A
dialectician is a
philosopher who views the world in terms of complementary opposites and the interactions thereof. In popular usage, the central feature of
dialectic is the concept of "
thesis, antithesis, synthesis" - when an idea or phenomenon (thesis) arises, it carries within itself the seed of its opposite (antithesis), and the interplay of these polarities leads to a synthesis which is somehow beyond the scope of either polarity alone. In turn, the synthesis is now itself a new thesis, and the entire process can begin again.