Kayley asked:

Can you tell me the difference between the monological and dialogical approaches to argumentation?

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I'm not sure what you mean by the dialogical approach to argumentation, as opposed to the dialogical
approach to certain philosophical problems, like the nature of the self, or the relation between the self
and other. In the latter sense, 'dialogical' refers quite specifically to the tradition that includes the work
of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas. (Major works: Buber I and Thou, Levinas Totality and
Infinity.)

By contrast, argumentation that is 'dialogical' is what I would term dialectical. The idea of
philosophical argument being dialectical, or involving a zig-zag structure of claim and counter-claim,
goes back to Plato. We term the procedure in a European or American court of law 'dialectical',
because the truth is arrived at through a confrontation between the arguments for the prosecution and
the defence. In a Rabbinical court, by contrast, the Rabbis arrive at their judgement by directly
questioning the parties involved.

But 'dialectic' is a magical, dangerous word. It is a word we over-use, sometimes abuse. Even if you
don't believe in Plato's or Hegel's or Wittgenstein's dialectic — or any philosopher's dialectic— it is
difficult to resist the sense of almost mystical significance.

What about the opposite, 'non-dialectical' or 'monological'? (I have never heard of 'monolectical'.)
Spinoza, the faithful student of Descartes, is perhaps the best example of a philosopher who set out,
in his metaphysical work the Ethics, to follow through a straight line of argument from definitions and
axioms to a conclusion. In this, he modelled himself on Descartes' pronouncements about the
application of the 'geometrical method' to philosophy, rather than on Descartes' actual example.

Yet as many commentators have pointed out, all the interesting bits of the Ethicsare in the added
'Scholia', the parts supposedly added on merely to aid the reader's comprehension of the main line of
the argument. Even Spinoza, it seems, found it difficult to pursue a philosophical investigation
'monologically'.

Dialectical proofhas sometimes meant, as in Aristotle, establishing a philosophical conclusion by the
method of reductio ad absurdum. You reach conclusion A by demonstrating the absurdity of
supposing that A is not true. The negative approach has its advantages, but should not be overrated.
We all-too easily assume that because not-A is not true, A mustbe true. But that is a fallacy. To the
question, 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' It is impossible for me to answer 'Yes' or 'No'
because both alternatives — that I have stopped beating her, and that I haven't — are false! Often in
philosophy we wrongly assume that 'A' and 'not-A' are the only possible alternatives, only to discover
later that neither is in fact the case.

Geoffrey Klempner