dialectical

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“
This kind of opposition I may be allowed to term dialectical; that of contradictories may be called analytical opposition.

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Definitions (4)

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  1. Same as dialectic, 1. A dialectical syllogism is nothing more than a syllogism generating opinion, or any other assent besides science. Burgersdicius, tr. by a Gentleman. The flow of wit, the flash of repartee, and the dialectical brilliancy of some of the most famous comic scenes in Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. A. W. Ward, Eng. Dram. Lit., I. 159. I know very well that you like to amuse yourself with dialectical gymnastics, but I do not care about talking for talking's sake, and have no talent for badinage. Mivart, Nature and Thought, p. 25. Intellectual courage and a certain dialectical skill are united with a surprising ignorance of the complexity of the problems attacked. E. Dowden, Shelley, I. 159.
  2. Same as dialectic, 2. Schultens supposes that we have the book of Job as it was penned at first without any translations, as at that time the Hebrew and Arabick language was the same, with a small dialectical variation only Hodges, On Job, Preliminary Discourse. Dr. Johnson was scarcely at all aware of the authenticity of ancient dialectical words, and therefore seldom gives them any place in his dictionary. Pegge, Anecdotes of the Eng. Lang.
  3. Dialectical disputation, syllogism etc. See the nouns

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Examples (50)

  • When I adopted the more modern view, I gave it a Hegelian dress, and represented it as a dialectical transition from Leibniz to Spinoza, thus permitting myself to allow what I considered the logical order to prevail over that of chronology. —  My Philosophical Development
  • Observe: For the dialectical transition from geometry to dynamics, that geometry involves opposition of different parts of figures in space, and that this involves motion, and that motion involves a more than spatial matter, for a position in space, being defined solely by its position, cannot move. —  My Philosophical Development
  • Mao argued strongly fore the relative autonomy of the superstructure - and also (for the dialectical back and forth of base and superstructure). —  Kasama
  • As an alternative, the text puts forward a peculiar pragmatist adaptation of Hegel's "dialectical" method - asking how "appearance" and "essence" can be understood as dynamic moments of the same overarching relation. —  Roughtheory.org
  • Such an embrace of convention -- of the assumption that the art of fiction = storytelling, that the writer's job is to create characters who can be regarded as if they were persons, persons with "minds," etc. -- can't really be said to be a part of the kind of dialectical process Ron Silliman describes. —  The Reading Experience
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