Dialectic

A overview of the "Self-Consciousness" chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.  I analyze the basic significance of each of the three themes of the chapter, (which Hegel calls "desire," "recognition," and "thought"), and I consider how the relationship between self and other is constituted in each of these fundamental relationships.

Post-modern theology is highly suspicious of social theory and its secular origins. After all, the founder who gave us the word “sociology” also coined the term “positivism.” An alternative strategy is that of Bernard Lonergan, a theologian with a highly developed sociological imagination. He was quite aware of the secularity but devoted a life-time in trying to think through some of the key issues. His was a mind on the move and perhaps it is not surprising that his contribution has yet to be assimilated.
In this paper I shall take a look at a key text from Lonergan’s magnum opus, Insight. I will suggest that, in a sense, this may be regarded as “social physics” (another phrase from Auguste Comte). As we shall see, Lonergan’s thought wrestled with many issues of concern to the other founders of sociology: Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber, but his vision is quite original, and in fact, he will draw on Arnold J. Toynbee.
I do not believe Lonergan’s work is beyond criticism—as his later developments suggest—so I will try to identify some difficulties by examining closely some of those later changes. Before offering my appraisal, then, I will look at Lonergan’s social theory from five periods. First, I shall simply record his interest in the 1930s by referring to some work he retained in a file but never published. Then I shall give a more careful exposition of a chapter written in the early 1950s. I will suggest that Lonergan’s deployment of mathematical analogies to understand social theory underwent some changes and so I will look at that transition in the 1960s. I will then be able to take a glance at the new way Lonergan presented his ideas in Method in Theology (1972) and go on to sample a few developments in the last decade up to 1980. In my appraisal we will be able to see some of the strengths and weaknesses Lonergan encountered in his project of social physics and perhaps make a small increase to the stock of ideas myself.

This is article contributes to the debate on the empirical applications of critical realism (CR) in school effectiveness research. Researchers that endorse this research paradigm privilege intensive, over extensive, research designs, focussing, hence, in ethnographic methods and qualitative interviewing. However, and despite some recent academic proposals, there is little guidance in the literature on how to analyse qualitative data using the lenses of CR to produce causal knowledge about the operation of education policies in society. The current piece elaborates on the tenets of dialectical CR to develop some methodological arguments on how to engage in this type of empirical work. These reflections are then applied to analyse qualitative information retrieved in three ‘failing’ schools from Northern Colombia as an exemplar. More information: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09518398.2020.1735555

In this article, an effort has been made to elaborate further on the nature and causes of this combined state terrorism of US and NATO forces, covered up under the more general word “war”, which is more acceptable to the general publics and invokes conditioned conventional patriotic feelings, primarily in the mass unconscious, which then are manifested in the mass consciousness, in various forms; as well as the nature and causes of the success of the Afghan national liberation forces, and of the defeat of imperialist forces, in spite of their incomparable military, technological, and economic superiority.  Such developments involve the dialectical interaction of various contradictions, including those of guerilla and conventional warfares, their development and resolutions. Therefore, some analysis of these has also been included in this article.

There are various types of wars.  On the most basic level, these can be divided into just and unjust wars.  Imperialist, colonial, and neocolonial wars are always unjust wars, while national liberation wars against these are always just wars, Afghanistan national liberation war being one of these.  US and NATO imperialisms were responsible for two unjust wars in that country, that is, the proxy war from 1979 to 1996, which resulted in the rule of Taliban from 1996 to 2001, and then direct invasion and war against that country from 2001 to 2021.  Both these wars were in fact massive imperialist state terrorisms, which caused great devastations in an already impoverished country, killing hundreds of thousands, wounding and maiming millions, causing countless millions to become internally displaced and refugees in other countries, destroying their infrastructures and means of living, and installing subservient puppet governments.

Suppose you are preacher who wants to speak a word to a polarized situation. Words take on meaning within a context and unfortunately yours is a situation divided between " right " and " left " (here meant very generally to signify the two poles of a divided society) with the result that your word will inevitably be subsumed into the narrative of one context or the other. This is unfortunate because the meaning of what you want to say is distorted when taken up into an alien context: if you speak you are bound to be misunderstood, whatever you say. Call this the preacher's dilemma. As a matter of fact, a third option is silence, but this too may be misunderstood, so it's probably more accurate to speak of a trilemma. However, this phrase is not so snappy and does not convey the tragic note that " dilemma " does, so I have decided to sacrifice pedantic accuracy in this instance. Perhaps I am caught up in the very dilemma about which I am writing. The preacher's dilemma was in my mind last week as I followed the papal visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh. Pope Francis had to decide whether or not to say the word Rohingya. He had previously shown solidarity with the Rohingya nine months ago in February calling them by their name, making clear that the Rohingya are " good people, " peaceful, and that they are unjustly persecuted. However, that word is taboo in Myanmar. The Muslims in Rakhine state are recognised neither by Myanmar nor Bangladesh, and so to refer to the stateless group is to wade into an ongoing political struggle, something that the Pope would wish to avoid. Moreover, local Catholic bishops advised him against antagonising the majority Buddhist society for fear of backlash, and the Pope would obviously regret that outcome, not only because of the harm done, but because he would aspire to work collegially, heeding local advice. On the other hand, not to use the word would upset Rohingya activists, and probably the Rohingya as a whole. In view of the attention of the world media the Pope possessed a megaphone like few others, so his words were at this moment were at a premium. Surely he should seize the opportunity for justice. What to do? If the Pope failed to speak truth to power (with the thundering volume of a Guardian editorial) that would appear an understandable betrayal. The author of the Politics once wrote that most men will what is noble but do what is expedient, and perhaps this was how western, liberal journalists framed the situation. No wonder, then, that Catholic commentators did not anticipate the visit with relish. It was planned when the de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi carried the hopes of a peaceful resolution, before the military crackdown had expelled 600,000 Rohingya. But now the situation had become notorious and the UN had spoken in terms of ethnic cleansing. So, the pope's dilemma was compared with that of Pius XII who was criticised for not speaking out strongly against the Nazis (albeit to protect the innocent). Still, Francis had tweeted that he had looked forward to the visit: there was no going back. What happened was that the Pope met the leaders of Myanmar, first the military (in a rescheduled visit on Monday) and later the Nobel Laureate. On the Tuesday he spoke up publically for the rights of all, and the need for decisive action, but to the dismay of activists, refrained from mentioning Rohingya or ethnic cleansing. Then he travelled to Bangladesh and on the Friday in Dhaka at an inter-faith gathering met twelve Rohingya including a twelve year old girl whose entire family had been murdered by the military. Unscripted, and in the midst of tears, Francis finally pronounced the word: the presence of God today is also

Em As aventuras da dialética (1955) Merleau-Ponty cunhou o termo "Marxismo Ocidental" para designar certa perspectiva do materialismo histórico que afastava-se de leituras dogmáticas provenientes, principalmente, do partido soviético. Dessa forma, o artigo pretende, em primeiro lugar, revisitar a defesa que Merleau-Ponty faz da noção de práxis na década de 1940 ao apontá-la como conceito fundamental na articulação entre lógica e contingência na filosofia da história marxista. Em seguida, veremos como a aproximação inicial de Merleau-Ponty ao marxismo, na qual considerava-se o materialismo histórico como esquema teórico fundamental para desvelar a cadeia causal da história, ganha novos contornos durante os anos de 1950, quando uma reavaliação de suas posições (a partir do estruturalismo de Saussure) acaba por indicar o marxismo não como a única lente interpretativa da história, mas sim como uma perspectiva dentre outras, por mais privilegiada que seja. Dito isso, o artigo pretende, em sua conclusão, esboçar uma crítica a tal mudança de pensamento em Merleau-Ponty ao defendermos o materialismo histórico como a melhor teoria disponível para o desvelamento da causalidade histórica. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Marxismo. Marxismo Ocidental. Merleau-Ponty. ABSTRACT In The Adventures of the Dialectic (1955) Merleau-Ponty coined the term "Western Marxism" to designate certain perspective of the historical materialism that distinguish itself of dogmatic positions coming, mostly, from the soviet party. Thus, the article aims to, first of all, revisitate Merleau-Ponty's defense of the notion of praxis during the 1940's as the core concept for articulating logic and contingency within the marxist philosophy of history. Then, we'll demonstrate that this initial approach to marxism by Merleau-Ponty, where the historical materialism was considered as the fundamental theoretical scheme to unveil the causal chain of history, shifts during the 1950's, when a revaluation of his positions (mostly because of Saussure's structuralism) ends up indicating marxism not as the only interpretive lens of history, but as a perspective among many others, however privileged it may be. That being said, the article tries, in its conclusion, to sketch a critique of such change of position by defending historical materialism as the best available theory for the unveil of history's causality.

Recent scholarship in the field of argumentation theory has shown an increasing interest in rethinking the relation between dialectic (philosophy) and rhetoric. In the debate concerning this issue, some scholars take the position of ‘isolationists’. They think that fundamental differences exist between the two disciplines and that it is impossible to translate insights developed within the one discipline in terms of the other. Other scholars can be characterized as ‘combinationalists’. They take the position that insights from dialectic and rhetoric can be combined for the purpose of analyzing or evaluating argumentative discourse. Finally, there are ‘integrationalists’, who are of the opinion that the differences between dialectic and rhetoric can be overcome by reconceptualizing the two disciplines and integrating them into an encompassing theory of argumentation. According to these scholars, dialectic and rhetoric study one and the same phenomenon—argumentation understood as the ju ...

El Capital de Marx es una obra extremadamente compleja, que es posible abordarla desde diferentes perspectivas y cuyo significado, además, se encuentra abierto por el hecho de ser una obra inconclusa. Por esa razón, y debido al límite de espacio, trataremos de manera muy breve un aspecto singular del método de Marx en El Capital pero que resulta central para entender el propio concepto de capital y su relación con la práctica revolucionaria. Ese aspecto es el del lugar de la contingencia en el método de Marx en El Capital.

Primarily based on Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man this essay will describe and analyze a society with massive overproduction and – consumption and it will examine how this highly developed industrial society through one-dimensional positive and scientifical thinking alienates man and which severe consequences this has for what Marcuse defines as both internal and external nature.
Subsequently the essay sums up Marcuse’s definition of critical/dialectical thinking, which according to Marcuse as an alternative to positivism and scientism has the capacity to change status quo.
Finally, the essay will based on Klafkis didactical theory examine how education of the future generations can face and take care of the issue, and how Marcuses critical theory can be used in praxis, as Marcuse himself emphasizes that theory and praxis must be united to be efficient. The essay will try to show how critical/dialectical thinking and the development of a critical/dialectical judgement can contribute to the stagnation of the consequences mentioned above and hence ought to be part of an educational ideal.

My discussion addresses the differences between analytic and continental philosophy concerning the use of logic and exact reasoning in philosophical practice. These differences are mainly examined in the light of the controversial dominance of Hegel's concept of logic (and theory of concept) in twentieth-century continental philosophy. The inquiry is developed in two parts. In the first (Sections 1-2), I indicate some aspects of the analytic-continental divide, pointing to the role that the topic 'logic and philosophy' plays in it. In the second part (Sections 3-6), I give a short account of the views of logic which are typical of the three main trends of continental philosophy (see Table 1). I also suggest how, with the aid of some typical analytical devices, some continental 'anti-logical' attitudes may be corrected, on their own terms.

The old adage goes, “If you can find a career doing something you love and get paid for it, you’ve got it made.”  On the surface this may sound all good and a sound strategy, but based on research focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, this in not often the case.  Intrinsic motivation is the internally rooted positive draw that one feels towards performing an activity, often expressed by the joy of the experience during the activity or the satisfaction that one feels after the activity is completed.  In contrast, offering external rewards, often in the form of money, which influences the actor to perform and complete an activity, produces extrinsic motivation. Beyond simple monetary rewards, other forms of external rewards that develop extrinsic motivation may include positive reinforcement and social approval (Deci, 1971).

This paper reworks a chapter of my PhD thesis where I discussed some emergences of carnival fights in Moniage Guillaume long (MGl); the imagery was linked to ritual anthropogenetic practices, finally refracted in “archetypal” plots. Here, it is more specifically identified as the reverberation of Carnival-Lent fights. On this basis I carefully propose to predate such representations, shedding new light on some remarks by Le Goff and nuancing the majority position in this regard (e.g. Bertolotti 1991). Furthermore, a glance on Enfances Guillaume provides a new framework for MGl. The fight with the double is seen as à deux tranchants: 1) heroic initiation; 2) potential of a parodic dialogue: co-essential polarities in the dialectic identifi cational process of a complex character-sign.

This article examines how St. Thomas Aquinas developed rich theological insights to be used ultimately in his preaching ministry as a thirteenth century magister in sacra pagina. His exegetical approach deploys a careful divisio textus to arrive at the
literal meaning and doctrinal sense of the scriptural passage. The ambiguities of difficult passages are examined dialectically by short logical disputations that uncover the riches of the text. The fruits of these labors were then brought together in the master’s university sermon for the conversion and perfection of souls. Thus, the three duties of the medieval master codified in the statutes of the University of Paris – namely, to teach, to dispute, and to preach – contextualize the task of the medieval theologian, rooting him in the revealed Word of God and requiring him to care for the souls of his students and colleagues in his preaching by announcing and explaining the sense and practical import of sacra doctrina. This article also examines the proximate historical source for these three duties as the practice of lectio divina was brought out of the monasteries and into the public sphere of the academies in the great cities of medieval Europe. There is much we could learn today from recovering this robustly ecclesial and pastoral way of pursuing biblical theology.

Artykuł analizuje, w jaki sposób bogaty dorobek teologiczny św. Tomasza
z Akwinu jest wykorzystywany w jego praktyce kaznodziejskiej jako XIII-wiecznego
“magister in sacra pagina”. Jego egzegetyczne podejście wyraża się w ostrożnym “divisio textus”, aby dotrzeć do dosłownego i doktrynalnego sensu danego tekstu biblijnego.  Ambiwalentne interpretacje trudnych tekstów są dialektycznie analizowane za pomocą krótkich, logicznych dysput odkrywających bogactwo tekstu. Owoce tej pracy były niejako zbierane w kazaniu średniowiecznego mistrza ukierunkowanym na nawrócenie i doskonalenie dusz. Trzy obowiązki średniowiecznego mistrza wyrażone w statutach Uniwersytetu Paryskiego – nauczanie, prowadzenie dysput oraz kaznodziejstwo – wskazują na zadania średniowiecznego teologa, zakorzeniając go w objawionym Słowie Boga i wymagając od niego troski o dusze swoich studentów i kolegów wyrażane w głoszenie sensu i praktycznych implikacji sacra doctrina. W artykule przeanalizowano także zródła historyczne dotyczące wspomnianych trzech obowiązków takie jak “lectio divina” przeprowadzana poza klasztorami, w publicznej sferze akademii w największych miastach Europy. Ten model eklezjalnej i pastoralnie ukierunkowanej teologii biblijnej może stanowić również wzór dla współczesnej jej kontynuatorki.

Perhaps the most often criticized element of Hannah Arendt's political theory is her insistence on the necessity of constructing and maintaining rigid boundaries between various activities of the human condition. Less often, however, is the attempt undertaken to determine the philosophical motivation stimulating this project of distinction. This article will attempt to demonstrate the extent to which Arendt's imperative is rooted in a certain misreading of the Marxian dialectic. The first part of the article will outline the contours of Arendt's erroneous interpretation of Marx's understanding of labour, demonstrating the degree to which the latter breaks down the tripartite structure of the vita activa. The second part of the article will read Arendt's affirmation of distinction as being a response to what Arendt will take to be the problems of the dialectic, specifically the dialectic's allegedly necessary positing of conceptual contingency and logical necessity. Finally, the third part of the article will demonstrate, through an examination of two key passages in the work of Marx, the extent to which Marx himself was just as concerned with overcoming the type of homogeneous and abstract universalism rejected by Arendt. The ground will thus be provided for the overcoming of the necessity of Arendtian distinction, and perhaps also for a more fruitful engagement between the Marxian and Arendtian theoretical problematics.

Summary Presentism, eternalism, and growing-blockism are theories or models of what the temporal and ontic structure of the world is, or could be. This chapter sets aside the question of whether whichever theory is true is necessarily true or only contingently true. Since defenders of each of these views think that they are competing views about the way the world is in fact, the focus is on this aspect of the dialectic. Presentism, eternalism, and growing-blockism are, in part, theories about what exists. To understand what is at issue ...

RESUMO: Erixímaco, desde o início de sua fala no Banquete de Platão (Smp. 186a3), deixa claro que a alma não será protagonista em seu discurso sobre Erōs. Ele desenvolve um discurso materialista, cujas bases são sua própria technē, a medicina. Com isso, parte da historiografia Banquete no século XX enxerga em Erixímaco uma caricatura dos tratados hipocráticos. No entanto, a partir de Edelstein há tentativas de ressignificar o lugar do discurso de Erixímaco na estrutura do Banquete de Platão. Nesta comunicação, estabeleceremos uma discussão entre as leituras que, de um lado, descaracterizam o discurso de Erixímaco para a compreensão do diálogo e outras que, por outro lado, consideram-no relevante para o desenvolvimento dialético do Banquete, com o objetivo de estabelecer um panorama mais abrangente dos possíveis caminhos a serem trilhados na interpretação do discurso de Erixímaco neste diálogo platônico.

Palavras-Chave: Platão, Banquete, Erixímaco, dialética

ABSTRACT: Eryximachus, from the beginning of his speech in Plato's Symposium (Smp. 186a3), makes it clear that the soul will not be a protagonist in his speech about Erōs. He develops a materialistic discourse, whose basis is his own technē, medicine. Thus, part of the historiography of the Symposium in the twentieth century sees Eryximachus as a caricature of the hippocratic corpus. However, since Edelstein there are attempts to resignify the place of Eryximachus' speech within the structure of Plato's Symposium. In this paper we will establish a discussion with readings that, on the one hand, plays down the speech of Eryximachus to the interpretation of the dialogue and others that, on the other hand, consider him relevant to the dialectical development of the Symposium, aiming to achieve a broader overview of the possible paths to read the speech of Eryximachus in this platonic dialogue.

Keywords: Plato, Plato's Symposium, Eryximachus, dialectics

The concept of punishment is one of the most important concepts of Plato´s philosophy, which is achievable through dialectic, using the ordinary concept of punishment. By denying the basis of revenge view of punishment in his own time, Plato establishes his philosophy of punishment on basis of rehabilitation of the criminal. The criminal, Plato says, is primarily a man who is ignorant of the good and the evil and a sick man who suffers from instability of his rational faculty, i.e. his reason cannot take his anger and his lust under its control. Thus the punishment must make the criminal aware of the true good and the true evil, and like a painful treatment endues him the ability to control his anger and lust. So, logically, there are two possibilities: we must either fortify the superior power, i.e. the reason, or we must debilitate the inferior power i.e. anger and lust. Consequently, the Platonic punishment would be executed in two ways: on is to fortify the reason by means of education; the other is to lower the power of the inferior desires. The first is containing the wide realm of education, while the second includes the wide range of weakness; Therefore, Platonic punishment includes a range, from education to weakness, containing practical exercises, restriction, coercion and even murder. Finally, with categorizing and character recognition of the criminal, Plato determines the rehabilitative method and goal of the punishment.

You are invited to visit the website on the Periodic Table of Arguments at www.periodic-table-of-arguments.org. The website contains a description of the theoretical framework of the table, information on the types of arguments within the four different quadrants, analyses of concrete examples, and descriptions of related research projects.

The Hegelian Dialectic is often presented in a threefold manner
comprising three stages of development. It is not, as many people believe, the thesis-antithesis-synthesis model that he used however (thesis, giving rise to its reaction - antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis - synthesis coming about via the tension between the two) . The terminology Hegel used was abstract-negative-concrete.
For Hegel the thesis-antithesis-synthesis formula left an important question unanswered as it did not explain why the thesis required an antithesis. The formula abstract-negative-concrete however, suggests an incompleteness in any initial thesis, leaving open the possibility of the movement that is needed if there is to be advancement. This is due to abstract being what it is: abstract. Abstract lacks the negative of trial, error and experience. For Hegel, the Concrete (which he also referred
to as the Absolute ) must always pass through the phase of the Negative - it must go through this process of mediation to continue the journey to completion - to its synthesis.

Aristotle is well known to logicians for two achievements found in his Analytics: first, for his syllogistic, both assertoric and modal, which he develops in Prior Analytics I 1-26 by providing a systematic presentation of "syllogisms," inference patterns in which two premises and one conclusion share three common terms (either subject or predicate). Second, for his theory of demonstrative science, mainly developed in the first book of the Posterior Analytics, in which he defines scientific knowledge (episteme), which is the highest form of understanding there is, as requiring demonstration (apodeixis), adding further requirements to the basic syllogistic patterns of the Prior Analytics: the premises of scientific syllogisms must be true, prior to the conclusion, better known than it and cause of it. The picture of Aristotle that emerges from these two achievements is that of a logician sure of himself and confident that his art offers a failsafe method for securing scientific knowledge, understood as true, necessary, and causally justified knowledge. As suggested by the limited set of texts from which it is built, this picture is partial.

Resumo

Resumo: a abordagem de ?A Lógica da História faz com que seja possível concretizar a dialética do natural (incluindo o biológico) e o social. O desenvolvimento criativo do método de investigação científica foi possível revelar a interligação interna sistemática das leis e categorias da teoria social que refletem a estrutura da sociedade desenvolvida, mas também tornou possível delinear a periodização teórica da história humana (as leis objetivas de sua ?subida desde o início, o surgimento, a formação, até a maturidade) por meio de um prisma de interconexões de fatores naturais e sociais. As fases do processo de desenvolvimento são analisadas aqui: como a unidade do natural (incluindo o biológico) e o social, como um processo de emergência do social que surge do natural, como a transformação do natural pelo social.
Palavras-chave: Lógica da história. Materialismo Histórico. Método. Dialética. Desenvolvimento.

"Carter's music poses struggles of opposition, for instance in timbre (Double Concerto), space (String Quartet No. 3) or pulse (String Quartet No. 5). His preference for the all-interval tetrachords, 4–Z15 [0, 1, 4, 6] and 4–Z29 [0, 1, 3, 7], is also well known. From these facets of Carter's music, I develop a narrative interpretation of his Petrarch sonnet–inspired solo flute piece, Scrivo in Vento (1991). Specifically, I forge narrative pathways by imagining the two tetrachords as active agents opposed in competition. Previous Scrivo analyses (Capuzzo 2002; Childs 2006) stress continuity by revealing Q-transforms and common-note voice leading between the tetrachords. While acknowledging such features, my analysis emphasises oppositional struggle by tracing the tetrachords as separate entities which cooperate and conflict as they manoeuvre to outdo each other.

The analysis advances three theses: (1) it guides listening to and reading Scrivo in a way which resonates with Carter's concern for the aesthetics of oppositional struggle, his choice of a sonnet as inspiration and his affinity for all-interval tetrachords; (2) it shows that music-analytical detail can be organised into dramatic narratives by (a) projecting dramatic roles onto categories asserted by a formal theory and (b) treating the formal theory's relations metaphorically as actions performed by each role as the musical work unfolds; and (3) it shows how detailed pc-set analysis can support a Heraclitean view of music: a flux of opposing forces seeking and resisting unity."

Arthouse Tacheles, Kyoto School and Chaos Theory ...

Presented at the conference Indeterminate Futures / The Future of Indeterminacy, University of Dundee (UK), 13 – 15 November 2020; published 2 November 2021: https://queenmobs.com/2021/11/how-long-is-now/

The future is no longer seen as open. But before aligning ourselves to the mantra of the “slow cancellation of the future” (Mark Fisher) we should firstly have a closer look at the present, now: for if we can show that the present is indeterminate, it will be a simple task to show that the future is indeterminate as well.

The now is both a particular now – our contemporary present – and each now throughout history: the present now is thus unique. Unlike the future and the past, the now may not be reduced to statistics, probability or algorithms: according to a Sufi’s saying it is the sword that cuts time into two. To counter the “slow cancellation of the future” we thus must become aware that the doctrine of determinism merely holds for the past. Our political and artistic practice may be wholly unpredictable if we literally engage with autopoiesis, dynamic systems and feedback loops right at the edge of chaos, thus transferring an originally scientific concept to politics and arts. If understood precisely, the now is able to disrupt the pattern of determinacy through the unpredictable event of chaos. If the present now is open, the future is open too.

Regarding the problem of self-knowledge in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, it is common to relate it to the discussion of despair in Anti-Climacus’s The Sickness Unto Death but not to the limit of reason in Climacus’s Philosophical Fragments. Indeed, it is possible to see both the limit of reason and despair as the failure of self-knowledge and how these two works complement each other in discussing such problem through the cases of Socrates. These two works share the view that the failure of self-knowledge is due to the misrelation between oneself and the divine. Moreover, an entry from Anti-Climacus puts himself and Climacus as a pair of dialectical twins who share the common concern on “how to be a genuine Christian”. So this dissertation aims to demonstrate the dialectical complementary relationship between Climacus’s Fragments and Anti-Climacus’s Sickness, by illustrating that paradoxical rationality (the mutual relationship between reason and paradox) is necessary to overcome the failure of self-knowledge. In addition, this dissertation suggests the potential in examining the dialectical reading between Climacus and Anti-Climacus that is commonly neglected among current studies.

Definitions from an argumentative point of view can be analyzed as endoxa, namely commonly accepted propositions. Definitional endoxa represent the deepest commitments of a community, as they are the basis of the mutual understanding. Definitions become argumentative strategies when they are used as premises in patterns of inference that are commonly called “argument from classification” or “loci a definitione.” In these types of reasoning, the definition is used to name reality, that is, to classify it. Different classifications of the same fragment of reality can lead to noticeably different conclusions, or influence the interlocutor’s process of decision-making. For this reason, conflicts of classifications are often based on conflicting definitions. This type of conflict can be resolved only by establishing first what a definition is, and what the criteria are to assess a definition. In the ancient tradition, the best definition was the definition that could license the strongest inferences, and it coincided with a semantic analysis of the definiendum. The essential definition can be therefore considered from an argumentative point of view the criterion to assess dialogues on definitions.

Keywords: definitions, dialectics, persuasive definition, presupposition

The author argues that Günter Figal sheds novel light on language in his recent Objectivity: The Hermeneutical and Philosophy through a debate he appears to stage with the position Jacques Derrida develops in some of his early essays on deconstruction. Figal describes language as a form of showing and emphasizes the openness and flexibility of expression involved in determining significance. Yet, he rejects the idea he finds in Derrida that such flexibility should lead us to wholesale suspicion of the capacity of language to fix significance. Whereas Derrida concludes that all attempts to fix significance through supplementation of our expressions can only end in the need for further supplementation, Figal stresses the dialectical mien of language that allows supplementation to yield genuinely determinate significances.

The Periodic Table of Arguments is based on a grammatical understanding of categorical statements. A commentator has pointed out that taking a logical understanding of such statements would render one of the distinctions constituting the theoretical framework of the table unwarranted. In this paper, it is examined how  arguments based on syllogistic inferences are represented in the table by comparing the theoretical framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments to that of Aristotle’s assertoric syllogistic.