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The Idiot vocabulary
140 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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dialectic
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synonyms: ~Hegel, ~syllogism ???
► definition
Definition:the process of arriving at a solution by weighing opposite sides (thesis and antithesis) often combining the two
► uses
Uses:
he wasn't used to all the reading, the way the real students were, or doing the papers, which involved insights and analogies and a lot of other things he'd never had any practice in, or using big words, "the dialectic," "eudaemonological ethics," "intellectualist and over-intellectualist attitudes."
Tom Wolfe. I am Charlotte Simmons, p.586 (2004)
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"Our first year of high school, we covered the Greek philosophers," Russo said. "One of them was Zeno of Elea, which is near Salerno supposedly,[...]. He invented dialectics. He taught how to take apart your adversaries' theses, reduce them to absurdity. Zeno wanted to show that the universe is made up of one unique and immutable being and that movement does not exist. He used paradoxes to do so. [...]"
Melania G. Mazzucco. Limbo (Virginia Jewiss translation), p.111 (2014)
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he could say to himself, with full understanding of his words: "I would give my whole life for this one instant," then doubtless to him it really was worth a lifetime. For the rest, he thought the dialectical part of his argument of little worth; he saw only too clearly that the result of these ecstatic moments was stupefaction, mental darkness, idiocy.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Idiot (1887)
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“Now, listen,” he said. “Don’t stretch me on a rack of dialectic. I’m a brother.”
Ralph Ellison. The Invisible Man (1952)
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"Just listen to this!" Mme. Verdurin rallied Forcheville and the Doctor. "He's going to give us Fénelon's definition of intelligence. That's interesting. It's not often you get a chance of hearing that!"
But Brichot was keeping Fénelon's definition until Swann should have given his own. Swann remained silent, and, by this fresh act of recreancy, spoiled the brilliant tournament of dialectic which Mme. Verdurin was rejoicing at being able to offer to Forcheville.
Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 1] (1913)
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