15.6. DGB Post-Hegelian Epistemology

I wish to introduce the reader to a brand or style of epistemology that has not really been developed so far in the history of Western philosophy. It emphasizes some of the similar, inter-related, and different 'dualistic and dialectical elements' of epistemology (the study of knowledge).

One of the main 'dialectical splits' that I will be talking about is the dialectical split between 'Objectivist Epistemology' which is the name I got from one of the main philosophers specializing in this type of epistemology -- Ayn Rand (1905-1982)--but unless I am overextending my associations here, can be traced back mainly to an Aristolean, Baconian, Lockean, Science and Enlightenment tradition -- the unbiased search for 'objective knowledge' to the extent that this is possible; as opposed to what I will call 'Subjectivist Anti-Epistemology' as laid out mainly by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) which is the assertion -- paraphrased by me -- that 'no human knowledge is objective; all human knowledge is tainted by narcissistic human bias'. Indeed, the path I will follow here is largely one that seeks to trace how great an extent man will go to 'hide 'objective, truthful knowledge' from others and/or even himself.

However, before we investigate this dialectical split between epistemology and anti-epistemology, as well as other types of dialectical relations between 'subjective and objective knowledge', let me share a little of my history in this philosophical discussion, because in 1979 I was very much into -- and indeed wrote my Honours Thesis' on -- what Rand later called 'Objectivist Epistemology'. Indeed, I was partly influenced by Rand at the time, as well as a school of 'linguistics-semantics-epistemology' that I had come in touch with called -- 'General Semantics'. Here is a little of my own personal academic history:


In 1979, I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology on the relationship between epistemology (the study of knowledge), language, meaning, General Semantics, Cognitive Therapy, and Humanistic-Existential Ethics. It was a lot for an Honours BA student to grab onto, bite into, and chew with any kind of success -- but I was ambitious in my desire -- and I think that the outcome of my essay was moderately successful. The essay was very dry (Kantian-like in this respect -- if not quite up to the latter's standard of thought) but it laid down the foundation for this much larger philosophical project and what it has become 27 years later: Hegel's Hotel: The Evolving Gap School of Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...

The core of my thesis in 1979 was that General Semantics, a largely unheralded school of philosophical thought founded by Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950) and 'mapped out' in his classic book, Science and Sanity, 1933 (which linked language, meaning, perception, evaluation, and psychological well-being all together in one inter-connected package), could greatly aid in the development of Cognitive Therapy, and psychotherapy in general. I thought I was relatively alone in my thinking, but it turned out that that there were other philosophical and psychological thinkers who were going down the same, or a similar, path. Unbeknownst to me, in the 1960s and 70s, leading right up to the time I was starting to do my research and writing, a small group of inter-connected psychologists in Esalen, California were already in the process of integrating some of the key ideas of General Semantics into their separate but similarly influenced schools of psychotherapy -- Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy; Virginia Satir, Psycho-Drama Family Therapy; and Bandler, Grinder, and Bateson, Neuro-Linguistic-Programming or NLP.)

I found out some of this information just yesterday as I explored a bit of the history of NLP.
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One of the earliest influences on NLP was General Semantics (Alfred Korzybski) as a new perspective for looking at the world which included a kind of mental hygiene. This was a departure from the Aristotelian concepts of modern science and objective reality, and it influenced notions of programming the mind. Korzybski's General Semantics influenced several schools of thought, leading to a viable human potential industry and associations with emerging New Age thinking. By the late 1960s, self-help organizations such as EST, Dianetics, and Scientology had become financially successful. The Esalen human potential seminars in California began to attract a wide range of thinkers and lay-people, such as the gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, as well as Gregory Bateson, Virginia Satir, and Milton H. Erickson.[NLP, Wikipedia, internet].
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The professor who marked my essay at The University of Waterloo -- Donald Meichenmbaum (who had written a book on related subject matter two years earlier than my essay (Cognitive-Behavior Modification, 1977) -- was also interested in the interconnection between language, meaning, cogntive therapy -- and in his case, behavior modification. He had read some Korzybski and General Semantics, and was also interested in the potential interconnection between Cognitive Therapy and General Semantics.

If the paper had been viewed from a psychoanalytic perspective, it probably would have been labelled as an essay on the 'functioning of the central ego -- in both health and pathology, taking into consideration both the positive and negative effects of the superego, and how General Semantics and Cognitve Therapy (or Gestalt Therapy, Satir's Family Therapy, and/or NLP) can all be used linguistically and semanticly (or 'neuro-linguistically') to modify, moderate, and improve the effects of the superego on emotional feeling and psychological functioning'. Wow! That was a load.

What was not addressed in this 'virginal' attempt at pulling together 'Gap Psychology and Philosophy' was a huge double can of worms that I was about to encounter as I started to more seriously study psychologists and philosophers who I hadn't really seriously studied up to that point (Freud, Perls, Adler, Hegel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer... One can of worms was 'transference'. And another can of works we will associate with these three names: 'the id', 'narcissism', and 'dionysian philosophy'.

In other words, 'Gap Psychology and Philosophy' was about to become much more dualistic and dialectic than my honours thesis had aimed to be, because this first essay was mainly from an 'Apollonian' perspective -- which is a lot like talking about 'the Titanic' without talking about the rather huge influence of the 'iceberg' on the Titanic. Or like talking about 'heaven' without talking about 'hell'. Like talking about 'morality' without talking about 'immorality'.
Like talking about 'Christianity' without talking about 'Nietzsche'. In other words, Gap Psychology and Gap Philosphy still had a lot to learn about human nature and human behavior -- on the 'narcissistic', 'Idian', and/or 'Dionysian' side of the 'Apollonian/Dionysian' spectrum, equation -- and 'tragedy'. (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 1872.)

The question and problem here -- since this is a discussion on epistemology -- becomes mainly this: How does 'Gap Narcissistic and Dionysian Philosophy' impact Gap Epistemology'. Or put another way, how do I integrate and 'bridge the gap' between 'Nietzschean subjective, relativistic, nihilistic epistemology or anti-epistemology' and Randian 'Objectivist Epistemology' as well as with my earlier work in General Semantics epistemology. This is new territory for me -- evolving as I write.

db, Feb. 27-28th, 2007.