[MD] The trouble with Sophists

[david buchanan]

Ron said:
It has come to my attention after reading these texts is that dialectiacal method is an empirical method, collection and division, the is and is not of the concept, and the dialectic opposition applied to both  is only to arrive at accuracy and precision of meaning. ...



dmb says:

I'm fairly certain that you're using the key terms improperly. Please notice how the dialectical method relies exclusively on verbal exchanges, logic, rationality and reasoned arguments. Dialectic is a fancy name for "dialogue". This is contrasted with and opposed to empirical methods, which rely on experience and the senses rather than words and logic. 
As Wiki says in the article on the "Dialectic", "Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues. The dialectical method is dialogue between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter by dialogue, with reasoned arguments.[1] Dialectics is different from debate, wherein the debaters are committed to their points of view, and mean to win the debate, either by persuading the opponent, proving their argument correct, or proving the opponent's argument incorrect — thus, either a judge or a jury must decide who wins the debate. Dialectics is also different from rhetoric, wherein the speaker uses logos, pathos, or ethos to persuade listeners to take the side of their argument. Eristic is always considered the enemy of Dialectia because it argues for the sake of strife and not to settle disputes. Often causing divisions.
The Sophists taught arête (Greek: ἀρετή, quality, excellence) as the highest value, and the determinant of one's actions in life. The Sophists taught artistic quality in oratory (motivation via speech) as a manner of demonstrating one's arête. Oratory was taught as an art form, used to please and to influence other people via excellent speech; nonetheless, the Sophists taught the pupil to seek arête in all endeavours, not solely in oratory.
Socrates favoured truth as the highest value, proposing that it could be discovered through reason and logic in discussion: ergo, dialectic. Socrates valued rationality (appealing to logic, not emotion) as the proper means for persuasion, the discovery of truth, and the determinant for one's actions. To Socrates, truth, not arête, was the greater good, and each person should, above all else, seek truth to guide one's life. Therefore, Socrates opposed the Sophists and their teaching of rhetoric as art and as emotional oratory requiring neither logic nor proof.[2] Different forms of dialectical reasoning emerged from the Indosphere (Greater India) and in the West (Europe), and throughout history; Socratic method, Hindu, Buddhist, Medieval, Hegelian dialectics, Marxist, Talmudic, and Neo-orthodoxy."

And then you can see this contrasted with "Empiricism". The Wiki article on that says,...

"Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions[1].
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.  [...]
The English term "empiric" derives from the Greek word ἐμπειρία, which is cognate with and translates to the Latin experientia, from which we derive the word "experience" and the related "experiment". The term was used of the Empiric school of ancient Greek medical practitioners, who rejected the doctrines of the (Dogmatic school), preferring to rely on the observation of phenomena.[2]   [...]
Philosophical empiricists hold no knowledge to be properly inferred or deduced unless it is derived from one's sense-based experience.[3] This view is commonly contrasted with rationalism, which asserts that knowledge may be derived from reason independently of the senses. For example John Locke held that some knowledge (e.g. knowledge of God's existence) could be arrived at through intuition and reasoning alone. Similarly Robert Boyle, a prominent advocate of the experimental method, held that we have innate ideas.[4][5] The main continental rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) were also advocates of the empirical "scientific method".[6] [7]
Early empiricismSee also: Tabula Rasa and Nous.The notion of tabula rasa ("clean slate" or "blank tablet") connotes a view of mind as an originally blank or empty recorder (Locke used the words "white paper") on which experience leaves marks. This denies that humans have innate ideas. The image dates back to Aristotle;
What the mind (nous) thinks must be in it in the same sense as letters are on a tablet (grammateion) which bears no actual writing (grammenon); this is just what happens in the case of the mind. (Aristotle, On the Soul, 3.4.430a1).Aristotle's explanation of how this was possible, was not strictly empiricist in a modern sense, but rather based on his theory of potentiality and actuality, and experience of sense perceptions still requires the help of the active nous. These notions contrasted with Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that pre-existed somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body on Earth (see Plato's Phaedo and Apology, as well as others). Aristotle was considered to give a more important position to sense perception than Plato, and commentators in the middle ages summarized one of his positions as "nihil in intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensu" (Latin for "nothing in the intellect without first being in the senses")."


The dictionary will say the same thing, of course. 
 "empiricism |emˈpirəˌsizəm|noun Philosophythe theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. Stimulated by the rise of experimental science, it developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, expounded in particular by John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume."



rationalism |ˈra sh ənlˌizəm; ˈra sh nəˌlizəm|nouna belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response : scientific rationalism.• Philosophy the theory that reason rather than experience is the foundation of certainty in knowledge.



I think we can't rightly communicate unless these terms mean the same thing to both of us.