Peripatetics, via Epicurus, the Stoics, the Academic sceptics and Cicero, to Sextus Empiricus and Galen in the second century CE. The philosophical foundations and various uses of dialectic are closely analysed and systematically examined together with the numerous objections that were raised against them. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that self-improvement is a modality of all dialectical ethics, which takes place in every hermeneutic situation where the subject confronts practical knowledge in order to decide on his or her action. From Aristotle to Basil-Juléat Fouda, ethical knowledge only makes sense in an intersubjective understanding of the world. From this unipolarity emerges the common ground of a philosophical foundation for ethics, namely from phrónèsis, which has the particularity of being practical knowledge, (...) mobilising practical reason, and which is distinct from the theoretical knowledge of epistêmê. However, this disposition, which expresses itself in African knowledge-wisdom and guides its practical conduct, finds its consolidation in its relationship with transcendence. Thus, beyond the comparatism that establishes the identity between practical philosophy (Aristotle) and functional philosophy (Fouda), we realise that there is an African added value in terms of the foundations of ethical action. (shrink)

This paper aims to discuss a well-known concept from argumentation theory, namely the principle of charity. It will show that this principle, especially in its contemporary version as formulated by Donald Davidson, meets with some serious problems. Since we need the principle of charity in any kind of critical discussion, we propose the way of modifying it according to the presupponendum—the rule written in the sixteenth century by Ignatius Loyola. While also corresponding with pragma-dialectical rules, it also provides additional (...) content. This will be termed the dialectical principle of charity, and it offers a few steps to be performed during an argument in order to make sure that the participants understand each other well and are not deceived by any cognitive bias. The meaning of these results could be of great significance for argumentation theory, pragma-dialectics and the practice of public discourse as it enhances the principle of charity and makes it easier to apply in argumentation. (shrink)

_Dialectic of Enlightenment_ is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of (...) contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization. Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book. This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Franz Neumann, Theodor Adorno, Leo Lowenthal—the impact of the Frankfurt School on the sociological, political, and cultural thought of the twentieth century has been profound. _The Dialectical Imagination_ is a major history of this monumental cultural and intellectual enterprise during its early years in Germany and in the United States. Martin Jay has provided a substantial new preface for this edition, in which he reflects on the continuing relevance of the work of the (...) Frankfurt School. (shrink)

The Dialectical Forge identifies dialectical disputation as a primary formative dynamic in the evolution of pre-modern Islamic legal systems, promoting dialectic from relative obscurity to a more appropriate position at the forefront of Islamic legal studies. The author introduces and develops a dialectics-based analytical method for the study of pre-modern Islamic legal argumentation, examines parallels and divergences between Aristotelian dialectic and early juridical jadal-theory, and proposes a multi-component paradigm—the Dialectical Forge Model—to account for the power of jadal (...) in shaping Islamic law and legal theory.In addition to overviews of current evolutionary narratives for Islamic legal theory and dialectic, and expositions on key texts, this work shines an analytical light upon the considerably sophisticated “proto-system” of juridical dialectical teaching and practice evident in Islam’s second century, several generations before the first “full-system” treatises of legal and dialectical theory were composed. This proto-system is revealed from analyses of dialectical sequences in the 2nd/8th century Kitāb Ikhtilāf al-ʿIrāqiyyīn / ʿIrāqiyyayn through a lens molded from 5th/11th century jadal-theory treatises. Specific features thus uncovered inform the elaboration of a Dialectical Forge Model, whose more general components and functions are explored in closing chapters. (shrink)

The result was the Critique of Dialectical Reason, an intellectual masterpiece of the twentieth century, now republished in two volumes with major original ...

In the pragma-dialectical approach, fallacies are considered incorrect moves in a discussion for which the goal is successful resolution of a dispute. Ten rules are given for effective conduct at the various stages of such a critical discussion (confrontation, opening, argumentation, concluding). Fallacies are discussed as violations of these rules, taking into account all speech acts which are traditionally recognized as fallacies. Special attention is paid to the role played by implicitness in fallacies in everyday language use. It is (...) stressed that identifying and acknowledging fallacies in ordinary discussions always has a conditional character. Differences between the pragma-dialectical perspective, the Standard Treatment, and the formal logic approach to fallacy analysis are discussed. (shrink)

In the pragma-dialectical approach, fallacies are considered incorrect moves in a discussion for which the goal is successful resolution of a dispute. Ten rules are given for effective conduct at the various stages of such a critical discussion (confrontation, opening, argumentation, concluding). Fallacies are discussed as violations of these rules, taking into account all speech acts which are traditionally recognized as fallacies. Special attention is paid to the role played by implicitness in fallacies in everyday language use. It is (...) stressed that identifying and acknowledging fallacies in ordinary discussions always has a conditional character. Differences between the pragma-dialectical perspective, the Standard Treatment, and the formal logic approach to fallacy analysis are discussed. (shrink)

This contribution discusses some problems of Pragma-Dialectics and explains them by its consensualistic view of the function of argumentation and by its philosophical underpinnings. It is suggested that these problems can be overcome by relying on a better epistemology and on an epistemological theory of argumentation. On the one hand Pragma-Dialectics takes unqualified consensus as the aim of argumentation, which is problematic, (Sect. 2) on the other it includes strong epistemological and rationalistic elements (Sect. 3). The problematic philosophical underpinnings of (...) Pragma-Dialectics, specifically Critical Rationalism as well as Logical Constructivism and Dialogic Logic of the Erlangen School, are among the sources of this incoherence (Sect. 4). A detailed critique of the Pragma-Dialectical discussion rules shows the negative consequences of this foundation and indicates how they could be avoided (Sects. 5, 6). (shrink)

Anticolonial theorists and revolutionaries have long turned to dialectical thought as a central weapon in their fight against oppressive structures and conditions. This relationship was never easy, however, as anticolonial thinkers have resisted the historical determinism, teleology, Eurocentrism, and singular emphasis that some Marxisms place on class identity at the expense of race, nation, and popular identity. In recent decades, the conflict between dialectics and postcolonial theory has only deepened. In _Decolonizing Dialectics _George Ciccariello-Maher breaks this impasse by bringing (...) the work of Georges Sorel, Frantz Fanon, and Enrique Dussel together with contemporary Venezuelan politics to formulate a dialectics suited to the struggle against the legacies of colonialism and slavery. This is a decolonized dialectics premised on constant struggle in which progress must be fought for and where the struggles of the wretched of the earth themselves provide the only guarantee of historical motion. (shrink)

This book traces the development of Dialectical Logic within the history of modern western philosophy, culminating in Marx s materialist dialectics. It brings out the essential contours of Logic through a detailed exposition of the ontological and epistem.

In this wide-ranging interview Alan Norrie discusses how he became involved with Critical Realism, his work on Dialectical Critical Realism, and responses to it amongst the Critical Realist communi...

Dialogues and dialectics have come to playan important role in the field of ArtificialIntelligence and Law. This paper describes thelegal-theoretical and logical background of this role,and discusses the different services into whichdialogues are put. These services include:characterising logical operators, modelling thedefeasibility of legal reasoning, providing the basisfor legal justification and identifying legal issues,and establishing the law in concrete cases. Specialattention is given to the requirements oflaw-establishing dialogues.

This book considers the emergence of dialectic out of the spirit of dialogue and traces the relation between the two. It moves from Plato, for whom dialectic is necessary to destroy incorrect theses and attain thinkable being, to Cusanus, to modern philosophers—Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher and Gadamer, for whom dialectic becomes the driving force behind the constitution of a rational philosophical system. Conceived as a logical enterprise, dialectic strives to liberate itself from dialogue, which it views as merely accidental and (...) even disruptive of thought, in order to become a systematic or scientific method. The Cartesian autonomous and universal yet utterly monological and lonely subject requires dialectic alone to reason correctly, yet dialogue, despite its unfinalizable and interruptive nature, is what constitutes the human condition. (shrink)

Inspired by legal reasoning, this paper presents a formal framework for assessing conflicting arguments. Its use is illustrated with applications to realistic legal examples, and the potential for implementation is discussed. The framework has the form of a logical system for defeasible argumentation. Its language, which is of a logic-programming-like nature, has both weak and explicit negation, and conflicts between arguments are decided with the help of priorities on the rules. An important feature of the system is that these priorities (...) are not fixed, but are themselves defeasibly derived as conclusions within the system. Thus debates on the choice between conflicting arguments can also be modelled.The proof theory of the system is stated in dialectical style, where a proof takes the form of a dialogue between a proponent and an opponent of an argument. An argument is shown to be justified if the proponent can make the opponent run out of moves in whatever way the opponent attacks. Despite this dialectical form, the system reflects a declarative, or relational approach to modelling legal argument. A basic assumption of this paper is that this approach complements two other lines of research in AI and Law, investigations of precedent-based reasoning and the development of procedural, or dialectical models of legal argument. (shrink)

Anticolonial theorists and revolutionaries have long turned to dialectical thought as a central weapon in their fight against oppressive structures and conditions. This relationship was never easy, however, as anticolonial thinkers have resisted the historical determinism, teleology, Eurocentrism, and singular emphasis that some Marxisms place on class identity at the expense of race, nation, and popular identity. In recent decades, the conflict between dialectics and postcolonial theory has only deepened. In _Decolonizing Dialectics _George Ciccariello-Maher breaks this impasse by bringing (...) the work of Georges Sorel, Frantz Fanon, and Enrique Dussel together with contemporary Venezuelan politics to formulate a dialectics suited to the struggle against the legacies of colonialism and slavery. This is a decolonized dialectics premised on constant struggle in which progress must be fought for and where the struggles of the wretched of the earth themselves provide the only guarantee of historical motion. (shrink)

Dialectics is a philosophical method, it has methodology rigor for academic research. It is divided into two main variants: Greek and German. In turn, there are particularities between each variant, the Greek is subdivided into Platonic and Aristotelian, and the German into Hegelian and Marxist. The present article focuses on the first variant. It explores the ontological and epistemological presuppositions, through a specific review of the Platonic Dialogues Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist and Statesman (also called Politicus); it also deals with Aristotle’s (...) Topics. The reading of these works, with the dialectical method as the object of study, is done from the approach of a Metaphysics of Relation, a notion that is assumed from the connotative and explicative view as a strategy to identify a common thread of the Greek variant of dialectics. (shrink)

A dialectical contradiction can be appropriately described within the framework of classical formal logic. It is in harmony with the law of noncontradiction. According to our definition, two theories make up a dialectical contradiction if each of them is consistent and their union is inconsistent. It can happen that each of these two theories has an intended model. Plenty of examples are to be found in the history of science.

This article attempts to contribute to the literature on what has become known as “student relativism” by suggesting that in many cases it is a symptom of a broader and equally problematic pre-reflective epistemological framework that students often bring with them to the study of philosophy. It goes on to describe the notion of a “dialectical fact,” and to propose that this concept can be a useful pedagogical tool for helping students to progress beyond that framework.

This article re-examines Friedrich W. J. Schelling’s philosophical divergence from dialectical philosophy, with a focus on his Freedom Essay. While traditionally viewed as rejecting dialectics—particularly following the publication of Georg W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit—this study challenges that perception by arguing that Schelling employs a dialectical understanding of identity centred on disjunction (§ 1). It demonstrates how Schelling’s metaphysics, developed to accommodate freedom, incorporates the notion of identity of contradictory elements (§ 2). By exploring the central role (...) of disjunction in Schelling’s “dialectical argument” (§ 3) and critically engaging with recent interpretations by Manfred Frank and Mark J. Thomas (§ 4), the article reassesses the Freedom Essay as a pivotal contribution to dialectical philosophy, broadly construed. Ultimately, it aims to facilitate a more nuanced comparison between Schelling’s and dialectical philosophies, challenging the entrenched narrative of their fundamental opposition (§ 5). (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to delimitate what the dialectical syllogism looks like in Aristotle’s Topics. Aristotle never gave an example of a dialectical syllogism, but we have some clues spread over books I and VIII of the Topics which make it possible to understand at least what within a dialectical debate is a dialectical syllogism. The interpretation advanced here distinguishes the logical order of the dialectical argumentation from the order of the (...) debate. This distinction enables us to have a better understand of what is and how the dialectical syllogism is identified in the debate. In addition, we can solve some interpretative difficulties other interpretations could not solve, and have a more solid grasp of how endoxa are used in a dialectical debate. (shrink)

Introduction Since my work in medieval logic has concentrated on dialectic. I have tried to trace scholastic treatments of dialectic to discussions of it in ...

The Dialectic of Essence offers a systematic new account of Plato's metaphysics. Allan Silverman argues that the best way to make sense of the metaphysics as a whole is to examine carefully what Plato says about ousia (essence) from the Meno through the middle period dialogues, the Phaedo and the Republic, and into several late dialogues including the Parmenides, the Sophist, the Philebus, and the Timaeus. This book focuses on three fundamental facets of the metaphysics: the theory of Forms; the (...) nature of particulars; and Plato's understanding of the nature of metaphysical inquiry. Silverman seeks to show how Plato conceives of "Being" as a unique way in which an essence is related to a Form. Conversely, partaking ("having") is the way in which a material particular is related to its properties: Particulars, thus, in an important sense lack essence. Additionally, the author closely analyzes Plato's idea that the relation between Forms and particulars is mediated by form-copies. Even when some late dialogues provide a richer account of particulars, Silverman maintains that particulars are still denied essence. Indeed, with the Timaeus's introduction of the receptacle, there are no particulars of the traditional variety. This book cogently demonstrates that when we understand that Plato's concern with essence lies at the root of his metaphysics, we are better equipped to find our way through the labyrinth of his dialogues and to better appreciate how they form a coherent theory. (shrink)

When Carl Wellman introduced the reasoning-type conduction, he endorsed a dialectical view on natural language argumentation. Contemporary scholarship, by contrast, treats conductive argument predominantly on a product view. Not only did Wellman’s reasons for a dialectical view thus fall into disregard; a product-treatment of conduction also flouts the standard semantics of ‘argument’. Attempting to resolve these difficulties, our paper traces Wellman’s preference for a dialectical view to the role of defeasible warrants. These act as stand-ins for value (...) hierarchies that arguers of normal suasory inclination find acceptable. We also improve on extant ways of diagramming conduction and distinguish two of its structural variants. (shrink)

This paper advances an approach to presupposition rooted in the concept of commitment, a dialectical notion weaker than truth and belief. It investigates ancient medieval dialectical theories and develops the insights thereof for analyzing how presuppositions are evaluated and why a proposition is presupposed. In particular, at a pragmatic level, presuppositions are reconstructed as the conclusions of implicit arguments from presumptive reasoning, grounded on presumptions of different type and nature. A false (or rather unaccepted) presupposition can be thus (...) represented as the outcome of a conflict of presumptions – the ones used by the Speaker and the ones commonly accepted or backed by evidence. From an interpretative perspective, this defaulted presumptive reasoning can be explained by comparing the available presumptions and repaired by replacing the weaker and unacceptable ones. (shrink)

In this article, I present a solution to the Sorites paradox based on a dialectical analysis. After briefly describing the paradox, I discuss the coexistence of a precise taxonomy and a vague taxonomy, emphasizing their complementarity. I also aim to clarify the distinction between unidimensional and multidimensional vague predicates, showing as well how any vague predicate can alternatively be characterized as either unidimensional or multidimensional. I then describe cases in which a conflict arises between precise and vague predicates, illustrating (...) this in particular with the medical condition of progeria. In light of this conflict, I ultimately undertake a diagnosis of the paradox, showing how the base premise and the inductive premise can turn out to be false, while the conclusion can prove to be true, under certain circumstances. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a detailed critical review of current approaches to ecthesis in Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, with a view to motivate a new approach, which builds upon previous work by Marion & Rückert (2016) on the dictum de omni. This approach sets Aristotle’s work within the context of dialectic and uses Lorenzen’s dialogical logic, hereby reframed with use of Martin-Löf's constructive type theory as ‘immanent reasoning’. We then provide rules of syllogistic for the latter, and provide proofs of (...) e-conversion, Darapti and Bocardo and e-subalternation, while showing how close to Aristotle’s text these proofs remain. (shrink)

This article examines how Black social life might be thought beyond the dialectical and ontological frameworks that have historically bound it to social death. Beginning with the critical tradition’s inability to apprehend Black life as improvisation rather than negation, it explores how the tension between Afro-pessimism and Black optimism turns on the question of refusal: whether the fugitive, improvisational practices of Black existence are confined by anti-blackness or exceed it. Drawing on Fred Moten’s concept of paraontology, the article argues (...) that improvisation constitutes a modality of refusal that neither ruptures nor submits to social death but moves within its fissures, curating a space between Afro-pessimism and Black optimism. As Black noise, improvisation disrupts the linear time of modernity and the ontological grammar that couples blackness with negation, reconceiving refusal as an anti-dialectical practice that deforms the structures that seek to define it and sounds the untimely temporality of Black social life. (shrink)

Political debate is a distinctive domain in argumentation, characterized by these features: it is about proposals for action, not about propositions that may have a truth value; there may be good arguments on both sides; neither the proposal nor its rejection follows by necessity or inference; the pros and the cons generally cannot, being multidimensional and hence incommen- surable, be aggregated in an objective way; each audience member must subjectively compare and balance arguments on the two sides; eventual consensus between (...) the debaters is not a reasonable requirement. From all this follows a view of the rhetor’s special obligation in democratic, deliberative rhetoric on which it becomes crucial, in the interest of the audience, that political debaters acknowledge good arguments on the opposite side and explain why, on balance, they deem the arguments favoring their own side to be stronger. (shrink)

This paper introduces a novel theoretical framework, "Dialectical Cognition," by connecting the mathematical representations of group theory, abelian groups and modular arithmetic, to the rich dynamics of cognitive processing and philosophical concepts of mind. Drawing on Hegelian dialectics—thesis, antithesis, synthesis—we portray mental states and their interactions as members of finite abelian groups. We extend the classical theory of primitive roots to encompass fundamental cognitive primitives and explore how their inverses and powers weave the rich tapestry of thought. In this (...) algebraic perspective, we comprehend sophisticated cognitive functions from the neural network dynamics to evolutionary choice and language processing. In addition, we introduce a set of new theorems, such as the "Free Groups and Creativity Theorem", to mathematically formalize the proposed framework. This multi-disciplinary framework not only gives a new mathematical vocabulary to articulate the mind but also is a very good platform to research the computational and philosophical grounds of intelligence, creativity, and self-consciousness in a single unifying algebraic framework. (shrink)

Pragma-dialectics is dynamic, context-sensitive, and multi-agent; it promises theories of fallacy and argumentative structure. But pragma-dialectic theory and practice are not yet fully in harmony. Key definitions of the theory fall short of explicating the analyses that pragma-dialecticians actually do. Many discussions involve more than two participants with different and mutually incompatible standpoints. Success in such a discussion may be more than success against each opponent. Pragma-dialectics does well at analyzing arguments advanced by one party, directed at another party; it (...) does much less well at analyzing arguments directed at several opponents at once or at convincing an audience. I suggest a strategy of construing fallacies as defeasible arguments relying on reasonable default principles but applying them in circumstances in which they are undercut or overridden. (shrink)

The discussion on the principle of non-contradiction (1946–1957) between Marxist and non-Marxist philosophers was one of the major philosophical discussions in Polish philosophy of this period. In my text, I carefully reconstruct this discussion and outline its relation to Soviet debates on the subject. I show that the change in Schaff’s position happened in the early 1950s under the combined influence of the Lvov–Warsaw School and the changes in the official Soviet position regarding formal logic. I discuss the aftermath following (...) Schaff’s change in attitude towards the analytic tradition for the development of Polish philosophy, as well as the critique of this change by Jarosław Ładosz. In my reconstruction of the latter, I focus on the problem of the historical development of science. I refer to Ilyenkov’s critique of Schaff, opposing synchronic (“positivist”) and diachronic (“dialectical”) concepts of knowledge. As I argue, these opposing concepts of science can be seen as a genuine issue at stake in the Polish discussion as well, especially in the polemic between Schaff and Ładosz. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the possibility of interpreting Hegel’s dialectic as dialetheism. After a first basic recapitulation about the meaning of the words ‘dialetheism’ and ‘dialectic’ and a consideration of Priest’s own account of the relation between dialectical and dialetheic logic in 1989, I discuss some controversial issues, not directly considered by Priest. As a matter of fact, the reflection on paraconsistent logics and dialetheism has enormously grown in recent years. In addition, the reception of Hegel’s logic and (...) metaphysics has also impressively improved. So I suggest that the discussion about the binomial dialectic/dialetheism should be reopened, on these new bases. (shrink)

The nature of Kant’s criticism of his pre-Critical ‘possibility proof’ for the existence of God, implicit in the account of the Transcendental Ideal in the Critique of Pure Reason, is still under dispute. Two issues are at stake: the error in the proof and diagnosis of the reason for committing it. I offer a new way to connect these issues. In contrast with accounts that locate the motivation for the error in reason’s interest in an unconditioned causal ground of all (...) contingent existence, I argue that it lies in reason’s interest in another kind of unconditioned ground, collective unity. Unlike the conception of the former, that of the latter directly explains the problematic ontological assumption of the possibility proof, the existence of intelligible objects as the ground of possibility. I argue that such Platonic entities are assumed because they are amenable to the kind of unity prescribed by reason. However, since the interest in collective unity has a legitimate regulative use when applied to the systematic unity of nature, the conception of God entailed by the possibility proof is retained as a regulative idea of reason. (shrink)

The notions of types of dialogue and dialectical relevance are central themes in Walton’s work and the grounds for a dialectical approach to many fallacies. After outlining the dialogue models constituting the background of Walton’s account, this article presents the concepts of dialectical relevance and dialogue shifts in their application to biased argumentation, fallacious moves, and illicit argumentative strategies. Showing the different dialectical proposals Walton advanced in several studies on argumentation as a development of a dialogical (...) system, it has proved possible to highlight the fundamental aspects of his theory in a comprehensive model of communication and interaction. (shrink)