There are some philosophers in the history of Western philosophy -- reputable philosophers -- who seem to have had virtually no other purpose in their philosophy and in the history of philosophy than to mess other philosophies and philosophers up! Call these philosophers the 'mind-benders'.
The 'Sophists' come most quickly to mind -- ancient Greece's version of the modern day lawyer -- great at debate, great at rhetoric, but philosophical mercenaries, willing and able to take any philosophical position and argue it with equal vigor and passion.
Within this school of philosophy, it is not the philosophical position itself that matters; it is winning a philosophical debate with superior argumentation, logic and rhetoric that matters.
Here the main philosophical point of view is not that 'Knowledge is power.' But rather that, 'Rhetoric is power.' We have also heard the expression, 'Money is power.' A connection can be made here: In the modern legal world, more money buys superior rhetoric ( a better lawyer) which in turn wins power (getting the type of judgment you are looking for)!
By association of philosophical position, today's modern day lawyer is basically the equivalent of Ancient Greece's Sophist -- no arguing the superiority of their rhetoric, just sometimes their integrity and the fact that you can never be sure that what they are trying to sell you is truthful knowledge -- or the illusion of truthful knowledge all wrapped up in a nice package and bow in order to seduce you and manipulate you into thinking you are gettng something 'good' and 'right'.
Until you open the package. Here the association can be made not only with today lawyers but also with today's marketers and advertisors. Again, just because you are getting a very 'sexy' package, doesn't mean that you are necessarily going to like what you get inside the package. The package might be full of worms - or the equivalent.
And now we come to Parmenides -- perhaps the biggest mind-bender in the history of Western philosophy, made worse by the fact that he strongly influenced Plato's pathological theory of epistemology. Thus, Parmenides pathological epistemology became Plato's pathological epistemology, almost as though through a process of osmosis. 'Plato -- you got seduced and reeled in by the equivalent of a Sophist...Someone who sold you on a nice sexy package -- or a nice lure -- and then reeled you in, hook, line, and sinker.'
We have lots of those types of people today. Yesterday's Sophist is today's Narcissistic Banker, Mortgage Lender, and CEO on Wall Street -- the type of person who sells you on a sub-prime mortgage rate, and then reels you in hook, line, and sinker, with those nasty 'Trojan Horses or Viruses Hidden Deep in The Bowels of The Mortgage Contract' that will come out of their hiding place a year or two later -- and effectively, kill you.
The virus is hidden in the fine print.
The virus is hidden in that sexy website.
Home of The Identification Thief.
21st Century Narcissistic Capitalism Comes All Wrapped Up In A Nice Sexy Package...
But The Integrity is Gone...
Gone in An Illinois Moment...
Everything Has A Bargaining Price...
How Much Is This Illinois Senate Position Worth To You?
It's Up For Auction To The Highest Bidder.
Ain't Democracy Sweet!
President-Elect Obama, you have your work cut out for you.
Don't compromise your integrity.
America is counting on you.
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Who Said The Trojan Horse Is Dead and Buried In The Archives of Mythological Greece?
No, The Trojan Horse is Very Much Alive and Being Used Over and Over Again In America.
And Canada.
Indeed, All Around The World.
Narcissistic Capitalism is full of Sophists -- and Trojan Horses.
The Trojan Horse -- and Virus -- Is The Favorite War-Toy of Sophists.
Watch out for the package!
Cause its What's In The Package That Counts!
What's Inside The Sexy Package Is What Will Kill You If You Are Not Careful
What You Are Opening...
Or How You Are Opening It...
The Worst Of The Sophists...
Operate With Trojan Horses...
Or Operate Inside Trojan Horses...
'America, Watch Out For Trojan Horses...
And Viruses...
They Will Kill You...
Even As They Smile and Wink At You...
America, Beware of The Sexy Package!
It Could Be a Trojan Horse!
Or Contain a Trojan Virus...
That Will Steal From You, or Sabotage You...
Someone From Africa or England Will Tell You, You've Just Won a Hundred Thousand Dollars...
And Tell You Where To Send All Your ID Information...
In Order To Collect Your Winnings.
Who Says That Sophists and Trojan Horses Are Dead and Buried in Mythological Greece?
Sophists and Trojan Horses are A Part of our Heritage,
Just Like The Boston Tea Party...
Sophists Are People Who Will Tax You and Tax You...
And Not Tell You Where Your Tax Money is Going To...
Sophists Are People Who Will Gouge You and Gouge You...
And Call It 'The Free Market' -- 'Don't Regulate The Free Market'...
Cause That Is How The Monopoly Sophists Gouge You...
Sophists Are Bankers Who Will Service Charge You and Service Charge You...
And Hide The Service Charges In Bank Books That You Don't Get Anymore...
In Chequing and Savings Accounts That You Don't Get Any Interest From Anymore...
The Sophist and The Trojan Horse Are Very Much Alive and Living in America.
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Back To Parmenides..
How do we make sense out of Parmenides mind-bending pathological epistemology that is likely to send anyone to a psychiatric ward who tries to believe in it and abide by it?
Actually, you don't even have to believe in anything Parmenides said in order to start to feel your mind-brain make funny contortions. All you have to do is try to follow his logic -- and the logic of 'epistemological idealism' in all of its many different shapes and forms, and you will probably start to feel those funny mind-brain contortions develop.
So my suggestion to you is, if you want to try to follow with me here, then maybe you better get another coffee like I just did...You may need it. I fully confess that in trying to get into and out of this subject matter quickly, I have bumped across a quagmire of epistemological 'snakes and ladders'.
I was partly expecting this but not totally. I have Wikipedia to both thank and curse for the new twists and turns, ups and downs, that we now have to work through as we attempt to trace epistemology down to some of its ancient Greek roots.
Just look up the term-concept of 'idealism' on Wikipedia and you will start to get a feel for what I am talking about. I will start with my own philosophical distinctions and then we will aim to blend these in with some of the academic distinctions.
Firstly, distinctions can be made between 'ethical idealism' (pertaining to ethics -- values, morals, etc.), 'political idealism' (pertaining to politics), 'legal idealism' (pertaining to law) -- and the type of idealism that we are concerned about here -- 'epistemological idealism' (pertaining to knowledge).
That wasn't too bad. But next up, we run into both a semantic problem and a philosophical complication -- but they both are linked and take us to a good place.
Firstly, the semantic problem. I think about 'epistemological idealism' without looking at the philosophical literature and I think of the 'search for truth'. Ideally speaking, the search for knowledge should be the search for truth.
In other words, the knowledge we learn should be backed and supported by substance, clarity, quality, truth, integrity...What we think and say is true needs to be true, what we think and say 'exists' needs to exist -- in order to be 'epistemologically ideal' in this sense of the term-concept 'epistemologically ideal'. And this brings us right into the lap of our next philosophical problem -- the issue of 'ontology'.
Twice now I have been clotheslined by this complicating factor of 'ontology': once when I was writing my essays on Kant and one of readers -- a student of philosophy and obviously Kant -- clotheslined me with this feedback that I was left scratching my head on and trying to sort through the semantic and philosophical difficulties of what he was saying:
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robertc.enriquez@gmail.com said...
Your conclusion out of this problem is correct but you are forgetting two key parts of Kant's philosophy; which was not by the way the destruction of epistemology! Namely, 1. the manifold of perception which we dialectically correspond with 2. the thing in itself. Note here that that we dialectically would correspond with the thing in itself (in German it sounds like dim an zing; pounded into my head by a visiting German professor who lectured on Kant from the original German). Yet, it is much like the pure platonic forms in that we do not directly access it in its "pure form". I would argue that Kant's entire project was to look at epistemology as a point to start to move forward but again; Kant wasn't arguing the epistemology track he was arguing the ontology track. If you want to attack Kant on epistemology then the a priori is where to start not dialectics. I would argue that Hegel would not have even had a project had he not used the dialectics that Kant set up.
My two cents worth.
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I think there are some hidden -- or not hidden -- gems in this feedback. I don't pretend that I am a Kantian expert and I don't pretend that I completely understood/understand what Mr. Enriquez was trying to tell me in his feedback -- but still it partly led me to here. And here, I think, is a better -- and more knowledgeable -- place than I was at when I wrote that Kantian essay back last year sometime. Others, including Mr. Enriquez, are free to disagree of course.
The second time I bumped into this 'ontology' obstacle was when I looked up 'idealism' on Wikipedia. I'm trying to sort out Parmenides epistemology, and lo and behold, there's that cursed word 'ontology' again. Was I pursuing an epistemological problem here or an ontological problem -- or both?
Or both? Voila! You think with a dialectic philosopher's mind-brain and all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, dialectical solutions jump right at you and bite you in the face.
Of course! Epistemology and ontology have to travel together because they are 'dialectical bi-polarities' -- or 'binary opposites' as Derrida would call them.
The bridge between epistemology and ontology is -- 'truth'.
Let's back up here a bit. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Ontology is the study of 'objects of knowledge' -- it is the study of 'what is real', 'what exists', 'what is being.'
Knowledge pertains to 'concepts' -- to ideas that we carry around in our 'conceptual mind' that is attached to our 'physiological brain'. Thus, it makes full dialectical sense to talk about each and everyone of us having a 'mind-brain' integrated together in such a spectacular dialectic fashion that concepts and brain synapses can live side by side with each other, each supplementing the function of the other.
Physiology, epistemology, ethics, psychology, and philosophy -- all dialectically or 'multi-laterally' united.
Knowledge -- in order to have 'substance' and 'truth' attached to it -- has to have an 'ontological referent' that the knowledge is correctly referring to and attached to.
What good is knowledge that doesn't have an ontological referent attached to it? Knowledge without an ontological referent is not knowledge. It's balderdash. Smoke and mirrors. A mirage. As David Hume would write, take such knowledge and -- 'Commit it to flames!'
Which brings us to Parmenides and 'Parmenides Poison' (my editorial take on his work).
Commit it to flames! Quickly -- before Plato gets a hold of it. Too late. Plato did get a hold of it -- and it ruined Plato's epistemology-ontology just as it ruined Parmenides'.
And since then, these two intertwined epistemologists in the history of Western philosophy -- Parmenides and Plato -- have probably driven thousands and thousands of philosophers and philosophy students close to the 'nut-house' and back. Did Kant and Hegel at least partly fall under their collective spell? It is quite possible. Mr. Enriquez seems to think -- unless I am misinterpreting him -- that there might have been a Platonic influence on Kant's term-concept of 'noumenal world'. Let us see if we can bring some clarity to this issue.
This chair that I am sitting on. Metaphysically (another philosophical snake to talk about at a later date) and assumptively speaking, this chair has an 'ontological existence' in its own right. If I leave the room, assumptively speaking, it is still here in the room that I left. If I come back into the room, unless someone has taken it away, it will still be here when I come back from the other room. If I have a heart attack and die (touch wood that I don't) assumptively speaking, the chair will still be here tomorrow for someone else to sit on and take advantage of its function -- of holding a person who wants to sit down and use this computer.
The chair doesn't need to have either my sensory perception involved and/or my epistemology involved in order for it to have an 'ontological existence in its own right'. Same with everything else in this room. And the same with the birds who are using my birdfeeder outside my living room window. Every object in this room and every plant, animal, and mineral outside my window -- assumptively speaking, using common sense, they all have an ontological existence in their own respective right.
I am not so self-centered as to try to argue that if or when I die, then everything that used to ontologically exist in this room, and everything that used to ontologically exist outside my window -- would then ontologically cease to exist. Maybe for me they would -- but ontology -- assumptively speaking again -- entails an existence of other things in the world beside me that each have an existence in their own respective right beyond the limitations and imperfections of my own sensory perceptions, logic and power of reasoning, and evaluation process.
Ontology -- just 'is'. Now unfortunately, there is another quagmire of snakes here again. A 'Catch 22' -- the age-old 'subjective-objective' paradox that has also driven many a philosopher close to the brink of insanity...A few have gone over...
How can you verify that something exists unless there is someone or something there to verify its existence? Scratch your head on that one. This is presumably about where Kant came up with his term-concept of 'noumenal world' as distinguished from 'phenomenal world'. If you are having trouble finding meaning for these two term-concepts then try my modification of them: 'subjective-phenomenal world' and 'objective-noumenal world'. Kantian scholars may object but here's how I understand these two term-concepts.
I walk across the room to turn down the volume on the radio-cd player. My 50 year old eyes can't find the volume sign. 'Phenomenally and subjectively speaking', the volume sign on the radio-cd player 'does not exist'. But assumptively, noumenally, and objectively, I do know that the volume sign exists. So I curse and I go up to my bedroom to fetch my glasses. I come back to the living room, I look at the radio-cd player, and now all of a sudden, phenomenally and subjectively speaking, perceptually and epistemologically speaking, the volume sign -- does exist! My subjective-phenomenal world meets my objective-noumenal world -- with my glasses acting as the bridge between us. Generalizing, our senses function as the bridge between our subjective-phenomenal-epistemological world and objective-noumenal world.
Obviously, it is equally appropriate to argue that our senses are a major part of our subjective-phenomenal-epistemological world -- and as our senses deteriorate over time, so does the functioning of our subjective-phenomenal-epistemological worlds as a 'map' and 'structural-process representation' of the objective-noumenal-ontological world it is supposed to be representing.
Compris?
We keep losing Parmenides.
What did Parmenides say that was so horrifically wrong? What was 'Parmenides (Epistemological-Ontological) Poison?
He said this: that the sensory-phenomenal world we live in -- is an illusion. Try to get your head around that one.
He said that -- and I am paraphrasing: there is a truer and more perfect world somewhere else. (Where? In our heads? In outer space? In the sky? Is he talking about 'heaven'? Exactly where is the perfect world that he is talking about? Parmenides must have been a rhetorical genius because he fooled a lot of people, a lot of philosophers, including one of the most highly respected philosophers of all -- Plato. He lured Plato into his 'spider's web' or nailed him with his 'spider's poison' -- and the rest is history: specifically, Plato's metaphor of 'The Caves' and his 'Theory of Ideal Forms' -- both full of Parmenidean Poison.)
...................................................................................
Parmenides of Elea (Greek: Παρμενίδης ο Ἐλεάτης, early 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, his only known work is a poem which has survived only in fragmentary form. In it, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In the Way of Truth, he explained how reality is one; change is impossible; and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging. In the Way of Seeming, he explained the world of appearences, which is false and deceitful. These thoughts strongly influenced Plato, and through him, the whole of western philosophy.
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Two more final distinctions: 'Empirical Ontology' vs. 'Metaphysical Ontology'.
If you want to 'empirically (subjectively, phenomenally, perceptively, existentially...) verify' that this chair I am sitting on 'ontologically exists', then you just have to visit my townhouse. Come here, knock on the door, identify yourself, and you can empirically verify that my computer chair that I have sat on for the last 5 hours or so to write this essay -- does indeed 'ontologically exist'. You and I can both point at the chair and 'empirically verify' its ontological existence.
However, if you want to argue that 'God exists' then 'sensory-perceptive-empirical validation' does not work. You are going to have to come up with some other form of 'metaphysical (above physics) argumentation' to support your case. You are arguing a 'metaphysical' case if you want to try to convince me or someone else that 'God ontologically exists'.
The same goes with Parmenides. Like Parmenides did, you will have to come up with some kind of 'metaphysical argumentation' to support his case for the type of 'perfect-Utopian-noumenal world' that he was trying to get us to believe in (it worked with Plato) -- shall we just call it 'heaven'? This was a completely metaphysical world that nobody, including himself, could point to or at, in order to validate its 'empirical-ontological existence'.
Now if you want to argue about the metaphysical existence of God, then I will allow you some latitude and flexibility in your argumentation.
But I grant you no such latitude and flexibility with Parmenides Epistemological and Ontological Poison. This was the true illusion -- the true mirage.
What do you do with epistemological and ontological illusions.
Back to the famous words of David Hume.
'Commit them to flames!
Quickly, before they poison anyone else!
-- dgb, Feb. 19th, 2008, modified and updated December 15th, 2008.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
On The Bi-Polar -- Narcissistic and Social -- Nature of Words and Their Meaning
This essay was originally written almost a year ago to the day until I freshly modified, edited, and updated the essay today. -- dgb, Dec. 14th, 2008.
................................................................................
Words and their meaning can be viewed as dialectic, bi-polar projections and extensions of the human psyche -- and the human individual operating in a social field or social context.
This is no different than any other element of human behavior and culture including philosophy, history, evolution, art, science and medicine, religion, politics and more...
Following in the footsteps of G.W. Hegel, the famous German idealistic dialectic philosopher, and many philosophers less famously before him including Anaxmander, Heraclitus, the Han philosophers, and more -- DGBN Philosophy focuses on one particularly important characteristic of the human psyche -- it's 'dialectic' or 'bi-polar' nature.
Dialectic, bi-polar integration is a key, central facet of every aspect of human -- and non-human -- functioning. When functioning properly, it leads to what biologists and psychologists call 'homeostatic balance'. DGB Philosophy synonyms include 'dialectic balance', 'dialectic-democratic balance', and 'bi-polar balance'.
Philosophical homeostasis -- the principle of the mind and body using 'bi-polar feedback' and 'dialectic idealism' in an integrative, partly conflictual and competitive, partly co-operative and socially sensitive fashion to bring about 'cohesive dialectical unity, wholism, evolution, and balance' -- this is what 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy' is all about.
The DGBN network of some 30 plus inter-connected blogsites that I am building here of which this is one -- are all meant to focus on the inter-related life -- and particularly human -- characteristics and concepts of 'bi-polarity', 'dialectical realism', 'dialectical idealism', 'dialectical wholism', 'dialectical evolution', and 'dialectical harmony' as a means of describing both the many problems and the many potential solutions to human disharmony, disagreement and conflict.
'Dialectic' and 'bi-polar' as words with meaning can be viewed as being partly synonymous with each other, but 'dialectic' in the sense that I am using it here is the more abstract of the two words. It has a broader range of meaning(s). 'Bi-polar' in the sense that it is being used here has a more specific meaning. Bi-polar as used here means 'the opposite ends of a polarity spectrum such as 'black and 'white', or 'male and female' -- brought together in harmonious or partly harmonious unity and wholism through a successful utilization of the democratic-dialectic negotiation and integration process.
Hegel was arguably the first philosopher to really make the 'dialectic' -- both as a phenomenon and as a concept -- famous. Connected to the idea of the dialectic was the idea of bi-polarity -- not used by Hegel but the semantic connection is readily apparent.
'Thesis' and 'anti-thesis' -- two opposing sets of ideas or philosophies or characterics on opposite sides of the 'polar spectrum' facing off against each other, coming into interaction with each other, both attracting and conflicting with each other...this is the nature of the bi-polar, dialectical encounter.
'Great tension creates great energy' writes Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, but in order for this energy to become focused and harnessed in its most productive fashion, the two conflicting bi-polarities -- ideologies, passions, goals, energies -- have to meet democratically and dialectically to work towards establishing a common, harmonious direction of movement.
Paradoxically, this is both the ultimate achievement and the ultimate failure of mankind.
We can become better at achieving integrative dialectic success stories while leaving more and more of the 'either/or power and control game' behind us which creates more divisionism, alienation, separation, divorce, and war -- than the successful 'win-win, dialectical integrationism and wholism' that we are looking for primarily here.
Words, in this sense, are just another of many various extensions and applications of this repetitive dialectical phenomenon. Like every other element of life, we as humans can either 'win big' or 'lose big' around the dialectical phenomenon of words -- and their dialectic, bi-polar range and focus of meaning. What do I mean by this?
Words and their meaning are dialectic and bi-polar in nature. More specifically, they have both 'narcissistic (selfish) meanings' on the one hand and 'more general, social meanings' on the other hand.
Further complicating this matter is the fact that not only do I have a set of narcissistic meanings for any particular word that I may draw out of the more general, social pool of meaning that might be found in -- let's say a dictionary or in the broader and/or more specific context of everyday social usage -- but so do you.
It is here that the dialectical, bi-polar nature of words may clash and conflict -- just like on evry other projective playground of the human psyche. The human psyche is dialectic or bi-polar. So too, is the meaning of words.
My interpreted meaning of a word does not have to be hugely or oppositely different than yours for the same word. It just has to be a little bit different -- and that can mean all the difference in the world.
How many thousands of communication breakdowns used to happen -- and still happen -- when two people trying to meet up with each other at a particular time and place don't have a cell phone?
What the cell phone allows for in the arena of communication when and where two people are not in the same time and place -- is 'dialectical feedback'.
This may not seem readily important but it is hugely important when two people are trying to meet up with each other and haven't been totally concrete and exact with each other -- let us say before they leave their respective homes -- in terms of the details of their 'time and place' meeting.
The other day I went to work and forgot my cell phone at home. I shared email details over the internet with my girlfriend in terms of our usual time and meeting place at Yonge and Highway 7 at the VIVA bus terminal at 4:45pm. This may all seem simple and straightforward -- until one person doesn't have a cell phone. And then 'little gremlins' start to get into one person's or the other's head if something doesn't go exactly according to the pre-stated plan. One person is late. And the gremlins start to build. Maybe she wanted me to come down to Yonge and Finch to get her at the subway station. Of course, none of these intersections will mean didley squat to you if you do not know the 'actual territory' -- and their relationship to each other -- that my words are talking about. 5 minutes late. 10 minutes late. 15 minutes late. And now the little gremlins have become huge gremlins in my head. Where is she? Yonge and Finch? Yonge and Steeles? She probably turned around and went home when she couldn't get me on her cell phone...One time on another meeting when I did or didn't have my cell phone, she walked up to The Silver City Movie Theatre and walked inside to get warm after waiting too long in the VIVA bus shelter.
You start to get what I am talking about. None of this would happen with cell phone contact -- where you can get your dialectic feedback -- 'I'm still on the bus honey but will be there in 5 minutes - and thus push the little and big gremlins back into their many hiding places in your head to resurface on another day (when you forget your cell phone again -- or become victimized by a different type of communication breakdown).
If you and I cannot 'get it together' on what a word means -- which may entail some amount of greater or lesser semantic specification, asscociation, distinction, negotiation, and integration -- then we 'have failed dialectically to communicate'.
A communication breakdown is a 'dialectical communication breakdown' meaning that you and I both have different 'narcissistic meanings' relative to what a word means in a particular context -- and we are either unaware or ignorant as to this 'narcissistic difference' or we are 'unwilling to compromise' relative to this narcissistic difference.
We may be stuck in a 'Righteous, Either/Or, Power/Control 'One Word-One Meaning' Game. 'My meaning is right; yours is wrong.' 'No, I'm right; you're wrong. Let's look it up in the dictionary. Of course, even dictionaries have multiple meanings for words. And they just get the main, broad, and socially popular ones. The more concrete meanings and finesse meanings and unorthodox meanings, and newer 'sub-culture' meanings, and individual meanings...are all left out of the dictionary. They are the vast array of individual, narcissistic meanings that lay people and technical people use in similar and different contexts with constantly changing ranges and focuses of meaning -- every day, and indeed, from moment to moment.
Words and their vast array of social, group and individual, narcissistic meanings are like 'jellyfish'. They change their shape and size all the time. If individual people in dialogue with each other don't catch these various changes in shape and size, range and focus -- then in many instances they 'miss the boat with each other'. They miss each other's individual meanings in the 'nuance' of something that was said but not meant. Not interpreted in the same fashion that it was meant.
This happens all the time -- with or without cell phones -- but in general, the less dialectic dialogue there is in 'danger zones of easily or even less easily misinterpreted word meanings', the more likely we are to 'go for a communication flip and fall'. Hard angry, and/or hurt, upset emotional feelings are often the result -- particularly in areas of interpreted and/or intended greater intimacy.
Words are simply symbolic extensions of the dialectic, bi-polar nature of the human psyche -- and two or more individuals in a social context. The meaning of words can collide narcissistically in a social, cultural forum -- intentionally or unintentionally -- when people don't give dialectic feedback to each other relative to ambiguous words, abstract words, any type of word that is ripe for potential miscommunication.
Take the time when the time is important to 'come down the ladder of abstraction' and enter into a dialogue of 'association' and 'distinction' around the particular usage of a word -- and even 'pointing' if the circumstances require it.
If I am teaching English to a roomful of people who don't speak English, then I will probably need a lot of 'pictures' and 'concrete objects' and I will probably do a lot of 'pointing'.
This is not a bad thing. Sometimes it is a very important, absolutely necessary thing.
If you want to share the same meaning.
dgb, December 15h, 2007, modfied, edited, and updated December 14th, 2008, unknowingly and amazingly almost a year ago to the day that I originally wrote this essay. Or maybe that's just me.
-- DGBN, December 14th, 2008.
-- David Gordon Bain.
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism.
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are still in process...
................................................................................
Words and their meaning can be viewed as dialectic, bi-polar projections and extensions of the human psyche -- and the human individual operating in a social field or social context.
This is no different than any other element of human behavior and culture including philosophy, history, evolution, art, science and medicine, religion, politics and more...
Following in the footsteps of G.W. Hegel, the famous German idealistic dialectic philosopher, and many philosophers less famously before him including Anaxmander, Heraclitus, the Han philosophers, and more -- DGBN Philosophy focuses on one particularly important characteristic of the human psyche -- it's 'dialectic' or 'bi-polar' nature.
Dialectic, bi-polar integration is a key, central facet of every aspect of human -- and non-human -- functioning. When functioning properly, it leads to what biologists and psychologists call 'homeostatic balance'. DGB Philosophy synonyms include 'dialectic balance', 'dialectic-democratic balance', and 'bi-polar balance'.
Philosophical homeostasis -- the principle of the mind and body using 'bi-polar feedback' and 'dialectic idealism' in an integrative, partly conflictual and competitive, partly co-operative and socially sensitive fashion to bring about 'cohesive dialectical unity, wholism, evolution, and balance' -- this is what 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy' is all about.
The DGBN network of some 30 plus inter-connected blogsites that I am building here of which this is one -- are all meant to focus on the inter-related life -- and particularly human -- characteristics and concepts of 'bi-polarity', 'dialectical realism', 'dialectical idealism', 'dialectical wholism', 'dialectical evolution', and 'dialectical harmony' as a means of describing both the many problems and the many potential solutions to human disharmony, disagreement and conflict.
'Dialectic' and 'bi-polar' as words with meaning can be viewed as being partly synonymous with each other, but 'dialectic' in the sense that I am using it here is the more abstract of the two words. It has a broader range of meaning(s). 'Bi-polar' in the sense that it is being used here has a more specific meaning. Bi-polar as used here means 'the opposite ends of a polarity spectrum such as 'black and 'white', or 'male and female' -- brought together in harmonious or partly harmonious unity and wholism through a successful utilization of the democratic-dialectic negotiation and integration process.
Hegel was arguably the first philosopher to really make the 'dialectic' -- both as a phenomenon and as a concept -- famous. Connected to the idea of the dialectic was the idea of bi-polarity -- not used by Hegel but the semantic connection is readily apparent.
'Thesis' and 'anti-thesis' -- two opposing sets of ideas or philosophies or characterics on opposite sides of the 'polar spectrum' facing off against each other, coming into interaction with each other, both attracting and conflicting with each other...this is the nature of the bi-polar, dialectical encounter.
'Great tension creates great energy' writes Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, but in order for this energy to become focused and harnessed in its most productive fashion, the two conflicting bi-polarities -- ideologies, passions, goals, energies -- have to meet democratically and dialectically to work towards establishing a common, harmonious direction of movement.
Paradoxically, this is both the ultimate achievement and the ultimate failure of mankind.
We can become better at achieving integrative dialectic success stories while leaving more and more of the 'either/or power and control game' behind us which creates more divisionism, alienation, separation, divorce, and war -- than the successful 'win-win, dialectical integrationism and wholism' that we are looking for primarily here.
Words, in this sense, are just another of many various extensions and applications of this repetitive dialectical phenomenon. Like every other element of life, we as humans can either 'win big' or 'lose big' around the dialectical phenomenon of words -- and their dialectic, bi-polar range and focus of meaning. What do I mean by this?
Words and their meaning are dialectic and bi-polar in nature. More specifically, they have both 'narcissistic (selfish) meanings' on the one hand and 'more general, social meanings' on the other hand.
Further complicating this matter is the fact that not only do I have a set of narcissistic meanings for any particular word that I may draw out of the more general, social pool of meaning that might be found in -- let's say a dictionary or in the broader and/or more specific context of everyday social usage -- but so do you.
It is here that the dialectical, bi-polar nature of words may clash and conflict -- just like on evry other projective playground of the human psyche. The human psyche is dialectic or bi-polar. So too, is the meaning of words.
My interpreted meaning of a word does not have to be hugely or oppositely different than yours for the same word. It just has to be a little bit different -- and that can mean all the difference in the world.
How many thousands of communication breakdowns used to happen -- and still happen -- when two people trying to meet up with each other at a particular time and place don't have a cell phone?
What the cell phone allows for in the arena of communication when and where two people are not in the same time and place -- is 'dialectical feedback'.
This may not seem readily important but it is hugely important when two people are trying to meet up with each other and haven't been totally concrete and exact with each other -- let us say before they leave their respective homes -- in terms of the details of their 'time and place' meeting.
The other day I went to work and forgot my cell phone at home. I shared email details over the internet with my girlfriend in terms of our usual time and meeting place at Yonge and Highway 7 at the VIVA bus terminal at 4:45pm. This may all seem simple and straightforward -- until one person doesn't have a cell phone. And then 'little gremlins' start to get into one person's or the other's head if something doesn't go exactly according to the pre-stated plan. One person is late. And the gremlins start to build. Maybe she wanted me to come down to Yonge and Finch to get her at the subway station. Of course, none of these intersections will mean didley squat to you if you do not know the 'actual territory' -- and their relationship to each other -- that my words are talking about. 5 minutes late. 10 minutes late. 15 minutes late. And now the little gremlins have become huge gremlins in my head. Where is she? Yonge and Finch? Yonge and Steeles? She probably turned around and went home when she couldn't get me on her cell phone...One time on another meeting when I did or didn't have my cell phone, she walked up to The Silver City Movie Theatre and walked inside to get warm after waiting too long in the VIVA bus shelter.
You start to get what I am talking about. None of this would happen with cell phone contact -- where you can get your dialectic feedback -- 'I'm still on the bus honey but will be there in 5 minutes - and thus push the little and big gremlins back into their many hiding places in your head to resurface on another day (when you forget your cell phone again -- or become victimized by a different type of communication breakdown).
If you and I cannot 'get it together' on what a word means -- which may entail some amount of greater or lesser semantic specification, asscociation, distinction, negotiation, and integration -- then we 'have failed dialectically to communicate'.
A communication breakdown is a 'dialectical communication breakdown' meaning that you and I both have different 'narcissistic meanings' relative to what a word means in a particular context -- and we are either unaware or ignorant as to this 'narcissistic difference' or we are 'unwilling to compromise' relative to this narcissistic difference.
We may be stuck in a 'Righteous, Either/Or, Power/Control 'One Word-One Meaning' Game. 'My meaning is right; yours is wrong.' 'No, I'm right; you're wrong. Let's look it up in the dictionary. Of course, even dictionaries have multiple meanings for words. And they just get the main, broad, and socially popular ones. The more concrete meanings and finesse meanings and unorthodox meanings, and newer 'sub-culture' meanings, and individual meanings...are all left out of the dictionary. They are the vast array of individual, narcissistic meanings that lay people and technical people use in similar and different contexts with constantly changing ranges and focuses of meaning -- every day, and indeed, from moment to moment.
Words and their vast array of social, group and individual, narcissistic meanings are like 'jellyfish'. They change their shape and size all the time. If individual people in dialogue with each other don't catch these various changes in shape and size, range and focus -- then in many instances they 'miss the boat with each other'. They miss each other's individual meanings in the 'nuance' of something that was said but not meant. Not interpreted in the same fashion that it was meant.
This happens all the time -- with or without cell phones -- but in general, the less dialectic dialogue there is in 'danger zones of easily or even less easily misinterpreted word meanings', the more likely we are to 'go for a communication flip and fall'. Hard angry, and/or hurt, upset emotional feelings are often the result -- particularly in areas of interpreted and/or intended greater intimacy.
Words are simply symbolic extensions of the dialectic, bi-polar nature of the human psyche -- and two or more individuals in a social context. The meaning of words can collide narcissistically in a social, cultural forum -- intentionally or unintentionally -- when people don't give dialectic feedback to each other relative to ambiguous words, abstract words, any type of word that is ripe for potential miscommunication.
Take the time when the time is important to 'come down the ladder of abstraction' and enter into a dialogue of 'association' and 'distinction' around the particular usage of a word -- and even 'pointing' if the circumstances require it.
If I am teaching English to a roomful of people who don't speak English, then I will probably need a lot of 'pictures' and 'concrete objects' and I will probably do a lot of 'pointing'.
This is not a bad thing. Sometimes it is a very important, absolutely necessary thing.
If you want to share the same meaning.
dgb, December 15h, 2007, modfied, edited, and updated December 14th, 2008, unknowingly and amazingly almost a year ago to the day that I originally wrote this essay. Or maybe that's just me.
-- DGBN, December 14th, 2008.
-- David Gordon Bain.
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism.
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are still in process...
Faceoff: DGB Philosophy vs. Hume and Kant: On Hume and 'Causality'; and Kant's 'Subjective A Priori Categories'
One of my readers, Srikala, said...
Kant used to say that Hume's idea that there was only sequence not cause as such suffered from a defect. Kant gets round Humean skepticism by introducing cause as a concept of the understanding. Neither was it the only concept. It was one among several. The concepts of the understanding like the forms of intuition are introduced in the Kantian schema as a priori subjective categories. This would of course naturally bring back the Self. For more, if you like, refer http://www.eloquentbooks.com/Kant.html
.........................................................................
Thank you Srikala for your knowledgeable feedback and your insights into both the philosophical thoughts of Hume and Kant. I'd also like to know your own opinions relative to what both Hume and Kant have said. Because your opinions matter too!
Personally and philosophically, I -- and by extension DGB Philosophy -- stand somewhere between both Hume and Kant: not a full Humean skeptic by any means. I am comfortable using the concept of 'self' or 'Self' and believing that this concept represents a 'real subjective-objective entity' with a 'Will to Self-Empowerment and Self-Fulfillment Acting in A Partly Friendly, Partly Hostile Natural and Social Environment'. I view DGB Philosophy as a 'humanistic-existential philosophy-psychology' in this regard.
However, at the same time, I have a real big problem with at least 3 of Kant's 'subjective a priori categories' -- and either you will have to remind me or I will have to go back and look up exactly how many 'a priori categories' Kant theorized.
But here is the problem I have with this type of categorization. And it brings us back to the same 'subjective-objective dialectic split' that Kant was battling with and trying to overcome. In this regard, as another reader has written me, Kant indeed lead Hegel right into the middle of 'dialectic philosophy'.
But irrespective of both Kant and Hegel (and I am certainly closer in my thinking to Hegel than Kant), I view these 3 a priori subjective categories that Kant was talking about not as such but rather as 'subjective-objective categories' and/or as both 'subjective' and 'objective' categories' where it is the responsibility of man -- from a survival and evolution point of view -- to represent accurately in his mind the same (or the structually similar) categories that also exist outside his mind in the 'real, objective world' -- which as Kant stated we can never 'know' and as I would correct Kant and say we can never 'fully know'. Still, our existence both indivdually and collectively as a human species absolutely depends on our being close enough to 'right' and close enough to 'truth' to continue to be alive -- and not dead. This is my Ayn Rand and my Nathaniel Branden and my Alfred Korzybski and my S.I. Hayakawa and my Bertrand Russell influence coming alive and excited within me -- at the expense of both Hume and Kant. And in the middle of all these philosophical and human influences is 'me' -- the one and only unique 'me'. 'My Self' My 'Will to Self-Empowerment'. My 'Individual Willpower to Philosophically Enlighten the world'. (I say that partly tongue in cheek.). More specifically stated, my 'Individual Self-Willpower to Dialectically -- and Multi-Dialectically -- Enlighten The World'...
Man's continued existence -- both individually and collectively -- absolutely demands that he be closer to 'epistemologically right' than to 'epistemologically wrong', especially in contexts/situations of absolute danger.
Like if I step out into the middle of a busy highway, do you really think that I am only going to believe that the issues of 'time' and 'space' and 'cause' are only subjective figments of my imagination? Or is reality going to have the last word on me if I get my so called a priori categories all messed up and out of wack with what might be best referred to as 'accurate representation' of the 'real, objective world' outside my either accurate or inaccurate representation (or parts of both).
Now relative to 'causes' -- causes may be 'causal generalalizations and interpretations and judgments' that we pick out of a crowd amongst a host of other 'dialectical and multi-dialectical factors' but still 'causal factors' exist not only subjectively in our heads but also realistically outside our minds in the world -- regardless, of what kind of horsebleep that Hume wants to try to throw at us in the name of 'logical and philosophical technicalities'.
To be sure, there are many causal factors and co-factors that may be tied up in a 'death' for instance.
For example, if I was an elephant and not a man, I might have more of a chance of living through a car or a truck hitting me at 60 or 80 or 100kms an hour. We can view a car vs. a truck, a human vs. an elephant, and the speed of the oncoming vehicle as all being 'causally relevant' in the result or consequence of the accident -- specifically, whether I am lying dead on the pavement or whether the elephant shakes his head and walks away from the accident.
But whether you are the legendary David Hume or the legendary Immanuel Kant don't try to tell me that all this 'causal' stuff and all this 'subjective a priori' stuff is all in my 'head'. Because if you do, I will say to you: I have a 'bat' here and a 'pillow'. Which one would you like me to hit you with?
And one more thing. I want to once again point out the very important difference between 'unilateral philosophy' and 'bilateral-dialectic philosophy'.
An informed, intelligent feedback comment and/or question from one of my readers and it allows me to make a better distinction between the differences between Hume, Kant, and DGB Philosophy. It's obviously not the same thing as a full-blown philosophical debate, and yet the one short feedback comment allows both you -- my reader -- and me, the author and creator of DGB Philosophy -- to take DGB Philosophy to another level of 'distinctive understanding' that would not have happened otherwise. You may or may not agree with my philosophical perspective but for all of us there is a 'heightened level of epistemological clarity' after a common sense and/or philosophically informed reader has created a 'dialectical point of resistance' around which DGB Philosophy can state a significant difference in its philosophical -- and epistemological -- boundaries.
In other words, keep bringing on the feedback. I love it! It brings me alive!
-- dgb, Dec. 14th, 2008.
Kant used to say that Hume's idea that there was only sequence not cause as such suffered from a defect. Kant gets round Humean skepticism by introducing cause as a concept of the understanding. Neither was it the only concept. It was one among several. The concepts of the understanding like the forms of intuition are introduced in the Kantian schema as a priori subjective categories. This would of course naturally bring back the Self. For more, if you like, refer http://www.eloquentbooks.com/Kant.html
.........................................................................
Thank you Srikala for your knowledgeable feedback and your insights into both the philosophical thoughts of Hume and Kant. I'd also like to know your own opinions relative to what both Hume and Kant have said. Because your opinions matter too!
Personally and philosophically, I -- and by extension DGB Philosophy -- stand somewhere between both Hume and Kant: not a full Humean skeptic by any means. I am comfortable using the concept of 'self' or 'Self' and believing that this concept represents a 'real subjective-objective entity' with a 'Will to Self-Empowerment and Self-Fulfillment Acting in A Partly Friendly, Partly Hostile Natural and Social Environment'. I view DGB Philosophy as a 'humanistic-existential philosophy-psychology' in this regard.
However, at the same time, I have a real big problem with at least 3 of Kant's 'subjective a priori categories' -- and either you will have to remind me or I will have to go back and look up exactly how many 'a priori categories' Kant theorized.
But here is the problem I have with this type of categorization. And it brings us back to the same 'subjective-objective dialectic split' that Kant was battling with and trying to overcome. In this regard, as another reader has written me, Kant indeed lead Hegel right into the middle of 'dialectic philosophy'.
But irrespective of both Kant and Hegel (and I am certainly closer in my thinking to Hegel than Kant), I view these 3 a priori subjective categories that Kant was talking about not as such but rather as 'subjective-objective categories' and/or as both 'subjective' and 'objective' categories' where it is the responsibility of man -- from a survival and evolution point of view -- to represent accurately in his mind the same (or the structually similar) categories that also exist outside his mind in the 'real, objective world' -- which as Kant stated we can never 'know' and as I would correct Kant and say we can never 'fully know'. Still, our existence both indivdually and collectively as a human species absolutely depends on our being close enough to 'right' and close enough to 'truth' to continue to be alive -- and not dead. This is my Ayn Rand and my Nathaniel Branden and my Alfred Korzybski and my S.I. Hayakawa and my Bertrand Russell influence coming alive and excited within me -- at the expense of both Hume and Kant. And in the middle of all these philosophical and human influences is 'me' -- the one and only unique 'me'. 'My Self' My 'Will to Self-Empowerment'. My 'Individual Willpower to Philosophically Enlighten the world'. (I say that partly tongue in cheek.). More specifically stated, my 'Individual Self-Willpower to Dialectically -- and Multi-Dialectically -- Enlighten The World'...
Man's continued existence -- both individually and collectively -- absolutely demands that he be closer to 'epistemologically right' than to 'epistemologically wrong', especially in contexts/situations of absolute danger.
Like if I step out into the middle of a busy highway, do you really think that I am only going to believe that the issues of 'time' and 'space' and 'cause' are only subjective figments of my imagination? Or is reality going to have the last word on me if I get my so called a priori categories all messed up and out of wack with what might be best referred to as 'accurate representation' of the 'real, objective world' outside my either accurate or inaccurate representation (or parts of both).
Now relative to 'causes' -- causes may be 'causal generalalizations and interpretations and judgments' that we pick out of a crowd amongst a host of other 'dialectical and multi-dialectical factors' but still 'causal factors' exist not only subjectively in our heads but also realistically outside our minds in the world -- regardless, of what kind of horsebleep that Hume wants to try to throw at us in the name of 'logical and philosophical technicalities'.
To be sure, there are many causal factors and co-factors that may be tied up in a 'death' for instance.
For example, if I was an elephant and not a man, I might have more of a chance of living through a car or a truck hitting me at 60 or 80 or 100kms an hour. We can view a car vs. a truck, a human vs. an elephant, and the speed of the oncoming vehicle as all being 'causally relevant' in the result or consequence of the accident -- specifically, whether I am lying dead on the pavement or whether the elephant shakes his head and walks away from the accident.
But whether you are the legendary David Hume or the legendary Immanuel Kant don't try to tell me that all this 'causal' stuff and all this 'subjective a priori' stuff is all in my 'head'. Because if you do, I will say to you: I have a 'bat' here and a 'pillow'. Which one would you like me to hit you with?
And one more thing. I want to once again point out the very important difference between 'unilateral philosophy' and 'bilateral-dialectic philosophy'.
An informed, intelligent feedback comment and/or question from one of my readers and it allows me to make a better distinction between the differences between Hume, Kant, and DGB Philosophy. It's obviously not the same thing as a full-blown philosophical debate, and yet the one short feedback comment allows both you -- my reader -- and me, the author and creator of DGB Philosophy -- to take DGB Philosophy to another level of 'distinctive understanding' that would not have happened otherwise. You may or may not agree with my philosophical perspective but for all of us there is a 'heightened level of epistemological clarity' after a common sense and/or philosophically informed reader has created a 'dialectical point of resistance' around which DGB Philosophy can state a significant difference in its philosophical -- and epistemological -- boundaries.
In other words, keep bringing on the feedback. I love it! It brings me alive!
-- dgb, Dec. 14th, 2008.
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