Logic or Dialectic? Which one? When? These terms are not mutually exclusive and must, in fact, be employed in conjunction for either to function properly, but in the book Norms and Nobility, David Hicks points out that emphasis may be laid on one or the other depending on the accepted concept of “truth” in a particular cultural climate. The epistemological trends of a people will necessitate whether “dialectic” or “logic” is most often employed, stemming from which one carries the most weight in public discourse.
“The seven liberal arts of antiquity included the four preliminary studies of arithmetic, geometry, harmonics, and astronomy, followed by three advanced disciplines of grammar, which combined literary history and linguistic study, rhetoric, and dialectic. This curriculum passed through the Romans to the Latin West and formed the basis for the medieval quadrivium and trivium. During the Middle Ages, the trivium was generally taught first, with logic taking the place of dialectic. This substitution was not accidental. For an age that possessed the Truth, the dialectical search for truth was a fruitless and even frivolous, irreverent endeavor. When one knows the truth, one has no need for dialectic – all one needs is logic. Yet to an age like ours, lacking the confidence (some would say the complacency) of the early Christian era, the dialectic holds out a serious method of study imbued with a noble purpose.” (p. 66)
No single book, much less a single paragraph, even asks all the questions, much less answers them, and David Hicks does not even remotely pretend to do that, but we would do well to listen when he offers his finely honed opinion on education. The really exciting thing about this quote is that it is only the first paragraph of an entire chapter brimming with both information and provocation–answering old questions and prompting many glorious new ones. It is a book to be read, studied, treasured, and implemented.
Follow this link to a much more thorough review of David Hicks’ seminal work, by Jennifer Courtney.<>
