Logic can be used to test whether a statement is valid - and therefore is a defence against propaganda and ‘fake news’. This process could prove incredibly useful at a time when difficult decisions need to be made by large numbers of people in order to solve extraordinarily complex problems, not least climate change and biodiversity collapse. Why is any of this useful today? The aim of dialectic is not simply to win an argument but for two (or more) people to test their own definitions and arguments in conversation with each other. But dialectic is about a dialogue between two, whereas rhetoric is about the one speaking to the many. It is different to logic - or pure reason - because it does not need true premises nor does it directly seek the truth. It is, like logic, a process of discovering and validating definitions, definitions that reveal the essence of that which we aim to define. It can be understood as the identity between rhetoric and logic.
For Aristotle, dialectic was an art - alongside medicine and rhetoric - as opposed to a science - such as logic or mathematics. To provide a more theoretical definition, dialectic is one of the forms of intellectual inquiry. Read more about dialectic and systems thinking at Endoxa. Dialectic is extinct as a public spectacle. A knock out blow would be a contradiction, falsification or paradox. Boxing as a practice remains a popular sport. In public debate, dialectic is restricted to the use of questions and answers to validate or invalidate a logical argument.
The boxer is restricted to punching above the belt. In the art of public debate dialectic is the skill or ability to land blows on the opponent’s argument with the aim of landing that knock out blow. In boxing they rely on skill to land blows on each other until one person is knocked out or loses on points. This art can be understood through allegory: it is like a boxing spectacle in which two individuals spar against each other in front of a braying audience. Dialectic is - for the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle - the art of persuasion.