5,017 words
Part 2 of 2
Author’s Note:
The following text is based on a transcript by V. S. of a lecture on Plato’s Republic. As usual, I have edited his transcript to remove excessive wordiness and corrected a couple of small mistakes.
Plato writes in his seventh letter that he never set forth his own philosophy in any of his writings. Read more …
Notes on Philosophical Dialectic
4,218 words
Socrates
Part 1 of 2
The concept of philosophical dialectic is quite mysterious and intimidating. Even among professional philosophers, dialectic often has connotations of mysticism, obscurantism, and slight of hand. I wish to dispel this aura. I will lay out the elements of philosophical dialectic by looking at specific arguments in Plato’s Republic[1] and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right[2] and then employ Heidegger’s account of the hermeneutic circle Being and Time and Husserl’s account of the logic of parts and wholes in his Logical Investigations to clarify the dialectical process. Read more …