A dialectical process describes a dynamic tension between two opposites, which resolves or is harmonized into a third form. Figuratively, it implies the the interactions in any polarity.
In Greek philosophy, dialectics was 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). Anciently, in general, it is the analytical adjunct of rhetoric.
In Hegelian philosophy, the ancient question-answer-truth paradigm was substituted by the thesis-antithesis-synthesis model. The dialectical-materialist process involves the testing of ideas via a thesis, its anti-thesis, and the whole, or synthesis, composed of both thesis and anti-thesis, stressing universal relationships and progressive change. At any stage of this process, however, the synthesis is itself unsatisfactory because the elements of the synthesis suggest and require other relationships which therefore demand an enlargement of the universe considered and the formulation of a thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis at a new level. Materialism (as opposed to agnosticism) recognizes the world as cognizable and considers mankind capable of reaching objective truth. Thus, although knowledge is relative and human thought exists only as the thought of past, present and future generations, truth emerges historically as the expression of this cognitive process.