ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on dialectic as it appears in the three integrative philosophies as a counterbalance and developmental remedy to the analytical bias of Western thought, highlighting two main aspects: the critical realist/complex thought reworking of Hegelian dialectic into a form that is adequate for the twentyfirst-century and a new axial vision; and its nature as a developmental emergent that appears, in its post-formal form, only after analytical thinking has been established. While all three integrative philosophies are dialectical and developmental, critical realism and complex thought are more explicitly dialectical, while integral theory is more explicitly developmental. The analytical bias is closely connected to the epistemological bias: it promotes an ontological actualism that precludes a depth ontology and so requires an epistemic criteria to substitute for the real ground in things. And the mental/rational structure that underlies formal analytical thought harbours an innate tendency of mind to control the world through thought, that is, mind over being, epistemology over ontology.
