When one is presented with some subject on which there are several viewpoints, and exhorted to look at things “dialectically,” one might ask what this means.

Wikipedia says of classical dialectic that the point is to generate either a refutation of one viewpoint or a synthesis — to reach a better conclusion. But it doesn’t say what form the better conclusion is in. Similarly, it says of Hegelian dialectic that the point is to reach a synthesis by combining the common points of a thesis and an antithesis.

These models of truth-finding appear to be rather limited. Besides the fact that in some sense they are specialized to dual or opposing viewpoints numbering two (or even if we extend it, a finite number), they are restricted to finding truth only in the intersection or union or some other simple-minded method of synthesis. I argue for a more general way to model truth-finding. This is inspired by engineering, as usual.
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