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On the Nature and Use of Dialectic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Edward G. Ballard
Edward G. Ballard*
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Extract

Dialectic, like love, has a good and a bad reputation. This ambivalence may be illustrated in different ways in almost every period of philosophical history. One may even suspect that this richness borders upon confusion. And yet, the attempt to orientate oneself in this jungle of meanings can be expected to be profitable, for the term “dialectic” has always referred, although often obscurely, to notions and processes of the first importance. The definition, illustration, and evaluation of the uses of this term should, accordingly, be a task promising some value.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , July 1955 , pp. 205 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1955

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References

1 This translation of the causal relation into the relation of material implication has not infrequently been expressed. Cf. J. M. Johnson, “Rival Principles of Explanation,” Psychological Review, 46, no. 6, Nov. 1939, p. 493 ff; and A. W. Burks, “The Logic of Causal Relations,” Mind, LX, 1951, pp. 363–382.

2 Cf. H. A. Simon, “On the Definition of the Causal Relation,” J. of Philos. XLIX, no. 16, July, 1952, 517–528.

3 Cf. H. M. Johnson, article cited.

4 Human Knowledge, N. Y., 1948, p. 468.

5 Many analogies of this sort between self-regulating machines and organisms, already evident in the terminology associated with Cybernetics, are developed and discussed by K. W. Deutsch, in “Mechanism, Organism, and Society,” Phil. of Science, 18, no. 3, July, 1951, pp. 230–252.

6 K. W. Deutsch, Op Cit. p. 243.