greek-metaphysicsfeatured in 30 works

Dialectic

Truth pursued through disciplined question and answer — the way Socrates cross-examined Athens.

Dialectic (dialektikē) is reasoning that advances by question, answer, and the testing of claims. Antiquity credited Zeno of Elea with inventing it, but it is above all the method of Socrates (5th c. BCE) and Plato, who turned cross-examination into a path toward definitions and the Forms; Aristotle later recast it as reasoning from widely accepted opinions. Hegel and Marx would transform the term and the method yet again in the modern era.

How it traveled

Protagoras
Athens · -385
explains
Euthydemus
Athens · -384
explains
Phaedo
Athens · -380
explains
Lysis
Athens · -380
explains
Republic
Athens · -375
explains
Cratylus
Athens · -375
explains
Parmenides
Athens · -370
explains
Phaedrus
Athens · -370
explains
Theaetetus
Athens · -369
explains
Sophist
Athens · -360
explains
Statesman
Athens · -358
explains
Philebus
Athens · -355
explains
Rhetoric
Chalcis · -335
explains
Topica
Chalcis · -322
explains
Metaphysics
Chalcis · -322
explains
De sophisticis elenchis
Chalcis · -322
explains
Lucullus
Formiae · -43
applies
de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum
Formiae · -43
explains
Tusculanae Disputationes
Formiae · -43
explains
Institutio Oratoria
Rome · 95
explains
Discourses
Nicopolis · 108
explains
Noctes Atticae
Rome · 180
explains
Adversus Mathematicos
Alexandria · 190
explains
Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes
Alexandria · 210
explains
Vitae philosophorum
— · 240
explains
Enneades
Rome · 270
explains
Kiddushin
Sura (Babylonia) · 500
Guide for the Perplexed
Cairo · 1190
Yalkut Shimoni on Nach
Tiberias · 1250
Akeidat Yitzchak
Tarragona · 1490

Key passages(20)

Origin Anchor — gr-dialectic↗origin

Fragments & Testimonia · Zeno of Elea