The Routledge International Handbook of Dialectical Thinking (2024) is an interdisciplinary research book written by 20 psychologists from Portugal, Great Britain, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, the USA, Brazil, Switzerland and Australia. The authors also include scholars from Moscow City University: Nikolai Veraksa, Evgeny Krasheninnikov, Igor Shiyan, Anastasia Belolutskaya, and Olga Shiyan.
For the first time, the textbook combined the theory and research of dialectical thinking, justified its importance and explained how it develops throughout life. The book brings together various scientific schools of dialectical thinking and presents the research findings and practical developments over the past 40 years.
Olga Shiyan shared the story of the book creation:
The idea of the existence of such a special mindset came to two people at about the same time. In the 1980s, both Nikolai Veraksa in Russia and Michael Basseches in the USA were independently working on dissertations related to dialectical thinking, unaware of each other’s work. This marked the beginning of two separate schools of dialectical thinking.
In 2016, due to a letter from Anastasia Belolutskaya, the two teams of researchers finally met at an international conference and formed a connection. This led to further collaboration and exchange of ideas.
The book has already been released in English, and we are looking forward to translating it into Russian.
Photo: Olga Shiyan (MCU)