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Literary notes about Dialectician (AI summary)

In literature, the term "dialectician" is employed to capture a complex interplay of intellectual prowess, argumentative technique, and even a measure of moral or philosophical authority. Classical texts such as Plato’s Republic frequently contrast the dialectician with the mathematician—portraying the former as someone who not only grasps the essence of things through division and generalization ([1], [2]), but also occupies a superior position in the hierarchy of intellect ([3], [4], [5]). At times, however, the label is used somewhat critically; for example, Nietzsche portrays dialecticians as wielding their argumentative skill in a manipulative or even tyrannical way, capable of paralyzing their opponents or rendering arguments easily dismissed ([6], [7], [8], [9], [10]). Meanwhile, the work of Diogenes Laertius and others provides historical anchorage to the term, identifying various figures as dialecticians, thereby underscoring its longstanding association with the art of profound, sometimes contentious, discourse ([11], [12], [13]).
  1. And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing?
    — from The Republic by Plato
  2. These are the processes of division and generalization which are so dear to the dialectician, that king of men.
    — from Phaedrus by Plato
  3. The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also noticeable.
    — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
  4. The dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathematician is above the ordinary man.
    — from The Republic by Plato
  5. The dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathematician is above the ordinary man (cp.
    — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
  6. Nothing is more easily wiped away than the effect of a dialectician.
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche
  7. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to demonstrate that he is not an idiot; he is made furious
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche
  8. As a dialectician a person has a merciless instrument in his hand: he can play the tyrant with it; he compromises when he conquers.
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche
  9. The dialectician cripples the intellect of his opponent.
    — from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche
  10. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he infuriates, he likewise paralyses.
    — from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche
  11. And he was a dialectician, and, as some believe, he was the first person who invented the Concealed argument, and the Horned one.
    — from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius
  12. He was also a pupil of Panthoides, the dialectician.
    — from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius
  13. But Theodorus had been a pupil of Anniceris, and of Dionysius the Dialectician, as Antisthenes tells us in his Successions of Philosophers.
    — from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

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