A Comment on the Meanings of ‘Dialectics’

‘Dialectics’ has several accepted modern senses, referring to, among other things: (a) dialogue or debate; (b) a method for ascertaining truth; and (c) a type of model, the two presently dominant versions of which are dialectical idealism and dialectical materialism. These versions differ in several ways: in dialectical idealism the whole progresses, via the negation of negation, toward an absolute end, and at any stage the essence of the whole is constituted primarily by internal relations. In dialectical materialism, a ‘whole’ is arbitrarily defined and therefore ‘internal relations’ are abstractions, but nevertheless ‘the negation of negation’ often aptly describes changes in the whole.