Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 14 The modern reader often associates the word dialectic with contradiction, conflict, and negation, largely under the influence of Hegel and the later Marxist tradition. Etymologically, however, the term points in a much broader direction. The Greek dialektikē (διαλεκτική) derives from the verb dialegesthai (διαλέγεσθαι), meaning “toContinue reading “Excursus 068 – On the Original Meaning of “Dialectic””
Tag Archives: dialectic
Excursus 067 – On Conflict and Reciprocity as Forms of Movement
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 14 Throughout the history of dialectical thought, conflict has often been treated as its defining characteristic. From Plato through Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx, the vocabulary of dialectic increasingly came to revolve around opposition, negation, contradiction, and struggle. By the nineteenth century, conflict was frequently regarded notContinue reading “Excursus 067 – On Conflict and Reciprocity as Forms of Movement”
Excursus 054 – On the Hermeneutics of “Dialectic”
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 18 The term dialectic has accumulated multiple and often incompatible meanings over the course of its history. Contemporary discussions frequently employ the term without specifying which dialectical tradition is intended. As a result, ideas drawn from thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lukács, Sartre, Adorno, Gurvitch, Bhaskar,Continue reading “Excursus 054 – On the Hermeneutics of “Dialectic””
Excursus 044 – On the Primacy of Movement in Dialectical Thought
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 16 Throughout much of the history of dialectical thought, contradiction has increasingly come to be regarded as the defining feature of dialectic. From Plato through Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx, dialectical development was progressively interpreted in terms of opposition, negation, conflict, or contradiction. By the nineteenth century,Continue reading “Excursus 044 – On the Primacy of Movement in Dialectical Thought”
Excursus 014 – On Dualism
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 The appearance of paired opposites in Bacon’s examples (“hot/cold,” “white/black”) should not be taken as evidence of a dualistic worldview. These pairs were part of the inherited scientific and rhetorical vocabulary of his time—convenient, vivid, and pedagogically familiar—but not philosophically binding. Bacon’s underlying physics was continuist,Continue reading “Excursus 014 – On Dualism”
Excursus 004 – On Bacon’s Use of the Term Dialectic
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 In the Novum Organum (1620), Bacon employs the terms “dialectic” and “dialectical” in a specifically syllogistic sense: a scholastic structure of reasoning that proceeds syllogistically from received axioms. The term therefore designates a formal apparatus of argumentation—major premise, minor premise, and conclusion—rather than dialogical exchange orContinue reading “Excursus 004 – On Bacon’s Use of the Term Dialectic”
Excursus 003 – Three Historical Roles of Dialectic
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Discussions of the history of dialectic often distinguish between different philosophers but less frequently between the fundamentally different roles that dialectic has played throughout intellectual history. A useful distinction may be drawn between three broad conceptions. The earliest conception, associated primarily with Socrates and much ofContinue reading “Excursus 003 – Three Historical Roles of Dialectic”
Hossein Jorjani 