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From the Big History
Ph.D. Igor I. Kondrashin - philosopher
"The two Ancient Greek traditions – the first one is revived,
the time came to revive the second tradition and make it innovative"
The History of the Humanity knows two great traditions which were born in Greece about 2,5 thousand years ago.
The first one is – the Olympic Games. This Ancient tradition in fact is “the Competition in physical force of human bodies”.
The end of this Ancient Greek born tradition was officially ended by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD.
This Tradition was revived about 100 years ago.The second Greek born tradition is - Dialectic Symposium - disambiguation. In fact this ancient tradition was the competition in mental force of human brains, based on wisdom. Broadly speaking, a dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is a word-homonym (i.e. having a few meanings). The first meaning of dialectic is to have a discussion and exchange opinions among which there could be propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue or progress. The aim of the first meaning of dialectic is to try to resolve the disagreement through rational discussion. Discussions had various forms. Traditionally they were held in the form of Symposiums and Forums.
In ancient Greece, the Symposia was an important social occasion where the participants would talk, play musical instruments, sing, play games, and perform religious rituals. With time such Symposiums took the form of philosophical schools or Academy (disambiguation). An academy (Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. Before Akademia was a school, and it contained a sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, outside the city walls of ancient Athens.
Besides Plato other notable members of Akademia include Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Philip of Opus, Crantor, and Antiochus of Ascalon. Later, in Roman era for mass occasions the dialectic took the form of Forums where there was a special rostrum for the speaking person (tribunal) and also arae and auguratorium. At Forum all important state and civil (fora civilia) questions and problems were discussed. The ancient tradition of Symposiums and Forums gave birth to the second meaning of the word-homonym dialectic – also called dialectics as the dialectical method. This meaning was later widely used in classical philosophy until nowadays. It is a method of argument, which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. From History it is known that the word "dialectic" originates in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato's Socratic dialogues. Dialectic is rooted in the ordinary practice of a dialogue between two or more people who hold different ideas and wish to persuade each other. The presupposition of a dialectical argument is that the participants, even if they do not agree, share at least some meanings and principles of inference. Different forms of dialectical reason have emerged in the East and in the West, as well as during different eras of history. Among the major forms of dialectic reason are Socratic, Confucius, Hindu, Buddhist, Medieval, Hegelian, Marxist, and Talmudic. Confucius (551-479 BC.), according to Chinese tradition, was a thinker, political figure, educator, and founder of the Ru School of Chinese thought. His teachings, preserved in the Lunyu or Analects, form the foundation of much of subsequent Chinese speculation on the education and comportment of the ideal man, how such an individual should live his live and interact with others, and the forms of society and government in which he should participate. Fung Yu-lan, one of the great 20th century authorities on the history of Chinese thought, compares Confucius' influence in Chinese history with that of Socrates in the West. So, the Dialectic is a line of thought, originating in ancient Greek philosophy, that stresses development through a back and forth movement between opposing propositions. It thus stands in stark contrast to Western philosophy’s general emphasis on the permanence of being. The dialectic movement refers either to a mental process or to a process believed to occur in objective reality. One way - the Socratic method - is to show that a given hypothesis (with other admissions) leads to a contradiction; thus, forcing the withdrawal of the hypothesis as a candidate for truth. Another way of trying to resolve a disagreement is by denying some presupposition of the contending thesis and antithesis; thus moving to a third thesis. When the dialectic movement is seen as occurring in the mind, as in the Socratic dialectic, it essentially means a process by which a person gradually comes to reach a certain insight. That understanding of the dialectic is generally compatible with traditional ontology and its focus on eternal being (for example, the Platonic ideas). When the dialectic is seen as a movement inherent to objective reality, it has frequently implied a conflicting development, as in Marxism, rather than a harmonious type of development, as the fundamental characteristic of reality. The ancient use of the dialectic was essentially defined by Socrates and Plato and continued by the scholastic tradition. However, the idea of dialectical movement appeared earlier in the thought of Heraclitus, where it carried a very different meaning. Heraclitus represents what could be called the prehistory of the dialectic. Though he never used the term to refer to his own philosophy, he was credited for pioneering the way of the dialectic by Hegel and Engels, who applauded his departure from what they perceived to be the static tendency of Parmenides and his successors. In fact, Heraclitus was an earlier pre-Socratic than Parmenides, and his thought is proof that the dialectical frame of mind has been with Western philosophy from the very beginning. Heraclitus’thought was dialectical in the sense that he believed everything to have originated from fire, the symbol of movement and development through self-consumption. His best-known statements are that “all is in a state of flux” and that “war is the father of all things.” Heraclitus thus believed that, ultimately, all things could not be reduced to a fundamental unity of Being (as for Parmenides), but rather to a dynamic principle consisting of a contrasting or even conflicting interaction between opposites. Heraclitus’ dialectic was one of nature and not of the mind. It would take more than two thousand years for another major thinker (Hegel) to reintroduce the idea that dialectical movement was the essence of things. The aim of the dialectical method, often known as dialectic or dialectics, is to try to resolve the disagreement through rational discussion, and ultimately, the search for truth. A controversy or dispute is a commencement of a conflict between statements of accepted fact and a new or unaccepted proposal that disagrees with argues against. One way to proceed – the Socratic method – is to show that a given hypothesis (with other admissions) leads to a contradiction; thus, forcing the withdrawal of the hypothesis as a candidate for truth (see also reductio ad absurdum). The Socratic Method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate) named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of A hypothesis (from Greek) consists either of a suggested explanation for a phenomenon (an event that is observable or of a reasoned proposal suggesting a possible display. In Classical logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more Propositions It occurs when the propositions taken together yield The meaning of the word truth extends from Honesty, Good faith, and Sincerity in general to agreement with Fact or Reality Reductio ad absurdum ( Latin for "reduction to the absurd" also known as an apagogical argument, reductio ad impossibile Another way of trying to resolve a disagreement is by denying some presupposition of both the contending thesis and antithesis; thereby moving to a third (syn)thesis or "sublation". In the linguistic branch of Pragmatics, a presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in Sublation is an English term used to translate Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 's German term Aufhebung. However, the rejection of the participant's presuppositions can be resisted, which might generate a second order controversy. According to Aristotle, the dialectic proper originated with Zeno of Elea. Zeno is famous for his paradoxes, according to which, for instance, a flying arrow can never reach its destination, because it first has to cross half the distance, and before that, half of that half, and so on ad infinitum. Zeno’s paradoxes are counter-intuitive in that they seem to prove the impossibility of something that is obviously true. Zeno’s paradoxes have long been denigrated as mere sophistry, but they have recently received renewed attention and praise for their insight into the nature of mathematics. Zeno was a disciple of Parmenides, the philosopher who first introduced the notion of the permanence of Being as opposed to the primacy of movement stressed by Heraclitus. If Being is immutable and permanent, the natural conclusion is that all movement is illusion. This is precisely what Zeno was trying to show with his paradoxes. The first pre-Socratics had found the origin of all things in various prime elements, such as water (Thales) and air (Anaximenes). Life, hence movement, is implicit in these elements, and so is permanence and immutability. Movement as the prime nature of reality was first conceptualized by Heraclitus and permanence was conceptualized by Parmenides’ nascent ontology (the science of Being). After Parmenides and Zeno, the notion of a permanent, unmoving Being took on an overwhelming importance in Greek thought and subsequent philosophical developments. Movement as the essence of reality was not rediscovered until the nineteenth century, and the two (immutability and movement) were never satisfactorily reconciled in a consistent system. Accordingly, after Zeno, the dialectic has become known as the art of logical discourse - the ability to analyze and control the workings of the human mind from a variety of perspectives. In other words, the dialectical movement was reduced to the human mind’s handling of eternal and immutable ideas, not to the acknowledgment of a continuous movement within reality. Zeno of Elea (pronounced/ˈziːnoʊ əv ˈɛliə/, Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Ἐλεάτης) (ca. 490 BC. – ca. 430 BC.) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of southern Italy and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell has described as "immeasurably subtle and profound". Little is known for certain about Zeno's life. Although written nearly a century after Zeno's death, the primary source of biographical information about Zeno is the dialogue of Plato called the Parmenides. In the dialogue, Plato describes a visit to Athens by Zeno and Parmenides, at a time when Parmenides is "about 65," Zeno is "nearly 40" (Parmenides 127b) and Socrates is "a very young man" (Parmenides 127c). Assuming an age for Socrates of around 20, and taking the date of Socrates' birth as 470 BC, gives an approximate date of birth for Zeno of 490 BC.
Zeno's arguments are perhaps the first examples of a method of proof called reductio ad absurdum, literally meaning to reduce to the absurd. Parmenides is said to be the first individual to implement this style of argument. This form of argument soon became known as the epicheirema. In Book VII of his Topica, Aristotle says that an epicheirema is a dialectical syllogism. It is a connected piece of reasoning which an opponent has put forward as true. The disputant sets out to break down the dialectical syllogism. In the Fresco in the Library of El Escorial, Madrid, Zeno of Elea shows Youths the Doors to Truth and Falsity (Veritas et Falsitas). Following Zeno, the school of the Sophists transformed the dialectical method into a mere tool of persuasion, even through the use of invalid arguments, eventually giving the school the bad name associated with the notion of sophistry, called “eristic” by Plato. In contrast to the Sophists, Socrates professed to search for nothing but the truth. By applying his well-known “Socratic irony,” pretending to know nothing and letting his partner in dialogue expose and discover the inconsistencies of his own thought, Socrates sought to help others discover the truth. Thus, the Socratic dialectic is not altogether different from Zeno’s dialectic. Simply, instead of seeking to expose the inconsistency of familiar notions about reality (as Zeno did), Socrates sought to expose people’s prejudice and intellectual laziness. With Socrates in particular, the dialectic comes very close to the related notion of dialogue – an exchange that eventually leads to the truth. Once the eternal truth is attained, the movement stops. In Plato's early dialogues, Socrates typically argues by cross-examining someone's claims in order to draw out a contradiction among them. For example, in the Euthyphro, Socrates asks Euthyphro to provide a definition of piety. Euthyphro replies that the pious is that which is loved by the gods. But, Socrates also has Euthyphro agreeing that the gods are quarrelsome and their quarrels, like human quarrels, concern objects of love or hatred. Therefore, Socrates reasons, at least one thing exists that certain gods love but other gods hate. Again, Euthyphro agrees. Socrates concludes that if Euthyphro's definition of piety is acceptable, then there must exist at least one thing that is both pious and impious (as it is both loved and hated by the gods) - which, Euthyphro admits, is absurd. Thus, Euthyphro is brought to a realization by this dialectical method that his definition of piety cannot be correct. This particular example has become known as the Euthyphro dilemma: Is something good because it is willed by God (or the gods), or is it willed by God because it is good? It shows that, underneath what appears as a simple contradiction due to prejudice and ignorance, issues much deeper and more difficult to resolve involving the nature of ultimate reality remain. In Plato’s later dialogues that are believed to express his own thought (even though Socrates still appears as the protagonist) the dialectic appears as a method of division in which concepts and ideas are sorted out in a hierarchy, from the more general to the more particular. Whereas Socrates’ method was more inductive and synthetic, consisting in gradually helping his discussion partner reconstruct an idea of the truth in his own mind, Plato went on to a method emphasizing analysis and the organization of ideas in one’s own mind. In the Republic (VI-VII), Plato presents the dialectic as the supreme art to be mastered by the philosopher-king of his ideal state. The dialectic had become the art of practicing logical thinking, rather than the art of discovering the truth through discussion.
Inheriting Plato’s tradition of thought, Aristotle developed his systematic logic with the use of syllogisms. For him, the dialectic proper had become secondary, a method for intellectual training and searching for truth based on probable premises. Aristotle also connected the term dialectic with the meaning development. The development of potentiality to actuality is one of the most important aspects of Aristotle’s dialectical philosophy. It was intended to solve the difficulties which earlier thinkers had raised with reference to the beginnings of existence and the relations of the one and many. The actual vs. potential state of things is explained in terms of the causes which act on things. Another innovation of Aristotle was the combining of the dialectic with morality in his Ethics. He believed, that happiness cannot be found in any abstract or ideal notion, but it must be something practical and human. It must then be found in the work and life which is unique to humans. But this is neither the vegetative life we share with plants nor the sensitive existence which we share with animals. It follows therefore that true happiness lies in the active life of a rational being or in a perfect realization and outworking of the true soul and self, continued throughout a lifetime. Justice, as one of the main aspects of morality, is used both in a general and in a special sense. In its general sense it is equivalent to the observance of law. As such it is the same thing as virtue, differing only insofar as virtue exercises the disposition simply in the abstract, and justice applies it in dealings with people. Particular justice displays itself in two forms. First, distributive justice hands out honors and rewards according to the merits of the recipients. Second, corrective justice takes no account of the position of the parties concerned, but simply secures equality between the two by taking away from the advantage of the one and adding it to the disadvantage of the other. Strictly speaking, distributive and corrective justice are more than mere retaliation and reciprocity. However, in concrete situations of civil life, retaliation and reciprocity is an adequate formula since such circumstances involve money, depending on a relation between producer and consumer. Since absolute justice is abstract in nature, in the real world it must be supplemented with equity, which corrects and modifies the laws of justice where it falls short. Thus, morality requires a standard which will not only regulate the inadequacies of absolute justice but be also an idea of moral progress. This idea of morality is given by the faculty of moral insight. The truly good person is at the same time a person of perfect insight, and a person of perfect insight is also perfectly good. Our idea of the ultimate end of moral action is developed through habitual experience, and this gradually frames itself out of particular perceptions. It is the job of reason to apprehend and organize these particular perceptions. However, moral action is never the result of a mere act of the understanding, nor is it the result of a simple desire which views objects merely as things which produce pain or pleasure. We start with a rational conception of what is advantageous, but this conception is in itself powerless without the natural impulse which will give it strength. The will or purpose implied by morality is thus either reason stimulated to act by desire, or desire guided and controlled by understanding. These factors then motivate the willful action. Freedom of the will is a factor with both virtuous choices and vicious choices. Actions are involuntary only when another person forces our action, or if we are ignorant of important details in actions. Actions are voluntary when the originating cause of action (either virtuous or vicious) lies in ourselves. Moral weakness of the will results in someone does what is wrong, knowing that it is right, and yet follows his desire against reason. For Aristotle, this condition is not a myth, as Socrates supposed it was. The problem is a matter of conflicting moral principles. Moral action may be represented as a syllogism in which a general principle of morality forms the first (i.e. major) premise, while the particular application is the second (i.e. minor) premise. The conclusion, though, which is arrived at through speculation, is not always carried out in practice. The moral syllogism is not simply a matter of logic, but involves psychological drives and desires. Desires can lead to a minor premise being applied to one rather than another of two major premises existing in the agent’s mind. Animals, on the other hand, cannot be called weak willed or incontinent since such a conflict of principles is not possible with them. Friendship is an indispensable aid in framing for ourselves the higher moral life; if not itself a virtue, it is at least associated with virtue, and it proves itself of service in almost all conditions of our existence. Such results, however, are to be derived not from the worldly friendships of utility or pleasure, but only from those which are founded on virtue. The true friend is in fact a second self, and the true moral value of friendship lies in the fact that the friend presents to us a mirror of good actions, and so intensifies our consciousness and our appreciation of life. On the top of the meanings of the term dialectic Aristotle placed its connection with politics. Aristotle does not regard politics as a separate science from ethics, but as the completion, and almost a verification of it. The moral ideal in political administration is only a different aspect of that which also applies to individual happiness. Humans are by nature social beings, and the possession of rational speech (logos) in itself leads us to social union. The state is a development from the family through the village community, an offshoot of the family. Formed originally for the satisfaction of natural wants, it exists afterwards for moral ends and for the promotion of the higher life. The state in fact is no mere local union for the prevention of wrong doing, and the convenience of exchange. It is also no mere institution for the protection of goods and property. It is a genuine moral organization for advancing the development of humans! The family, which is chronologically prior to the state, involves a series of relations between husband and wife, parent and child, master and slave. Aristotle regards the slave as a piece of live property having no existence except in relation to his master. Slavery is a natural institution because there is a ruling and a subject class among people related to each other as soul to body; however, we must distinguish between those who are slaves by nature, and those who have become slaves merely by war and conquest. Household management involves the acquisition of riches, but must be distinguished from money-making for its own sake. Wealth is everything whose value can be measured by money; but it is the use rather than the possession of commodities which constitutes riches. Which is the best state is a question that cannot be directly answered. Different races are suited for different forms of government, and the question which meets the politician is not so much what is abstractly the best state, but what is the best state under existing circumstances. Generally, however, the best state will enable anyone to act in the best and live in the happiest manner. To serve this end the ideal state should be neither too great nor too small, but simply self-sufficient. It should occupy a favorable position towards land and sea and consist of citizens gifted with the spirit of the northern nations, and the intelligence of the Asiatic nations. It should further take particular care to exclude from government all those engaged in trade and commerce; “the best state will not make the “working man” a citizen; it should provide support religious worship; it should secure morality through the educational influences of law and early training. Law, for Aristotle, is the outward expression of the moral ideal without the bias of human feeling. It is thus no mere agreement or convention, but a moral force coextensive with all virtue. Since it is universal in its character, it requires modification and adaptation to particular circumstances through equity.
Education should be guided by legislation to make it correspond with the results of psychological analysis, and follow the gradual development of the bodily and mental faculties. Children should during their earliest years be carefully protected from all injurious associations, and be introduced to such amusements as will prepare them for the serious duties of life. Their literary education should begin in their seventh year, and continue to their twenty-first year. This period is divided into two courses of training, one from age seven to puberty, and the other from puberty to age twenty-one. Such education should not be left to private enterprise, but should be undertaken by the state.
There are four main branches of education: reading and writing, Gymnastics, music, and painting. They should not be studied to achieve a specific aim, but in the liberal spirit which creates true freemen. Thus, for example, gymnastics should not be pursued by itself exclusively, or it will result in a harsh savage type of character. Painting must not be studied merely to prevent people from being cheated in pictures, but to make them attend to physical beauty. Music must not be studied merely for amusement, but for the moral influence which it exerts on the feelings. Indeed all true education is, as Plato saw, a training of our sympathies so that we may love and hate in a right manner. Aristotle did his best to teach the developed ideas of philosophy to young people-students at his philosophical schools. The most famous pupil, who was educated by Aristotle during five years, was 13 year old Alexander, who later became Alexander the Great. Those were the main achievements that the dialectic gained with Aristotle's assistance. Later, under the leadership of Chrysippus, the ancient Stoics developed a well-known school of formal logic, which they called the dialectic. But the term dialectic was also used by them to refer to a variety of intellectual activities, including grammatical theory. The tradition of equating the dialectics and logic with a broad range of applications became the norm into the Middle Ages. Thus, the dialectic came to be known as one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are rhetoric and grammar) in Western culture. In ancient and medieval times, the rhetoric and the dialectic (or logic) were both understood to aim at being persuasive (through dialogue). While the rhetoric focused on the art of speaking, the dialectic dealt with the logical skills of analysis, the examination of theses and antitheses, and the use of syllogisms. The end of Ancient Greek born tradition as Dialectic was similar to the first Ancient tradition - the Olympics games (officially ended by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD).
The second Ancient Greek famouse tradition was ended by the Edict of the last Roman emperor Justinian I, who in 529 AD together with Roman-Greek paganism prohibited the teaching in Athens Academy of Plato, which was placed under strict state control, effectively strangling this training-school for Hellenism. He closed all the philosophical schools of Athens and banished their teachers to Persia. Thus, together with paganism all those brilliant ideas of dialectical Classical Philosophy were buried for the Humanity for long centuries and did not recover fully until nowadays. Since that time the large part of the Humanity was obliged to forget the teachings of the Dialectics and many generations started and had to live on the basis of the Codex Justinianus I. The Codex Justinianus (Code of Justinian, Justinian's Code) was the first part to be completed on April 7, 529. It collects the constitutiones of the Roman Emperors. The compilers of the code were able to draw on earlier works such as the official Codex Theodosianus and private collections like the Codex Gregorianus and the Codex Hermogenianus. The emperor was an absolute monarch, considered indeed God's regent on earth, answerable only to God, and consequently his legislative, executive and judicial powers were unlimited and accurate throughout. Due to legal reforms by Justinian himself, this work later needed to be updated, so a second edition of the Codex (the so-called "Codex repetitae praelectionis") was issued in 534, after the Digest. The social order is shown in the later Empire. According to Justinian, the Codex regulated all human and divine affairs and laws from the time of the foundation of Rome by Romulus and Remus into a clear system that was not confusing to the public. The emperor also removed repetitive or iniquitous laws, in order to “afford all men the ready assistance of true meaning.” Legislation about religion. Numerous provisions serve to secure the status of Orthodox Christianity as the state religion of the empire, uniting Church and state, and making anyone who was not connected to the Christian church a non-citizen.
Laws against heresy. The very first law in the Codex requires all persons under the jurisdiction of the Empire to hold the holy Orthodox (Christian) faith. This was primarily aimed against heresies such as Arianism. This text later became the springboard for discussions of international law, especially the question of just what persons are under the jurisdiction of a given state or legal system. Laws against paganism. Other laws, while not aimed at pagan belief as such, forbid particular pagan practices. For example, it is provided that all persons present at a pagan sacrifice may be indicted as if for murder. Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller", "rustic") is a blanket term used to refer to various polytheistic, non-Abrahamic religious traditions. Its exact definition may vary. It is primarily used in a historical context, referring to Greco-Roman polytheism as well as the polytheistic traditions of Europe before Christianization. In a wider sense, extended to contemporary religions, it includes most of the Eastern religions, and the indigenous traditions of the Americas ("Shamanism"), Central Asia, Australia and Africa, as well as non-Abrahamic folk religion in general. More narrow definitions will not include any of the world religions and restrict the term to local or rural currents not organized as civil religions. Characteristic of pagan traditions is the absence of proselytism and the presence of a living mythology, which explains religious practice. Alphabetical index on the Corpus Juris (Index omnium legum et paragraphorum quae in Pandectis, Codice et Institutionibus continentur, per literas digestus.), printed by Gulielmo Rovillio, Lyon, 1571 By his Edict Justinian I placed the classical Philosophy on the same footing as heresy and paganism and due to this since that time the Humanity lost WISDOM and MORALITY as prime values in human life. And they do not exist as prime values until now. The modern dialectic The pressure of the emperor Justinian I’s ban was so hard that we feel it until now. Due to this fact thedialectics (also called logic) started to appear only in the 12th century as one of the three liberal arts taught in medieval universities as part of the trivium (education). The trivium also included rhetoric and grammar. Universities were established in Italy, France and England for the study of arts, law, medicine and theology. In Medieval Europe, dialectics (or logic) was an integral part of educational Curriculum broadly defined as a Classical education. In ancient and medieval times both rhetoric and dialectic were understood to aim at being persuasive (through dialogue). A more modern use of the dialectic was introduced by Kant’s critique of traditional dogmatism in nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. Later it was given entirely new meaning by the German idealists, particularly Hegel; then transformed again into dialectical materialism by Karl Marx. Darwinism, which explained the evolution of species through quantitative transformations passing into qualitative, was the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter. Another great triumph was the discovery of the table of atomic weights of chemical elements and further the transformation of one element into another. With these transformations (species, elements, etc.) is closely linked the question of classification, equally important in the natural as in the social sciences. Linnaeus' system (18th century), utilising as its starting point the immutability of species, was limited to the description and classification of plants according to their external characteristics. The infantile period of botany is analogous to the infantile period of logic, since the forms of our thought develop like everything that lives. Only decisive repudiation of the idea of fixed species, only the study of the history of the evolution of plants and their anatomy, prepared the basis for a really scientific classification. Marx, who in distinction from Darwin considered himself as a conscious dialectician, has brought the big confusion into dialectical ideas and the dialectical method. He completely ignored the Plato-Aristotle-Hegel’s dialectical classification of human societies (states) based on wisdom and reason and offered the new basis for the classification of states - the productive forces. After that the structure of the relations in states became to be considered on the grounds of ownership which constituted the anatomy of society. Through this way Marxism substituted the pure scientific state classification and relationship in societies for the vulgar descriptive classification of societies and states, which even up to now is still in use in some universities under the name - a materialistic dialectical classification. The Plato-Aristotle-Hegel’s true dialectical classification of human societies (states) is completely forgotten. Dialectical logic expresses the laws of motion in contemporary scientific thought. The struggle against materialist dialectics on the contrary expresses a distant past, and ... a spark of hope for an after-life. The concept of dialectics was given new life by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (following Fichte), whose dialectically dynamic model of nature and of history made it, as it were, a fundamental aspect of the nature of reality (instead of regarding the contradictions into which dialectics leads as a sign of the sterility of the dialectical method, as Immanuel Kant tended to do in his Critique of Pure Reason). In the mid-19th century, the concept of "dialectic" was appropriated by Karl Marx (see, for example, Das Kapital, published in 1867) and Friedrich Engels and retooled in a non-idealist manner, becoming a crucial notion in their philosophy of Dialectical materialism. Thus this concept has played a prominent role on the world stage and in world history. In contemporary polemics, "dialectics" may also refer to an understanding of how we can or should perceive the world (epistemology); an assertion that the nature of the world outside one's perception is interconnected, contradictory, and dynamic (ontology); or it can refer to a method of presentation of ideas and conclusions (discourse). According to Hegel, "dialectic" is the method by which human history unfolds; that is to say, history progresses as a dialectical process. In a dialectic process describing the interaction and resolution between multiple paradigms or ideologies, one putative solution establishes primacy over the others. The goal of a dialectic process is to merge point and counterpoint (thesis and antithesis) into a compromise or other state of agreement via conflict and tension (synthesis). "Synthesis that evolves from the opposition between thesis and antithesis." (Eisenstein, "The Dramaturgy of Film Form" 23). Examples of dialectic process can be found in Plato's Republic. It is generally thought dialectics has become central to "Continental" philosophy, while it plays no part in "Anglo-American" philosophy. In other words, on the continent of Europe, dialectics has entered intellectual culture (or at least its counter-culture) as what might be called a legitimate part of thought and philosophy, whereas in America and Britain, the dialectic plays no discernible part in the intellectual culture, which instead tends toward positivism. A prime example of the European tradition is Critique of Dialectical Reason, which is very different from the works of Popper, whose philosophy was for a time highly influential in the UK where he resided. But the most systemic approach to the modern meaning of the term-homonym dialectic was made by the German philosopher Frederick Engels (1873-1886) in his book “Dialectics of Nature” in 1883 where he tried to describe the Fundamental Laws of Dialectics. In this book Engels says that Dialectics, or so-called objective dialectics, prevails throughout nature, and so-called subjective dialectics, dialectical thought, is only the reflection of the motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites and their final passage into one another, or into higher forms, determines the life of nature. The Humanity has now many common questions to discuss and many vital problems to solve in order to survive. There is no special place to do it and there is no method to make it correctly. The time came to revive the second ancient Greek tradition of Dialectic Symposiums – Philosophical Forum, based on WISDOM, REASON and Morality, to transform it into innovation, and to start to solve with its help vital problems of the Humanity of nowadays. There is no other reasonable alternative for Mankind until it is too late. WISDOM and MORALITY should be returned to Humanity and innovated!
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