To think dialectically means to move beyond the conceptual dichotomy of true versus false, and to think more in terms of degrees of truth. An assertion can be outright false, but an assertion can also be true in some sense, but insufficiently true.

To adopt this way of thinking is not to reject the dichotomy of true versus false, but rather to recognize it as insufficient, since the most consequential and controversial disagreements are rarely done justice when approached in those terms.

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An individual is not obligated to question every one of his beliefs. Very few beliefs can withstand serious scrutiny, and this includes useful beliefs that allow us to live good, productive lives. However, if a belief becomes problematic — we know it when it happens — then we are not free to ignore the belief or to answer it however we please. We have to question the belief until we have a satisfactory answer.

Finding a satisfactory answer often entails finding a more satisfactory question than the one originally answered with the old belief.

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Is it possible that the point of answers is questions? That answers are what give us access to our questions? That the intelligibility of the world comprises the questions we know how to ask?

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Respecting another person means not only finding validity in the positive content of his beliefs, but in the negative content of his questions, doubts, criticisms.

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A group is not obligated to question every one of its beliefs. Very few beliefs can withstand serious scrutiny, and this includes useful beliefs that allow a group to exist as a cultural entity. However, if a belief becomes problematic — we know it when it happens, because controversy breaks out — then we are not free to ignore the conflict or to answer it however one group or another pleases. We have to question the belief until we have a satisfactory answer.

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Irresolvable conflicts — individual and social — require dialectic.

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“True, but not true enough” is far more common, more disturbing and more difficult to resolve than “false.” True and false are objective, factual matters. “True enough” and “true, but not true enough” are a perspectival matter, and they cannot be resolved by purely objective means.