Dialectic

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Andrew Sola
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As with many specialist words used by philosophers (such as “ideology” and “alienation”), “dialectic” has accumulated different meanings throughout time. Indeed, the linguistic history of “dialectic” curiously intersects with one of its meanings: historical change. Because the history of “dialectic” is complicated, we will limit the bulk of our discussion to three areas: 1) the origins of dialectical thinking in Ancient Greece; 2) “dialectic” as it was understood by the German Idealist philosophers Kant and Hegel; and 3) “dialectic” as it was understood by Marx. Furthermore, we will look at both the form and content of these different understandings of dialectic, and we will show how philosophers have employed dialectical

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Citation: Sola, Andrew. "Dialectic". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 December 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=271, accessed 19 March 2024.]

271 Dialectic 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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