ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the character of dialectics. After presenting some of the notions that have been applied to dialectics, we draw upon philosophical insights, especially those of Plato and Hegel, to argue that dialectics entails the central idea that both thought and being are characterized by self-sameness and difference. Seen from the side of ontology or “what is”, this idea of dialectics amounts to the assumptive notion that “reality” comprises opposing qualities and that such contradictory qualities obtain at any and all given moments. Whatever “is”, therefore, will be imbued with tension and counterposed energy. Seen from the side of epistemology, this interpretation of dialectics implies that the metaphysical categories we use to describe and explain the world are antipodal, that they resolve into opposed pairings such as same and different, one and many, or like and unlike with seeming necessity. Properly dialectical accounts of reality, therefore, are amenable to contradictory predication. Through this understanding of dialectics, the world is grasped as relatively fixed yet in constant flux, as somewhat permanent yet changing, as stable yet dynamic, and so forth. Only through a proper understanding of dialectics can this unsettling paradox regarding truth be overcome.
