Dialectic is give and take between things or people. Synthetic dialectic results in the synthesis of a new thesis from a thesis and an antithesis (or the dialogue of many such things).
To sum up my whole point in a somewhat more accurate way than what I have ever considered before now: I want to say that truth is synthetic dialectic. Indeed, truth is socially constructed, but not just
any social construction will do, perhaps. Dialectic, as I conceive it, is a particularly interesting form of social construction giving rise to what people call "truth."
Do not be confused. By saying that truth is dialectic, I am not saying that dialectic
produces truth as a result, but I am
defining truth as dialectic.
Now, of course if you believe like Marx and Hegel that there are dialectical forces moving inevitably towards a certain goal, then my definition of truth as dialectic somehow ends up (in the limit, so to speak) as the same notion as that notion which I am opposed to: the idea of metaphysical (absolute) truth discoverable (or even approximable) and external to the human intellect. This is because truth is just moving towards the "correct" truth--the "goal." This is not my intention, however. I do not admit that there is any metaphysical goal to which our dialectic inevitably tends--in fact, where we end up is quite arbitrary, perhaps. The final result depends upon each particular dialectical community (this is perhaps similar to a hermenutical community interpreting a religious text).
What I find interesting as I consider this more and more is that even though I do not admit that there is absolute truth, I find that it is not possible to really live in such an environment; humans must construct a framework in which to live, which becomes the "truth" of a particular community (which may consist of one or few or many individuals). Metaphorically, this is the same as the difference between being homeless and having a place to live. The homeless drift the streets picking up change wherever they can, just scraping by. But some live in houses, some in apartments, some in modern mansions, some in Romanesque castles, and still some in Baroque cathedrals. These are the structures each person and community builds in order to fill the void which exists because of the absence of any absolute metaphysics.
