"Dialectic" is a fulcrum word. Aristotle attacked this belief, saying
that the dialectic was only suitable for some purpose- to enquire into
men's beliefs, to arrive at truths about eternal forms of things, known
as Ideas, which were fixed and un- changing and constituted reality for
Plato. Aristotle said there is also the method of science, or "physical"
method, which observes physical facts and arrives at truths about
substances, which undergo change. This duality ofform and substance and
the scientific method of arriving at facts about substances were central
to Aristotle's philosophy. Thus the dethronement of dialectic from what
Socrates and Plato held it to be was ab- solutely essential for
Aristotle, and "dialectic" was and still is a fulcrum word . . . I think
it was Coleridge who said everyone is either a Plato- nist or an
Aristotelian . . . Plato is the essential Buddha-seeker who appears
again and again in each generation, moving on- ward and upward toward
the "one. " Aristotle is the eternal motorcycle mechanic who prefers the
"many. " R.
