Chapter 21
Dialectic and disputation; argument by question and answer; the method of inquiry by debate.
107 passages · 27 principal · Covers the 49 volumes of primary texts
Dialectic, in the sense these books give it, is the art of reaching or testing truth through argument between minds. Its typical form is question and answer, in which one speaker secures the other’s assent step by step. It also stretches to cover formal disputation in schools and courts, the quarrels of rival sects, and even a conflict Kant believed to be lodged within reason itself. It is a great idea for the Harvard Classics because so many of them are dialogues or records of debate, or reflect on how debate ought to be conducted. The idea opens with the Socrates of Plato’s Apology and returns, more than two thousand years later, in Mill’s account of his own education. Between these lie the Stoics, Buddhist sages, scripture, the scholastic universities and the founders of modern science. The same question runs through them all: does argument between persons bring truth to light, or does it only multiply contention?
The ancient sources treat dialectic as a recognized part of philosophy and are fairly confident about its standing. Marcus Aurelius bids himself apply the principles of physic, ethic and dialectic to every impression that presents itself1. His translator George Long reports that Cleanthes placed dialectic and rhetoric within logic, beneath the other divisions2. Long also observes that Antoninus never expounds dialectic, though he uses it constantly as a tool for scrutinizing impressions and asking what words really mean3. Plutarch notes in passing that Zeno perfected an art of refuting and silencing opponents4. Augustine counts the art of disputing among the things stored in memory, together with its three kinds of question: whether a thing is, what it is, and of what kind5. A more ambitious claim appears in the Phaedo. There, right questioning can draw true answers out of a person, as when a diagram is used to elicit knowledge6. The essences themselves are what we name in the dialectical process of asking and answering7. On this view dialectic is no mere instrument of debate; it is the road to what things truly are.
The moderns are divided. Carlyle doubts the value of the technical apparatus altogether. He points out that Walter Shandy argued perfectly without knowing any of its tools, and that the dialectician armored in syllogistic mail achieves little8. Kant moves the word somewhere new. For him dialectic is no longer something two speakers do but something reason suffers within itself. When strict laws of duty meet the claims of inclination, a “natural dialectic” arises that argues against duty’s strictness, and this unrest drives reason toward philosophy9. A further dialectic springs from the apparent conflict between freedom and the necessity of nature10. The dispute that Socrates carried on in the marketplace has here been carried inward.
That marketplace practice is the center of the whole tradition. In the Apology Socrates explains that he examined men reputed wise and, by conversation, earned their enmity11. Young men imitated him, exposing those who thought they knew what they did not12. He turns the same method on his accuser. Through question and answer he shows that Meletus has never cared about the youth he claims to protect13. With analogies and leading questions he forces admissions14 and lays bare the inconsistency of the indictment15. He declares that he will go on interrogating and cross-examining anyone who professes to care for virtue16. Marcus Aurelius remembers Socrates asking men whether they wanted sound rational souls, and so exposing why they quarrel17. Epictetus reenacts the method. He asks a man of rank whom he would trust with his horses, his gold and his raiment18, until the man admits that he neglects his soul19.
The Crito shows the constructive side of the same procedure. Socrates reexamines his earlier reasoning with Crito’s help20. He leads Crito to agree that the expert’s opinion outweighs the crowd’s21 and secures his assent to each premise in turn22. He even stages an imagined exchange with the Laws, remarking that he is in the habit of asking and answering23. The Phaedo proceeds in the same way, reviewing objections and fixing agreement at every step24. Yet it also shows the method turned against its master. Cebes and Simmias press Socrates with questions, and he grants the apparent inconsistency25.
Later writers took up the form for their own purposes. In Berkeley’s dialogues Philonous starts from terms agreed upon26. He turns the charge of scepticism back on Hylas27 and draws out concession after concession28,29. He argues from Hylas’s own admissions30, drives him into difficulty by parallel reasoning31, exposes his evasions32, and finally obtains his assent to the passivity of perception33. Philonous insists that the contest has been fair: Hylas is convinced out of his own mouth34. Hylas, feeling caught in a labyrinth, asks for a night to hunt for the fallacy35. He returns to report that his assent is now more irresistibly forced than before36. At last he admits he has no notion of matter as an instrument37.
Far from Greece, the Buddhist Writings show the same method at work. King Milinda cross-examines Nagasena38, and Nagasena in turn leads the king, by close question and answer, to concede that no “chariot” can be found apart from its parts39,40. When the king asks for illustrations, the answer comes through further questions and analogy41. The method could also be cruder. Franklin watched Bradford draw Keimer out with artful questions and saw that one was a crafty sophister and the other a novice42. Franklin himself trapped Keimer in contradictions until Keimer grew afraid to answer even the plainest question43. Dana’s sailors warn newcomers never to argue with Tom, who turns his opponents inside out44.
From such examples a question about education arises. Montaigne praises Socrates and Arcesilaus for making their pupils speak first, and he holds that a teacher’s authority hinders those who wish to learn45. Mill considers the Socratic method of Plato’s dialogues an unsurpassed discipline for correcting errors and confusions of the understanding46. The elenchus forces the man of vague generalities to define his meaning and to test general statements against particular instances47. In On Liberty he goes further. Socratic dialectics and the medieval disputations alike compelled learners to understand both their own opinion and its opposite, and modern education, he complains, has no substitute48. Franklin’s story moves in the other direction. He first adopted the method of humble questioning and enjoyed entangling opponents in concessions they did not foresee. Later he softened it into a manner of modest diffidence49. He still used the dialogue form, for instance to argue that the vicious man is not a man of sense50. These passages show the Socratic method taken up as a teaching discipline by some later writers and, in Franklin’s case, gentled in practice.
The deepest question these books raise is moral rather than technical: does one dispute in order to know or in order to win? The Phaedo states the distinction plainly. The partisan disputer wants only to persuade his hearers, while the philosopher seeks to convince himself of the truth51. Cebes is praised as a man always inquiring and not convinced by every argument52. Socrates welcomes an objection from the company and answers it by distinguishing concrete opposites from essential ones53. He says much in his account remains open to attack54. He asks his objectors to assent only if the argument accords with truth and otherwise to argue the other side55. When the company loses heart, he rallies them like a general leading troops back to the field56.
Later writers echo this standard of sincerity. Penn bids that truth, not victory, be the aim of debate, and he condemns disputing merely to show one’s wit or to vex an opponent57. Milton’s scholar labors at argument and offers his adversary open combat, while his foes hide behind the licenser58. Browne advises contending with superiors in order to learn and with inferiors in order to confirm one’s own opinions59. He holds that controversy among peaceable natures need not violate charity, though passion makes reason lose the question60. Locke grants that opposing arguments in company bring light and improvement, provided dissent is modest and offered by way of enquiry61. Franklin’s Junto debated its queries in a spirit of sincere inquiry and forbade positiveness and direct contradiction62. Mill’s circle made it a rule to discuss every point until all were satisfied, and from that close discussion new views emerged63. Mill holds that understanding moral subjects requires impartial attention to both sides, even to the point of imagining a devil’s advocate64. Sir Henry Vane proceeds by question and answer and offers conjecture rather than positive conclusion, in search of common ground65. In these modern writers the agonistic energy of Socratic debate is increasingly tempered by politeness and moderation.
Against this praise stands a long indictment of disputation. Plato himself separates the philosopher from the Eristics, who confuse a principle with its consequences66. The Imitation of Christ sets the clash of arguments over curious questions against divine teaching67. The early moderns press the charge hardest. Bacon finds that contentions and barking disputations are the only issue of the received sciences68. Descartes denies that the disputations of the schools ever brought an unknown truth to light, because disputants seek victory and plausibility instead of weighing reasons69. Browne observes that controversies are never settled, since digressions swell them, and that scholars quarrel fiercely over petty distinctions of grammar70. Locke condemns captious logical disputes as breeding wrangling and opiniatry71. He finds that the custom of disputing makes young men eager to correct others as a proof of learning72, and that formal disputation produces wranglers who never yield to argument73.
Franklin adds the testimony of experience. Disputing with his friend Collins was a bad habit that soured conversation and bred enmity, one he had caught from reading religious controversy74. In their exchange on women’s capacity for study, Collins won by fluency rather than by reasons75. Habitual disputers, Franklin concludes, win victories but lose good will76, and disputation is a poorer use of time than new experiments77. Hume offers a diagnosis. A dispute that endures for two thousand years signals ambiguity in its terms, so that the antagonists never really grapple with each other78. Manzoni compares a village quarrel to philosophical disputes prolonged for centuries because each side merely repeats its own arguments79. Even the dialogue form comes under suspicion: Montaigne thinks Plato’s long interlocutions vain and idle80.
Despite all this criticism, disputation remained embedded in institutions. Harrison describes English students proving their skill in public disputations before taking their degrees81. Candidates in divinity had to answer and reply on set questions in the open schools82. Roper records More disputing with university men, few of whom could match him83. Luther opens his Theses as a public disputation and invites discussion by letter so that the truth may be brought out84. Dante likens his examination in heaven to a bachelor awaiting the master’s question, prepared to argue the point rather than settle it85. The Cambridge Union, Mill recalls, set extreme opinions face to face with their opposites86. Pasteur answers a learned colleague’s objections point by point87, which suggests that formal objection and reply had a place in science too. Satire marks the decline of the schoolroom’s art. Goldsmith’s schoolmaster argued even when vanquished, dazzling the rustics with learned words88, and More’s lawyer prepares to rehearse and refute in the usual manner of disputers89.
Literature dramatizes the contest of words. In Aeschylus, Athena and the Furies establish the grounds of the dispute in brisk one-line exchanges90, and the Furies cross-examine Orestes word for word91. Aristophanes stages a battle of words full of wrestling and subtle turns of argument92, with a chorus urging the rivals to wrangle and parry93. Milton’s God tests Adam by reasoned discussion to see how he judges what is fit94. Bunyan’s pilgrims pose riddles and expound them in turn95. Rousseau stages a dispute between Dogmatist and Rationalist over reason and authority in matters of faith96,97. Macaulay notes that Machiavelli cast a treatise as a dialogue, placing its opinions in the mouth of Fabrizio Colonna98.
Religion supplies the most solemn disputes in these books. Job longs to reason with God and rejects the friends who speak deceitfully on God’s behalf99; he would fill his mouth with arguments100. Jesus meets a challenge with a counter-question that traps his questioners in a dilemma101. Saul disputes with the Grecian Jews and confounds those at Damascus with proof102. The Koran’s dispute with the People of the Book ends in a challenge to mutual imprecation103. Here disputation reaches a point where argument alone cannot settle the matter. Calmer exchanges appear as well: Woolman’s objector yields after quiet debate over Scripture104, and a Buddhist objection about who reaps the fruit of deeds is raised and answered105.
The questions remain open. Plato and Mill trust that rightly ordered argument leads toward truth. Bacon, Descartes and Locke suspect that disputation merely entrenches pride. Hume suggests that most endless quarrels are verbal, while Kant suggests that some conflict is native to reason itself. Whether the fault lies in the method or in the temper of those who use it, no single author among these settles.
Introductory essay written by Claude Opus 5.5 from the outline and the notes on every passage below; quotations are checked against this edition.
See also: Education, Soul, Reasoning, Rhetoric, Sense, Knowledge