Dialectic and Dialogue

by Dmitri Nikulin

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.

Genres: Philosophy

183 pages, Hardcover

First published June 11, 2010

Reviews

[Rod Naquin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I … I love this book. Fitting that it’s my first finish of the new year. This book gave me an insight abt both/and which I’ll carry with me through 2022, and has connected me w a new research term: “dichotomous discourse.” I still have a lot to learn abt dialogue and dialectic, but this book helped me get a broad survey of the development of dialectic through dialogue, and the ubiquity and essentialism of dialogue for being