The dialectical method has been established by Socrates and it is about posing critical questions in order to underline the social contradictions. This series of questions clarifies a more precise statement of a vague belief, logical consequences of that statement are explored, and a contradiction is discovered. Its ultimate goal is to free the people from false impressions related with social reality. In our time these false impressions are created through fake news etc. The dialectical method is at base a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned arguments. It may be contrasted with the didactic method where one side of the conversation teaches the other.
In modern times, Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a threefold manner, is comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction; an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis. Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy and best known for his influential work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, has tried to apply the dialectic method in the education. According to Freire, through the dialectical method, the students undertake from the beginning the role of the “creators” and they try to reach the essence of the knowledge through the help of critical thinking. Freire claims that the essence is not in learning knowledge by heart but in the process of acquiring the knowledge. The whole process of acquiring knowledge includes a dialectical movement from action to reasoning and from the reasoning related with the action to a new action. The acquisition of knowledge through the dialectical method requires two interdependent contexts:
i) The general context of authentic dialogue between the students and the teachers as equal subjects in relation to knowledge
ii) The specific social reality in which students and teachers are living