DIALECTIC, or DIALECTICS  (from Gr . S&&XeKTOS, discourse, debate; i &a).earuo7, sc . TEXvr7, the art of debate), a logical term, generally used in common parlance in a contemptuous sense for verbal or purely abstract disputation devoid of practical value . According to Aristotle, Zeno of Elea " invented " dialectic, the art of disputation by question and answer, while Plato developed it metaphysically in connexion with his doctrine of " Ideas " as the art of analysing ideas in themselves and in relation to the ultimate idea of the Good (Repub. vii.) . The special function of the so-called " Socratic dialectic " was to show the inadequacy of popular beliefs . Aristotle himself used " dialectic," as opposed to " science," for that department of mental activity which examines the presuppositions lying at the back of all the particular sciences . Each particular science has its own subject matter and special principles (Tam apxai) on which the superstructure of its special discoveries is based . The Aristotelian dialectic, however, deals with the universal laws (rcowai apxal) of reasoning, which can be applied to the particular arguments of all the sciences . The sciences, for example, all seek to define their own species; dialectic, on the other hand, sets forth the conditions which all definitions must satisfy whatever their subject matter . Again, the sciences all seek to educe general laws; dialectic investigates the nature of such laws, and the kind and degree of necessity to which they can attain . To this general subject matter Aristotle gives the name " Topics" (rairot, loci, communes loci) . "Dialectic " in this sense is the equivalent of " logic." Aristotle also uses the term for the science of probable reasoning as opposed to demonstrative reasoning (&01-ob6LKTUCi) .

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Stoics divided ?oyud, (logic) into rhetoric and dialectic, and from their time till the end of the middle ages dialectic was either synonymous with, or a part of, logic . In modern philosophy the word has received certain special meanings . In Kantian terminology Dialektik is the name of that portion of the Kritik d. reinen Vernunft in which Kant discusses the impossibility of applying to " things-in-themselves " the principles which are found to govern phenomena . In the system of Hegel the word resumes its original Socratic sense, as the name of that intellectual process whereby the inadequacy of popular conceptions is exposed . Throughout its history, therefore, " dialectic " has been connected with that which is remote from, or alien to, unsystematic thought, with the a priori, or transcendental, rather than with the facts of common experience and material things .