Why 3? Why not 4’s & 5’s?
To Dialecticians and Colleagues Across the Curriculum
syn-thesis
............... Y
X
Zthesis............... anti-thesis
sym-bolical............. dia-bolical
(“throw together”)..... (“throw across”}
This (above) is as good a static representation
of DIALECTIC as I know.
so to speak: dynamic dialectic dialecticalizing: putting
IT in play, not just talking about it. Walking the talk,
so to speak.
Dear Doubling Thomas,
Here’s why I’m “afraid” of adding “4” or “5” etc. to my
TRIADIC (trinitarian, ternary) structure/dynamic handy
reductive algorithm for breaking up double- binding
dualistic cerebral & affective knots (like mind/body,
order/ random, masc./fem, individual/social: you know:
the old fiddling koans of the western & eastern whirl—
intellective Chinese finger traps, emotional Gordian naughts,
Procrustean beds, black plastic strawberry fields forever,
pre-requisites conditions for the practice of Liberal Art..
4 Steps
A. take a whole muddle.
B. divide it in 2 (reduce to either/or (both/and)
C. turn up the opposition (don’t be smoothing
it away, don’t be voting for once side or the
other—this isn’t politics):
polarize for crying out loud,
characterize.
mythologize (Polly Physical & Mike Mental
collide at the Cross roads, get out & argue
over who’s at fault, who’s to blame, who will
dominate the paradise & so it goes.
D, anticipate revelation: the 3rd term that
contains both Polly and Mike without
diminishing either, ice cream parlors in
hell without injustice to hot or cold..
(Get it? Would you cast the devil’s advocate out of
heaven &: sacrifice your dialectical game face? Not
talking Hegel and the slow evolution of historical
paradigms. Talking here-&-now dialectical play among
players. There’s a difference.)
Merely an “academic” exercise. Good to practice alone.
More fun with others. Any one or ones can get better
and good at IT.
Reducing IT to 3:
1. One the one hand &
2 on the other hand &
3. & then, eventually: the sound of 2 hands clapping.
Your going to mess this trinity up with your 4’s and 5’s
for crying out loud. Show me the advantage: I’ll take at
as Anti-Thesis to my Thesis: we’ll argue: wrestle it out
and look for a small apocalypse (“un-folding.”)
xxxooo, Sam
Unfortunately, this isn't Hegel's method; it's Fichte's.
ReplyDeletehttp://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Thesis_Anti-Thesis_Synthesis.htm
Unfortunately? I'm it isn't Hegel's--who deals with historical dialectic. I wasn't aware it was Fichte's but thought it was Socratic.
ReplyDeleteThe practice as a workout among two or three or more (or simply one's individual Gold's Gym exercise, say) is a lot easier to describe than attempt. Genuine opposition isn't easy to keep in play--suspending judgment and privileging one side over the other. I claim the practice can't even begin until someone gets "hurt"--not the sticks and stones kind, but fracture to bias and belief, prejudice and conviction. Border crossings. I see it as a pedagogy for liberal art. Can't say I succeed.
Well, classical dialectic certainly goes back to the Ancient Greeks, and probably pre-dates Socrates, but the thesis-antithesis-synthesis form is modern. Kant used it and Fichte perfected it. Hegel criticised it as banal and too formulaic.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, Socrates would have had nothing whatsoever to do with the synthesis stage, which would have struck him as a philosophical cop out. He used to dialectic to show how everyone's day-to-day opinions were defective, and that it's the beginning of wisdom to acknowledge that fact. Synthesis can't feature in there anywhere at all.
Of course, he was wrong (about every-day beliefs), but that's a separate issue.
You may be right about Socrates. Some thinglike elenchus to aporia may have been as far as it went--those converse actions. The all seemed to end with a whimper. Not a bang.
ReplyDelete