Dialectic

Dialectic is a Greek word which signified originally 'the art of rational conversation,' but came to have a technical signification in the language of philosophy. At first it implied a regular and scientific method of treating general conceptions or general terms—a sort of anatomy of names, and through them of the things denoted. In the Socratic philosophy, and more especially in that of Plato, dialectic was thus the method of the highest and deepest kind of speculation. Aristotle gave another signification to the word. According to him, a scientific proof or deduction is different from a dialectic proof, which is only a probable deduction. After this, dialectic came round to imply a kind of fencing in words, the art of so using the forms of reasoning as to confound your opponent, and make fallacies pass for truth. Dialectic is sometimes used as synonymous with logic. The Hegelian philosophy regards dialectic as at once the method of knowledge and of the evolution of the universe itself.