World outlook and method of thinking opposite to metaphysics. Metaphysics views the world from an isolated, static and one-sided point of view; dialectics vies the world from the comprehensive point of view of interconnection and development. The word “dialectics” originated from the ancient Greek word dialektiké téchne. The ancient Greeks called the method of art of arriving at the truth by exposing the contradictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions dialectics. The classical German philosopher Hegel was the first to treat dialectics as a philosophical category opposite to metaphysics, endowing it with the significance of a philosophical world outlook of universal interconnection and development, which constituted the meaning of dialectics in its later common usage. Dialectics has taken three main forms in the development of history: ancient naïve dialectics, modern idealist dialectics and materialist dialectics. . .
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