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 DIALECTIC

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DIALECTIC

In 1735 the territory of the Diocese of Bosnia be- came tlie Vicariate Apostolic of Bosnia and Herze- govina (q. v.), while by a Bull of Clement XIV of 9 July, 177.3, the See of Sirmium was imited in perpetu- ity with Diakoviir. Since this date the Bishops of Diakovilr have borne the title " of Bosnia, or Diakovdr and Sirmium". Since 1852 the diocese has been a suffragan of Agram (Zdgrdb), which was founded in that year.

Among the most important medieval bishops of Diakovdr were Blessed Johannes Teutonicus (1233- 41) who died in 1253 as fourth Master General of the Dominican Order, and the Franciscan Blessed Pere- grinus (1349-50). In the nineteenth century Bishop Joseph Georg Strossmayer (q. v.) exceeded all his predecessors, not only in the length of his episcopate (1849-1905), but also in the fruitful results of his labours for his diocese, especially a.s a patron of art and learning. After his death the see was administered by the vicar capitular. Dr. Engelbert Vorsak. The cathedral chapter, established in 1239, disappeared after the invasion of the Turks in 1453. It was re- stored in 1773 by Maria Teresa and it consists of 8 regular and honorary canons. Since 1881 the dio- cese is limited to the Croatian-Slavonian counties of Verovititz (Verocze), Szerem, and Pozhega, and in- cludes, according to the statistics for 1908: 4 arch- deaconries; 11 vice-archdeaconries; 90 parishes with 376 dependent chapels and stations, and 4 exposi- tures; 174 secular and regular priests; 294,674 (Catho- lics and 6205 Uniat Greeks in a total population of 515,897. The male religious orders in the diocese are: Franciscans, 6 monasteries; Capuchins, 1 monastery in Esseg (Esz^k or Osjek) with 6 religious. The fe- male communities include 37 Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and 39 Sisters of C'harity of the Holy Cross. Besides the seminary for priests at Diakovar, mentioned above, there is a seminary for boys at Es- seg established by Bishop Strossmayer in 1899. The most celebrated place of pilgrimage in the Diocese of Diakovdr is Mariaschnee near Peterwardein. The patron saint for Diakoviir is St. Elias, for Szerem, St. Demetrius.

Monumenfa spectantia historiam Slavorum meridionalium, ed. South-Slavic Academy (Agram. 1S92), XXIII; Tiieinf.r, Vetera Monumenta 'Slavorum meridionalium historiam illus- tranlia (I, Rome, 1863; II, Agram, 1S75); Farlati, lUyrieum sacrum (Venice, 1769), IV, 37-90; Puvv. Si„,-imrn hierarchite Hungaricce (Pressburg-Kaschau, 177ni, II. ;;'tii 1;>S; Hodinka, Studien zur Geschichte des Bosni- i u t> n. !;-■ r Bistums (in Hungarian, Budapest, 1S9S); Si-hmuilixmu.^ ch ri diacesium Bosni' <: ' . ,/)..-••..;-.,,' Si: >„nnxijs pro anno 1908 (Diako- vdr. I'" i- :'. ' -n (Ratisbon, 1873), 368-69; EiiBii, ' . . /,,: im'i (Munster, 1898), I, 146-47: '\1 11 iri I'lnl', II, ijj; Die katholische Kirche unscrcr Zeil (Munifli, UlUOi, II, (i4r)-4S; La Calhedrale de DJakom, ed. South-Slavic Academy (a splendid art -publication, in Croatian and French, Prague, 1900).

Gregor Reinhold.

Dialectic [Gr. SioKcktik'^ (rtx"^ or ijl46oSos), the dialectic art or method, from SiaXiyonai., I converse, discuss, dispute; as noun also dialectics; as adjective, dialectical]. — (1) In Greek philosophy the word orig- inally signified "investigation by dialogue", instruc- tion by question and answer, as in the heuristic method of Socrates and the dialogues of Plato. The word dialectics still retains this meaning ui the theory of education. (2) But as the process of reasoning is more fundamental than its oral expression, the term dialectic came to denote primarily the art of inference or argument. In this sense it is synonymous with logic. It has always, moreover, connoted special aptitude or acuteness in reasoning, "dialectical skill "; and it was because of this characteristic of Zeno's polemic against the reality of motion or change that this philosopher is said to liave been styled by Aris- totle the master or founder of dialectic. (3) Further, the aim of all argumentation being presiunably the acquisition of truth or knowledge about reality, and the process of cognition being inseparably boimd up

with its content or object, i. e. with reality, it was natural that the term dialectic should be again ex- tended from fimction to object, from thought to thing; and so, even as early as Plato, it had come to signify the whole science of reality, both as to method and as to content, thus nearly approaching what has been from a somewhat later period universally known as metaphysics. It is, however, not quite sjniony- mous with the latter in the objective sense of the science of real being, abstracting from the thought processes by which this real being is known, but rather in the more subjective sense in which it denotes the study of being in connexion with the mind, the science of knowledge in relation to its olijoct, the critical in- vestigation of the origin and validity of knowledge aa pursued in psychology and epistemology. Thus Kant describes as "transcendental dialectic" his criticism of the (to him futile) attempts of speculative human reason to attaiti to a knowledge of such ultimate realities as the soul, the universe, and the Deity; while the monistic system, in which Hegel identified thought with being and logic with meta- physics, is commonly known as the "Hegelian dialectic".

A. The Dialectic Method in Theology. [For dialectic as equivalent to logic, see art. Logic, and cf. (2) above. It is in this sense we here speak of dialectic in theology.] — The traditional logic, or dia- lectic, of Aristotle's "Organon" — the science and art of (mainly deductive) reasoning — found its proper application in exploring the domain of purely natural truth, but in the early Middle Ages it began to be ap- plied by some Catholic theologians to the elucidation of the supernatural truths of the Christian Revelation. The perennial problem of the relation of reason to faith, already ably discussed by St. Augustine in the fifth century, was thus raised again by St. Anselm in the eleventh. During the intervenuig and earlier centuries, although the writers and Fathers of the Church had always recognized the right and duty of natural reason to establish those truths preparatory to faith, the existence of God and the fact of revela- tion, those prceambula fidei which form the motives of credibility of the Christian religion and so make the profession of the Christian Faith a rationabile obse- quium, a "reasonable service", still their attitude in- clined more to the Crede ut intelligas (Believe that you may understand) than to the Intellige ut credas (under- stand that you may believe) ; ami their theology was a positive exegesis of the contents of Scripture and tradition. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, rational speculation was applied to theology not merely for the purpose of proving the prceambula fidei, but also for the purpose of analysing, illustrating, and showing forth the beauty and the suitability of the mysteries of the Christian Faith. This method of applying to the contents of Revelation the logical forms of rational discussion was called " the dialectic method of theology". Its introduction was opposed more or less vigorously by such ascetic and mystic writers as St. Peter Damian, St. Bernard, and Walter of St. \'ictor; chiefly, indeed, because of the excess to which it was carried by those rationalist and theo- sophist writers who, like Peter .\belard and Rajmiond LuUy, would fain demonstrate the Christian myste- ries, subordinating faith to private judgment. The method was saved from neglect and excess alike by the great Scholastics of the thirteenth century, and was u.sed to advantage in their tlieology. After five or six centiu-ies of fruitful dcxclopment, imder the influence, mainly, of this deductive dialectic, theo- logy has again been drawing, for a century past, abundant and powerful aid from a renewed and in- creased attention to the liistorical and exegetical studies that characterized the earlier centuries of Christianity.

B. Di.u-ECTic AS Fundamental Philosophy os