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Schopenhauer's critique of Dialectic

I have a few doubts/issues regarding Schopenhauer's essay "the art of controversy":

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On his use of the word Dialectic:

I'm probably wrong on this one, but to me it seems that he is equivocating (using Aristotle's definitions) Dialectic with Rethoric (he's really against the latter), as Aristotle talks about how Dialectic is the counterpart to Rethoric, the former of which which is about theoretical clarification and definitions rather than practical affairs. In Aristotle's words, Rethoric is "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion".  Isn't this exactly what Shopenhauer talking about and critiquing when he says:

>To form a clear idea of the province of Dialectic, we must pay no attention to objective truth (which is an affair of Logic); we must regard it simply as the art of getting the best of it in a dispute, which, as we have seen, is all the easier if we are actually in the right.

In that same essay he talks about how Aristotle defines the object of Dialectic as disputation that involves the discovery of truth. Is he trying to argue that there is no such thing as Dialectic as defined by Aristotle?

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I guess my question is, **why not call it Rethoric? Isn't this definition of Dialectic the same thing?**

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A more general question I have is, **if according to**  **Schopenhauer** **there is no such thing as truth in Dialectics (just victory), why bother with it in the first place**?  (maybe he's being ironic and that's his point)
gpt
He is calling it rhetoric. In one of his footnotes (mind you the essay was never published and there are multiple (3?) manuscript editions of it) he cites Aristotle's **division between** Dialectic & Rhetoric (whose aim it is το πυθανον, to convince) **and** Analytics & Philosophy (which is aimed at getting to the truth) (diogenes laertius iii,48). Furthermore he cites Topics I,1 which, again, divides between logics (apodictical reasoning from true premises) and dialectics (reasoning from accepted premises).

In the essay he also acknowledges the medieval tradition (footing on Cicero and Quintillian) of using dialectic and logic synonymously (claiming it is getting into fashion again) juxtaposed to Immanuel Kant defining "dialectic" merely as "the art of sophistical disputation".

>Dieser Gebrauch der Worte Logik und Dialektik als Synonyme hat sich auch im Mittelalter und der neuern Zeit, bis heute, erhalten. Jedoch hat man in neuerer Zeit, besonders Kant, Dialektik öfter in einem schlimmen Sinne gebraucht, als »sophistische Disputirkunst«

He is more on the side of Immanuel Kant appealing, amongst other things, to the etymology: Logics comes from 'to overthink, to calculate, word and reason' whereas Dialectics is derived from 'to converse'.

>Es ist Schade, daß »Dialektik« und »Logik« von Alters her als Synonyme gebraucht sind, und es mir daher nicht recht frei steht, ihre Bedeutung zu sondern, wie ich sonst möchte, und » Logik« (von λογιξεοθαι, überdenken, überrechnen, – von λογοσ, Wort und Vernunft, die unzertrennlich sind) zu definiren als »die Wissenschaften von den Gesetzen des Denkens, d. h. von der Verfahrungsart der Vernunft« – und » Dialektik« (von διαλεγεοθαι, sich unterreden: jede Unterredung theilt aber entweder Thatsachen oder Meinungen mit, d. h. ist historisch oder deliberativ) als »die Kunst zu disputiren« (dies Wort im modernen Sinne). – Offenbar hat dann die Logik einen rein a priori, ohne empirische Beimischung bestimmbaren Gegenstand, die Gesetze des Denkens, das Verfahren der Vernunft (des λογοσ), welches diese, sich selber überlassen, und ungestört, also beim einsamen Denken eines vernünftigen Wesens, welches durch nichts irre geführt würde, befolgt. Dialektik hingegen würde handeln von der Gemeinschaft zweier vernünftiger Wesen, die folglich zusammen denken, woraus, sobald sie nicht wie zwei gleichgehende Uhren übereinstimmen, eine Disputation, d. i. ein geistiger Kampf wird. Als reine Vernunft müßten beide Individuen übereinstimmen. Ihre Abweichungen entspringen aus der Verschiedenheit, die der Individualität wesentlich ist, sind also ein empirisches Element.

The Dialectic was, when he was writing the different editions of this essay (1830), an extremely fashionable word due to it's use by Hegel and other German idealists. By reducing it to mere rhetoric he is taking a jab them: **'why do you bother with it in the first place, guys?'**