Dialectic and Logic

“The seven liberal arts of antiquity included the four preliminary studies of arithmetic, geometry, harmonics, and astronomy, followed by the three advanced disciplines of grammar, which combined literary history and linguistic study, rhetoric, and dialectic.  This curriculum passed through the Romans to the Latin West and formed the basis of the medieval quadrivium and trivium.  During the Middle Ages, the trivium was generally taught first, with logic taking the place of dialectic.  This substitution was not accidental.  For an age that possessed the Truth, the dialectical search for truth was a fruitless and even frivolous, irreverent endeavor.  When one knows the truth, one has no need for dialectic — all one needs is logic.” (Norms and Nobility, p. 66)