Dialectic

1. In Greek philosophy the question and answer form of debate or discussion in which progressively analytical enquiry sought to expose the bases of opinion (among the Sophists) or to attain truth (Socrates, Plato).

2. Anciently, in general, the analytical adjunct of rhetoric.

3. In Scholastic philosophy, disputation among experts in which a special logic of argumentation was observed.

4. In the Renaissance Ramist pedagogy, the first two parts of the ancient five-part rhetoric: invention, in which materials for a speech or written argument were collected and in which the topic or topics were analyzed; and disposition, in which the material was arranged for best presentation.

5. In Hegelian philosophy, the substitution of the ancient question-answer-truth paradigm by the thesis-antithesis-synthesis model.

6. Figuratively, the interactions in any polarity.

7. The causal or developmental process in nature and in civilization consisting of a dynamic tension between directions of momentum of opposed or unharmonized energies which give rise or expression to third forces e.g., the opposition, in a field, of entropy ('free' energy tendency) and the field limit, boundary or form ('bound' energy mass, locus, etc.), which give rise to, inter alia, a system, life, being, information or intelligence, and ultimately, (in cybernetic terms) to a human control mechanism on dialectical change.