Title Thumbnail

The Art of Controversy

9781465503152
pages
Library of Alexandria
Purchase On Amazon
Overview
PRELIMINARY: LOGIC AND DIALECTIC. I. BY the ancients, Logic and Dialectic were used as synonymous terms; although logizesthai, “to think over, to consider, to calculate,” and dialegesthai, “to converse,” are two very different things. The name Dialectic was, as we are informed by Diogenes Laertius, first used by Plato; and in the Phaedrus, Sophist, Republic, bk. vii., and elsewhere, we find that by Dialectic he means the regular employment of the reason, and skill in the practice of it. Aristotle also uses the word in this sense; but, according to Laurentius Valla, he was the first to use Logic too in a similar way.{footnote 1} Dialectic, therefore, seems to be an older word than Logic. Cicero and Quintilian use the words in the same general signification.{footnote 2

Other Titles from Library of Alexandria