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Literary notes about dialectical (AI summary)

The term “dialectical” in literature is often employed to denote a dynamic interplay of opposites, a method of inquiry that aims to unveil hidden consistencies and conflicts in thought, experience, and natural phenomena. For example, Santayana’s work frequently presents history and valuation as dialectical processes that are not merely descriptive but active conditions shaping human progress [1], [2], [3]. In a similar vein, Plato’s writings elevate dialectical reasoning as a mark of a comprehensive mind, suggesting that true knowledge requires the synthesis of conflicting ideas [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. Meanwhile, Nietzsche uses the concept to critique natural instincts and expose the inherent tensions within morality and aesthetic judgment [9], [10]. Across these examples, the term serves as a versatile tool to explain how various elements—whether in science, art, or social relations—interact in a manner that transcends simple cause and effect, revealing richer, more complex structures underlying apparent reality [11], [12], [13].
  1. The German Reason was only imagination, substituting a dialectical or poetic history of the world for its natural development.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  2. Valuation is dialectical, not descriptive, nor contemplative of a natural process.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  3. Synthesis is not a natural but only a dialectical condition of pregnant experience; it does not introduce such experience but constitutes it.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  4. Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical.
    — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
  5. Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical.
    — from The Republic by Plato
  6. Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical.
    — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
  7. Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical.
    — from The Republic by Plato
  8. Nor did he recognize that in the dialectical process are included two or more methods of investigation which are at variance with each other.
    — from The Republic of Plato by Plato
  9. Uglification : self-derision, dialectical dryness, intelligence in the form of a tyrant against the "tyrant" (instinct).
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche
  10. Before Socrates' time, dialectical manners were avoided in good society: they were regarded as bad manners, they were compromising.
    — from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche
  11. If, on the contrary, a relation implied in the burden or will of the moment be invoked, the connection established, so far as it goes, is dialectical.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  12. The full scope of this fact escapes us, moreover, until we recognize that this subject matter compelled recourse to a dialectical method.
    — from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey
  13. It is the aspiration of natural science to be as dialectical as possible, and thus, in their ideal, both branches of science are brought together.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

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