dialectics, (often used with a singular verb) the arguments or bases of dialectical materialism, including the elevation of matter over mind and a constantly changing reality with a material basis.
8.
(in Kantian epistemology) a fallacious metaphysical system arising from the attribution of objective reality to the perceptions by the mind of external objects. Compare transcendental dialectic.
9.
the juxtaposition or interaction of conflicting ideas, forces, etc.
[Origin: 1350–1400; ME (< AF) < L dialectica < Gk dialektik (téchné) argumentative (art), fem. of dialektikós.See dialect, -ic]
dialectic [Gr.,= art of conversation], in philosophy, term originally applied to the method of philosophizing by means of question and answer employed by certain ancient philosophers, notably Socrates. For Plato the term came to apply more strictly to logical method and meant the reduction of what is multiple in our experience of phenomena to the unity of systematically organized concepts or ideas. Immanuel Kant gave the name "Transcendental Dialectic" (the title of one section of his Critique of Pure Reason) to his endeavor to expose the illusion of judgments that attempt to transcend the limits of experience. G. W. F. Hegel applied the term dialectic to the logical method of his philosophy, which proceeds from thesis through antithesis to synthesis. Hegel's method was appropriated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their philosophy of dialectical materialism.
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Audio Help [dahy-uh-lek-tik] Pronunciation Key 
(téchné) argumentative (art), fem. of dialektikós. 