ABSTRACT
The dialectician's constructive statements indicate the dialectical truths on which the disputants in a controversy can agree, precisely because his formulations are neutral with respect to the truth and falsity of opposed doctrines or theories. The foregoing exemplifies the general relation that obtains between the dialectical truths, to which disputants in a controversy can agree, and the soundness or accuracy of the dialectician's construction of that controversy. First consider the nature of dialectical truth, then what is involved in dialectical neutrality, and finally the idea of dialectic itself. The idea of the great conversation provides with a bold but inspiring view of the cultural heritage which liberal education tries to transmit from generation to generation. The answer is that such agreements are about what is dialectically true of the subject under discussion, in contradistinction to what is doctrinaily true about that subject.
