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Polemic
 
 
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Polemics is the practice of disputing or controverting religious
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
, philosophical
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
, political
Politics

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behaviour within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporation, academia, and religion institutions....
, or scientific matters. As such, a polemic text on a topic is often written specifically to dispute or refute a position or theory that is widely viewed to be beyond reproach. The antonym
Antonym

In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow....
 of a polemic source is an apologia
Apologetics

Apologists are authors, Personal journals, editors of Action research or Peer-reviews, and Reformism known for taking on the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that are either placed under popular scrutiny or viewed under Persecution examinations....
.

Polemic journalism was common in continental Europe when libel laws weren't stringent. The Research Support Libraries Programme "Pamphlet
Pamphlet

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease to make a simple book....
 and polemic: pamphlets as a guide to the controversies of the 17th-19th centuries", co-managed by the University of St.






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Polemics is the practice of disputing or controverting religious
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
, philosophical
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
, political
Politics

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behaviour within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporation, academia, and religion institutions....
, or scientific matters. As such, a polemic text on a topic is often written specifically to dispute or refute a position or theory that is widely viewed to be beyond reproach. The antonym
Antonym

In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow....
 of a polemic source is an apologia
Apologetics

Apologists are authors, Personal journals, editors of Action research or Peer-reviews, and Reformism known for taking on the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that are either placed under popular scrutiny or viewed under Persecution examinations....
.

Polemic journalism was common in continental Europe when libel laws weren't stringent. The Research Support Libraries Programme "Pamphlet
Pamphlet

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease to make a simple book....
 and polemic: pamphlets as a guide to the controversies of the 17th-19th centuries", co-managed by the University of St. Andrews, the University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen

The University of Aberdeen is an ancient university founded in 1495, in Old Aberdeen, Scotland. It is the fifth oldest university in what is now the United Kingdom, and in the wider English-speaking world....
, and University of Wales Lampeter, collected and placed thousands of pamphlets on-line as a study of polemic rhetoric of that era. There are other meanings of the word as well. Polemic is also a branch of theology
Theology

Theology is the study of the existence or attributes of a deity or gods, or more generally the study of religion or spirituality. It is sometimes contrasted with religious studies: theology is understood as the study of religion from an internal perspective , and religious studies as the study of religion from an external perspective....
, pertaining to the history or conduct of ecclesiastical
Ecclesiology

Ecclesiology is the study of the Christian theology understanding of the Christian church. Specific areas of concern include the church's role in salvation, its origin, its relationship to the historical Jesus, its discipline, its eschatology, and its clergy....
 controversy.

The word is derived from the Greek word polemikos (p??eľ????), which means "warlike", "hostile". Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 uses a character named Polemarchus in his dialogue Republic as a vehicle to drive forward an ethical debate.

Polemics in Science


Forensic Medicine

A common polemic in Forensic Medicine is whether diatoms are useful in the diagnosis of antemortem drowning
Drowning

Drowning is death from suffocation caused by a liquid entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral Hypoxia and cardiac arrest....
 or not.

Sexual Medicine

In sexual medicine, a common polemic is whether clinical assessment or whether actuarial methods of assessment of sex offenders are better predictors of recidivism
Recidivism

Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior....
.

See also

  • Apologia
  • Conversational intolerance
  • Devil's advocate
    Devil's advocate

    In common parlance, a devil's advocate is someone who takes a position, sometimes one he or she disagrees with, for the sake of Logical argument....