From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dialectic or
dialectics (
Greek:
διαλεκτική,
dialektikḗ; related to
dialogue), also known as the
dialectical method, is at base a
discourse between two or more people holding different
points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the
truth through
reasoned arguments. Dialectic resembles
debate, but shorn of subjective elements such as emotional appeal and the modern pejorative sense of
rhetoric. It may be contrasted with the
didactic method where one side of the conversation teaches the other. Dialectic is alternatively known as minor
logic, as opposed to major
logic or
critique.
Within
Hegelianism,
dialectic acquires a specialised meaning of a
contradiction
of ideas that serves as the determining factor in their interaction;
comprising three stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its
reaction; an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis; and
the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis.
Dialectical materialism, built mainly by
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, adapted the Hegelian dialectic into traditional
materialism.
Dialectic tends to imply a
process of evolution, and so does not naturally fit within
formal logic; see
logic and dialectic.
This is particularly marked in Hegelian and even more Marxist dialectic
which may rely on the time-evolution of ideas in the real world;
Dialectical logic attempts to address this.
Western dialectical forms
Classical philosophy
In
classical philosophy, dialectic (
διαλεκτική) is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating
propositions (
theses) and
counter-propositions (
antitheses).
The outcome of such a dialectic might be the refutation of a relevant
proposition, or of a synthesis, or a combination of the opposing
assertions, or a qualitative improvement of the dialogue.
Moreover, the term "dialectic" owes much of its prestige to its role in the philosophies of
Socrates and
Plato, in the Greek
Classical period (5th to 4th centuries BCE).
Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher
Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which the dialogues of Plato are the examples of the Socratic dialectical method.
[5]
According to
Kant,
however, the ancient Greeks used the word "dialectic" to signify the
logic of false appearance or semblance. To the Ancients, "it was nothing
but the logic of illusion. It was a sophistic art of giving to one's
ignorance, indeed even to one's intentional tricks, the outward
appearance of truth, by imitating the thorough, accurate method which
logic always requires, and by using its topic as a cloak for every empty
assertion."
[6]
Socratic method
The
Socratic dialogues are a particular form of dialectic known as the
method of elenchus (literally, "refutation, scrutiny"
[7])
whereby a series of questions clarifies a more precise statement of a
vague belief, logical consequences of that statement are explored, and a
contradiction is discovered. The method is largely destructive, in that
false belief is exposed
[8]
and only constructive in that this exposure may lead to further search
for truth. The detection of error does not amount to a proof of the
antithesis; for example, a contradiction in the consequences of a
definition of
piety does not provide a correct definition. The
principal aim of Socratic activity may be to improve the soul of the
interlocutors, by freeing them from unrecognized errors; or indeed, by
teaching them the spirit of inquiry.
In common cases, Socrates used
enthymemes as the foundation of his argument.
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
is not sufficiently meaningful.
For example, in Plato's Gorgias, dialectic occurs between
Socrates, the Sophist Gorgias, and two men, Polus and Callicles. Because
Socrates' ultimate goal was to reach true knowledge, he was even
willing to change his own views in order to arrive at the truth. The
fundamental goal of dialectic, in this instance, was to establish a
precise definition of the subject (in this case, rhetoric) and with the
use of argumentation and questioning, make the subject even more
precise. In the Gorgias, Socrates reaches the truth by asking a series
of questions and in return, receiving short, clear answers.
There is another interpretation of the dialectic, as a method of intuition suggested in The Republic.
[9]
Simon Blackburn writes that the dialectic in this sense is used to
understand "the total process of enlightenment, whereby the philosopher
is educated so as to achieve knowledge of the supreme good, the Form of
the Good".
[10]
Aristotle
Aristotle
stresses that rhetoric is closely related to dialectic. He offers
several formulas to describe this affinity between the two disciplines:
first of all, rhetoric is said to be a “counterpart” (antistrophos) to
dialectic (Rhet. I.1, 1354a1); (ii) it is also called an “outgrowth”
(paraphues ti) of dialectic and the study of character (Rhet. I.2,
1356a25f.); finally, Aristotle says that rhetoric is part of dialectic
and resembles it (Rhet. I.2, 1356a30f.). In saying that rhetoric is a
counterpart to dialectic, Aristotle obviously alludes to Plato's Gorgias
(464bff.), where rhetoric is ironically defined as a counterpart to
cookery in the soul. Since, in this passage, Plato uses the word
‘antistrophos’ to designate an analogy, it is likely that Aristotle
wants to express a kind of analogy too: what dialectic is for the
(private or academic) practice of attacking and maintaining an argument,
rhetoric is for the (public) practice of defending oneself or accusing
an opponent. The analogy to dialectic has important implications for the
status of rhetoric. Plato argued in his Gorgias that rhetoric cannot be
an art (technê), since it is not related to a definite subject, while
real arts are defined by their specific subjects, as e.g. medicine or
shoemaking are defined by their products, i.e., health and shoes.
[11]
Medieval philosophy
Logic, which could be considered to include dialectic, was one of the three liberal arts taught in
medieval universities as part of the
trivium; the other elements were
rhetoric and
grammar.
[12][13]
Based mainly on
Aristotle, the first medieval philosopher to work on dialectics was
Boethius (480–524).
[16] After him, many scholastic philosophers also made use of dialectics in their works, such as
Abelard,
[17] William of Sherwood,
[18] Garlandus Compotista,
[19] Walter Burley, Roger Swyneshed,
William of Ockham,
[20] and
Thomas Aquinas.
[21]
This dialectic (a
quaestio disputata) was formed as follows:
- The question to be determined (“It is asked whether...”);
- A provisory answer to the question (“And it seems that...”)
- The principal arguments in favor of the provisory answer;
- An argument against the provisory answer, traditionally a single argument from authority ("On the contrary...");
- The determination of the question after weighing the evidence ("I answer that...");
- The replies to each of the initial objections. (“To the first, to the second etc., I answer that...”)
Modern philosophy
The concept of dialectics was given new life by
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (following
Johann Gottlieb Fichte),
whose dialectically synthetic 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).
[22][23] 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 dynamic, nonidealistic manner. It would also become a
crucial part of later representations of Marxism as a philosophy of
dialectical materialism. These representations often contrasted dramatically
[24]
and led to vigorous debate among different Marxist groupings, leading
some prominent Marxists to give up on the idea of dialectics completely.
[25]
Hegelian dialectic
Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a threefold manner, was stated by
Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus[26] as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a
thesis, giving rise to its reaction; an
antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a
synthesis.
In more simplistic terms, one can consider it thus: problem → reaction →
solution. Although this model is often named after Hegel, he himself
never used that specific formulation. Hegel ascribed that terminology to
Kant.
[27] Carrying on Kant's work,
Fichte greatly elaborated on the synthesis model and popularized it.
On the other hand, Hegel did use a three-valued logical model
that is very similar to the antithesis model, but Hegel's most usual
terms were: Abstract-Negative-Concrete. Hegel used this writing model as
a backbone to accompany his points in many of his works.
The formula, thesis-antithesis-synthesis, does not explain why
the thesis requires an antithesis. However, the formula,
abstract-negative-concrete, suggests a flaw, or perhaps an
incompleteness, in any initial thesis—it is too abstract and lacks the
negative of trial, error, and experience. For Hegel, the concrete, the
synthesis, the absolute, must always pass through the phase of the
negative, in the journey to completion, that is, mediation. This is the
essence of what is popularly called Hegelian dialectics.
According to the German philosopher
Walter Kaufmann:
"Fichte
introduced into German philosophy the three-step of thesis, antithesis,
and synthesis, using these three terms. Schelling took up this
terminology. Hegel did not. He never once used these three terms
together to designate three stages in an argument or account in any of
his books. And they do not help us understand his Phenomenology, his Logic,
or his philosophy of history; they impede any open-minded comprehension
of what he does by forcing it into a scheme which was available to him
and which he deliberately spurned [...] The mechanical formalism [...]
Hegel derides expressly and at some length in the preface to the Phenomenology.[28][29]
Kaufmann also cites Hegel's criticism of the triad model commonly
misattributed to him, adding that "the only place where Hegel uses the
three terms together occurs in his lectures on the history of
philosophy, on the last page but one of the section on Kant—where Hegel
roundly reproaches Kant for having 'everywhere posited thesis,
antithesis, synthesis'".
[30]
To describe the activity of overcoming the negative, Hegel also often used the term
Aufhebung,
variously translated into English as "sublation" or "overcoming," to
conceive of the working of the dialectic. Roughly, the term indicates
preserving the useful portion of an idea, thing, society, etc., while
moving beyond its limitations. (
Jacques Derrida's preferred French translation of the term was
relever.)
[31]
In the
Logic, for instance, Hegel describes a dialectic of
existence: first, existence must be posited as pure Being (
Sein); but pure Being, upon examination, is found to be indistinguishable from Nothing (
Nichts).
When it is realized that what is coming into being is, at the same
time, also returning to nothing (in life, for example, one's living is
also a dying), both Being and Nothing are united as Becoming.
[32]
As in the Socratic dialectic, Hegel claimed to proceed by making
implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the
product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. For Hegel, the whole of history is one tremendous dialectic, major
stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as
slavery to self-unification and realization as the
rational constitutional state
of free and equal citizens. The Hegelian dialectic cannot be
mechanically applied for any chosen thesis. Critics argue that the
selection of any antithesis, other than the logical negation of the
thesis, is subjective. Then, if the logical negation is used as the
antithesis, there is no rigorous way to derive a synthesis. In practice,
when an antithesis is selected to suit the user's subjective purpose,
the resulting "contradictions" are
rhetorical,
not logical, and the resulting synthesis is not rigorously defensible
against a multitude of other possible syntheses. The problem with the
Fichtean "thesis–antithesis–synthesis" model is that it implies that
contradictions or negations come from outside of things. Hegel's point
is that they are inherent in and internal to things. This conception of
dialectics derives ultimately from
Heraclitus.
Hegel stated that the purpose of dialectics is "to study things
in their own being and movement and thus to demonstrate the finitude of
the partial categories of understanding."
[33]
One important dialectical principle for Hegel is the transition
from quantity to quality, which he terms the Measure. The measure is the
qualitative quantum, the quantum is the existence of quantity.
[34]
"The identity between quantity and
quality, which is found in Measure, is at first only implicit, and not
yet explicitly realised. In other words, these two categories, which
unite in Measure, each claim an independent authority. On the one hand,
the quantitative features of existence may be altered, without affecting
its quality. On the other hand, this increase and diminution,
immaterial though it be, has its limit, by exceeding which the quality
suffers change. [...] But if the quantity present in measure exceeds a
certain limit, the quality corresponding to it is also put in abeyance.
This however is not a negation of quality altogether, but only of this
definite quality, the place of which is at once occupied by another.
This process of measure, which appears alternately as a mere change in
quantity, and then as a sudden revulsion of quantity into quality, may
be envisaged under the figure of a nodal (knotted) line".[35]
As an example, Hegel mentions the states of aggregation of water:
"Thus the temperature of water is, in the first place, a point of no
consequence in respect of its liquidity: still with the increase or
diminution of the temperature of the liquid water, there comes a point
where this state of cohesion suffers a qualitative change, and the water
is converted into steam or ice".
[36]
As other examples Hegel mentions the reaching of a point where a single
additional grain makes a heap of wheat; or where the bald tail is
produced, if we continue plucking out single hairs.
Another important principle for Hegel is the negation of the negation, which he also terms
Aufhebung
(sublation): Something is only what it is in its relation to another,
but by the negation of the negation this something incorporates the
other into itself. The dialectical movement involves two moments that
negate each other, something and its other. As a result of the negation
of the negation, "something becomes its other; this other is itself
something; therefore it likewise becomes an other, and so on ad
infinitum".
[37] Something in its passage into other only joins with itself, it is self-related.
[38] In becoming there are two moments:
[39]
coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be: by sublation, i.e., negation of the
negation, being passes over into nothing, it ceases to be, but something
new shows up, is coming to be. What is sublated (
aufgehoben) on the one hand ceases to be and is put to an end, but on the other hand it is preserved and maintained.
[40] In dialectics, a totality transforms itself; it is self-related, then self-forgetful, relieving the original tension.
Marxist dialectic
Marxist dialectic is a form of Hegelian dialectic which applies to the study of
historical materialism.
It purports to be a reflection of the real world created by man.
Dialectic would thus be a robust method under which one could examine
personal, social, and economic behaviors. Marxist dialectic is the core
foundation of the philosophy of
dialectical materialism, which forms the basis of the ideas behind historical materialism.
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels proposed that Hegel's dialectic is too abstract:
The mystification which dialectic
suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first
to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious
manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right
side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the
mystical shell.[41]
In contradiction to Hegelian idealism, Marx presented his own
dialectic method, which he claims to be "direct opposite" of Hegel's
method:
My dialectic method is not only
different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the
life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which,
under the name of 'the Idea', he even transforms into an independent
subject, is the demiurgos
of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal
form of 'the Idea'. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else
than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into
forms of thought.[42]
In Marxism, the dialectical method of historical study became intertwined with
historical materialism, the school of thought exemplified by the works of Marx, Engels, and
Vladimir Lenin. In the USSR, under
Joseph Stalin,
Marxist dialectics became "diamat" (short for dialectical materialism),
a theory emphasizing the primacy of the material way of life; social
"praxis" over all forms of social consciousness; and the secondary,
dependent character of the "ideal". The term "dialectical materialism"
was coined by the 19th-century social theorist
Joseph Dietzgen who used the theory to explain the nature of
socialism and social development. The original populariser of Marxism in Russia,
Georgi Plekhanov
used the terms "dialectical materialism" and "historical materialism"
interchangeably. For Lenin, the primary feature of Marx's "dialectical
materialism" (Lenin's term) was its application of materialist
philosophy to history and social sciences. Lenin's main input in the
philosophy of dialectical materialism was his theory of reflection,
which presented human consciousness as a dynamic reflection of the
objective material world that fully shapes its contents and structure.
Later, Stalin's works on the subject established a rigid and formalistic
division of Marxist–Leninist theory in the dialectical materialism and
historical materialism parts. While the first was supposed to be the key
method and theory of the philosophy of nature, the second was the
Soviet version of the philosophy of history.
A dialectical method was fundamental to Marxist politics, e.g., the works of
Karl Korsch,
Georg Lukács and certain members of the
Frankfurt School. Soviet academics, notably
Evald Ilyenkov and
Zaid Orudzhev, continued pursuing unorthodox philosophic study of Marxist dialectics; likewise in the West, notably the philosopher
Bertell Ollman at
New York University.
Friedrich Engels proposed that Nature is dialectical, thus, in
Anti-Dühring he said that the negation of negation is:
A very simple process, which is
taking place everywhere and every day, which any child can understand as
soon as it is stripped of the veil of mystery in which it was enveloped
by the old idealist philosophy.[43]
In
Dialectics of Nature, Engels said:
Probably the same gentlemen who up to now have decried the transformation of quantity into quality as mysticism and incomprehensible transcendentalism
will now declare that it is indeed something quite self-evident,
trivial, and commonplace, which they have long employed, and so they
have been taught nothing new. But to have formulated for the first time
in its universally valid form a general law of development of Nature,
society, and thought, will always remain an act of historic importance.[44]
Marxist dialectics is exemplified in
Das Kapital
(Capital), which outlines two central theories: (i) surplus value and
(ii) the materialist conception of history; Marx explains dialectical
materialism:
In its rational form, it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom
and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its
comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of
things, at the same time, also, the recognition of the negation of that
state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every
historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore
takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary
existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence
critical and revolutionary.[45]
Class struggle
is the primary contradiction to be resolved by Marxist dialectics,
because of its central role in the social and political lives of a
society. Nonetheless, Marx and Marxists developed the concept of class
struggle to comprehend the dialectical contradictions between mental and
manual labor, and between town and country. Hence, philosophic
contradiction is central to the development of dialectics – the
progress from quantity to quality, the acceleration of gradual social
change; the negation of the initial development of the
status quo; the negation of that negation; and the high-level recurrence of features of the original
status quo.
In the USSR, Progress Publishers issued anthologies of dialectical
materialism by Lenin, wherein he also quotes Marx and Engels:
As the most comprehensive and
profound doctrine of development, and the richest in content, Hegelian
dialectics was considered by Marx and Engels the greatest achievement of
classical German philosophy.... "The great basic thought", Engels
writes, "that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of
ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things,
apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the
concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and
passing away... this great fundamental thought has, especially since the
time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that, in
its generality, it is now scarcely ever contradicted.
But, to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words, and to
apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation, are two
different things.... For dialectical philosophy nothing is final,
absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and
in everything; nothing can endure before it, except the uninterrupted
process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the
lower to the higher. And dialectical philosophy, itself, is nothing more
than the mere reflection of this process in the thinking brain." Thus,
according to Marx, dialectics is "the science of the general laws of
motion both of the external world and of human thought".[46]
Lenin describes his dialectical understanding of the concept of
development:
A development that repeats, as it
were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a
different way, on a higher basis ("the negation of the negation"), a
development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight
line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; "breaks in
continuity"; the transformation of quantity into quality; inner impulses
towards development, imparted by the contradiction and conflict of the
various forces and tendencies acting on a given body, or within a given
phenomenon, or within a given society; the interdependence and the
closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any
phenomenon (history constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection
that provides a uniform, and universal process of motion, one that
follows definite laws – these are some of the features of dialectics as
a doctrine of development that is richer than the conventional one.[46]
Dialectical theology
Neo-orthodoxy, in Europe also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology,
[47][48]
is an approach to
theology in
Protestantism that was developed in the aftermath of the
First World War (1914–1918). It is characterized as a reaction against doctrines of
19th-century liberal theology and a more positive reevaluation of the teachings of the
Reformation, much of which had been in decline (especially in western Europe) since the late
18th century.
[49] It is primarily associated with two
Swiss professors and pastors,
Karl Barth[50] (1886–1968) and
Emil Brunner (1899–1966),
[47][48] even though Barth himself expressed his unease in the use of the term.
[51]
In dialectical theology the difference and opposition between God
and human beings is stressed in such a way that all human attempts at
overcoming this opposition through moral, religious or philosophical
idealism must be characterized as 'sin'. In the death of Christ humanity
is negated and overcome, but this judgment also points forwards to the
resurrection in which humanity is reestablished in Christ. For Barth
this meant that only through God's 'no' to everything human can his
'yes' be perceived. Applied to traditional themes of Protestant
theology, such as
double predestination,
this means that election and reprobation cannot be viewed as a
quantitative limitation of God's action. Rather it must be seen as its
"qualitative definition".
[52]
As Christ bore the rejection as well as the election of God for all
humanity, every person is subject to both aspects of God's double
predestination.
Legacy
Dialectics
has become central to "Continental" philosophy, but it plays no part in
"Anglo-American" philosophy. In other words, on the continent of
Europe, dialectics has entered intellectual 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
Jean-Paul Sartre's
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 (see below).
Sartre states:
- "Existentialism, like Marxism,
addresses itself to experience in order to discover there concrete
syntheses. It can conceive of these syntheses only within a moving,
dialectical totalisation, which is nothing else but history or—from the
strictly cultural point of view adopted here—'philosophy-becoming-the
world'."[53]
Criticisms
Karl Popper
has attacked the dialectic repeatedly. In 1937 he wrote and delivered a
paper entitled "What Is Dialectic?" in which he attacked the
dialectical method for its willingness "to put up with contradictions".
[54]
Popper concluded the essay with these words: "The whole development of
dialectic should be a warning against the dangers inherent in
philosophical system-building. It should remind us that
philosophy
should not be made a basis for any sort of scientific system and that
philosophers should be much more modest in their claims. One task which
they can fulfill quite usefully is the study of the critical
methods of science" (Ibid., p. 335).
In chapter 12 of volume 2 of
The Open Society and Its Enemies
(1944; 5th rev. ed., 1966) Popper unleashed a famous attack on Hegelian
dialectics, in which he held that Hegel's thought (unjustly, in the
view of some philosophers, such as
Walter Kaufmann,
[55]) was to some degree responsible for facilitating the rise of
fascism in Europe by encouraging and justifying
irrationalism. In section 17 of his 1961 "addenda" to
The Open Society,
entitled "Facts, Standards and Truth: A Further Criticism of
Relativism," Popper refused to moderate his criticism of the Hegelian
dialectic, arguing that it "played a major role in the downfall of
the liberal movement in Germany,... by contributing to
historicism and to an identification of might and right, encouraged
totalitarian
modes of thought. . . . [and] undermined and eventually lowered the
traditional standards of intellectual responsibility and honesty".
[56]
The philosopher of science and physicist
Mario Bunge repeatedly criticized Hegelian and Marxian dialectics, calling them "fuzzy and remote from science"
[57] and a "disastrous legacy",
[58]
and he concluded: "The so-called laws of dialectics, such as formulated
by Engels (1940, 1954) and Lenin (1947, 1981), are false insofar as
they are intelligible."
[58]
Formalism
In the past few decades, European and American logicians have
attempted to provide mathematical foundations for dialectical logic or
argument.
[59]:201–372 There had been pre-formal and partially-formal treatises on argument and dialectic, from authors such as
Stephen Toulmin (
The Uses of Argument),
[59]:203–256 Nicholas Rescher (
Dialectics),
[59]:330–336 and van Eemeren and Grootendorst (
pragma-dialectics).
[59]:517–614 One can include the communities of
informal logic and
paraconsistent logic.
[59]:373–424 However, building on theories of
defeasible reasoning (see
John L. Pollock),
systems have been built that define well-formedness of arguments, rules
governing the process of introducing arguments based on fixed
assumptions, and rules for shifting burden. Many of these logics appear
in the special area of
artificial intelligence and law, though the computer scientists' interest in formalizing dialectic originates in a desire to build
decision support and computer-supported collaborative work systems.
A typical central nervous system synapse
The synapse and synaptic vesicle cycle
Major elements in chemical synaptic transmission
