Floor 40: Psychological Health and Multi-Dialectic Psychotherapy: Hegel's Hotel

From Kant to Korzybski To Gap-DGB Central Ego Theory

2011-01-19T14:53:00.001-08:00

Kant's epistemology was important but too perfectionistic to be practically applicable. This is where Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and Alfred Korzybski all needed to step in to save epistemology from a Kantian death.

You see, Kant was both right and wrong at the same time. He drew our attention to the 'subjective-objective -- or Kantian -- split'. He correctly ascertained that none of us could get outside of our own minds, bodies, and senses in order to 'fully know' the 'complete objectivity' of the 'real object'.

In other words, there will always be human error involved in the sensory and interpretive perception (or perceptual interpretation) and evaluation of any 'external object'.

This is a given. And speaking as a person whose eyesight is definitely not the same now as it was when I was 20 years old and my vision was '20-20', and could hit an eighty mile an hour fastball...the importance of our senses is likely to become more and more appreciated as we begin to lose their 'accuracy' with age.

So what Kant was missing here, given the perfectionist that he was, was the idea of 'perceptual and conceptual representation' being important -- indeed, essential -- to our survival, even if it was imperfect.

In Kantian epistemology, there is essentially no distinction between 'physics' and 'metaphysics' because even physics becomes 'metaphysical' because no one can step outside of themselves -- and outside of their own senses and perceptual-conceptual-evaluation system -- to get a 'perfect representation of any physical object'.

In this regard, technically speaking, all physics becomes metaphysics because, paraphrasing Kant, no one can 'perfectly know the real ('noumenal' was the technical term Kant used back then) object'.

Technically, that may be true but we do not need 'perfect knowledge' in order to survive, and indeed, will never achieve 'perfect knowledge' unless we are talking about a math question like 2 plus 2 equals 4. Here -- and only here -- can we achieve 'perfect knowledge'.

All other knowledge, we can view as 'imperfect' and 'subject to change' based on 'new incoming information' which may -- on the basis of new or different observation, preferrably from more than one source, logical, interpretive deduction, common sense, and so on -- effectively 'over-rule, other past, outdated forms of information and/or purported knowledge'.

Such was the case, for example, with 'the world becoming conceptually round' as opposed to 'conceptually flat', and 'the Earth becoming conceputalized as revolving around the Sun' as opposed to 'conceptualized as the Sun revolving around the Earth' (i.e., 'The Copernican Revolution'). The 'objective world' did not change in either of these cases of 'revolutionized conceptuology and epistemology' -- it was just man's generalized 'view' or 'perspective' of the 'objective or real or noumenal world' that changed.

So, whereas Kant said that we 'Kant Know' our 'real, objective, noumenal world' because of the inherent subjectivity of our Sensory-Perceptual-Interpretive-Evaluative' ('SPIE') System, each of Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski would say that we 'Can Know' our 'real, objective, noumenal world' -- it is just that this knowledge is always going to be imperfect, never perfect -- again, because of the inherent subjectivity tied up to our SPIE System. But our knowledge can still be 'good enough' to function properly, particularly if we learn a set of 'good rules' to 'good epistemological functioning'.

This DGB concept of 'Good Enough Epistemology' can be compared to Donald Winnicott's Object Relations concept of 'Good Enough Mothering'.

As long as we can see the car coming as we cross the street, our 'internal epistemology' can be considered 'good enough epistemology' even if we cannot see 'every little scratch or dent' on the car coming our way.

Alternatively, if we 'don't see the car coming', then our 'internal epistemology can be considered not good enough for purposes of functional survival'.

Whereas Kant basically told us that we cannot use a 'representative model' of the 'external, real, objective, (noumenal) world', because we have no way of 'knowing' whether the 'representative model' is right or not, on the other hand, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzysbki, all agreed to disagree with Kant, not choosing to be quite so 'anally retentive and technically perfectionistic', and argued instead in favor of a 'probability of accuracy' of a 'representation model' as long as certain 'epistemological rules' were adhered to.

Korzybski went the furthest of the three (Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski) in this regard, laying down a set of 'epistemological rules' that he turned into a 'school' of philosophy and epistemology called 'General Semantics'.

What Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski did that was different than what Kant would not do is, they provided a 'range and a degree of probability' of 'truth value' of particular 'assumed or proclaimed truth assertions/ statements'.

This is essentially the same 'pragmatic' way of 'establishing truth' as what our courts of law do when they say that 'the man has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt'. (That is not to say that innocent men and women can't still be convicted guilty on the basis of 'conceptualized false truths' -- with Kant rolling over in his grave and saying, 'I told you so'...)

But we all have to function on the basis of what we think or believe are 'truths' -- even if they aren't. In this regard, a distinction can be made between 'iron clad truths' and 'evolving, uncertain truths' but even this distinction is not iron clad because how many of our so-called 'iron clad truths' have been shown to be 'untruths' over time?

It happens all the time over time because both the world inside and outside of us is always changing -- and some of our 'conceptual representation skills and results' improve over time because of advances in technology such as the microscope, the telescope, the hearing aid, the MRI, the CT Scan, the Ultra Sound Machine, the Xray Machine...and so on...

Other than that, the only iron-clad truths that remain indisputable over time, and more time, are truths such as: 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Unfortunately, man cannot live only on the basis of 'mathematical truths' -- which means that we still need to find some fascimile of 'epistemological truth' in the works of the likes of Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, David Hume, Kant, Hegel, Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, and Ayn Rand...

This is what Hegel's Hotel is still evolving to do, DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis is still evolving to do, and 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning' is aiming to do.

The results of this work on 'The Central Ego' will then be integrated with the rest of the DGB Quantum Psychoanalytic Model as we move along.

Enough for today...The world is calling me...

-- dgb, Oct. 18th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain...

2011-01-07T10:50:00.001-08:00

Part 1

1. Prologue

The following essay is a modified, updated, and extended version of my 1979 Honours Thesis in Psychology at The University of Waterloo. I am proud to say that my professor, sponsor, and marker back in 1979 was Dr. Donald Meichenbaum who has since become a Canadian Leader in Clinical Psycholgy specializing in 'Cognitive-Behavior Modification' interventions.

A lot of theoretical changes, modifications, and extensions have taken place in my thinking and in my writing since I was a young and idealistic 24 years old in 1979 (not to mention the underlying life changes that have contributed greatly to these theoretical changes).

In 1979, I had just barely been exposed to the concept of 'dialectic thinking' which is now the central focus of my thinking and writing. The focus up to 1979 in my thinking and my writing was a two-fold combination of 'Post-Enlightenment Rational-Empiricism (Cognitive Therapy, General Semantics...)' and 'Humanistic-Existentialism (Erich Fromm, Rollo May, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers...').

Through the 1980s, I became much more exposed and familiar with the concepts and applications of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis (Classic, Object Relations, and Self Psychology), Jungian Psychology, Transactional Analysis...and the underlying 'double-edged' philosophical influence of Hegel and Nietzsche behind all of these 'dialectic' and 'humanistic-existential' schools of psychology.

When I finished my Honours Thesis in 1979, I knew that I had a lot more research and theoretical work to do to get into the 'deeper realm of the unconscious influences' (which I now call 'transference-archetype templates, complexes, and neuroses'), on here-and-now thinking, but even now, in 2010, the basic 'rational-empirical' foundation laid down in this essay contributes much to what is now 'Hegel's Hotel: The Multi-Dialectic (Bi-Polar) Humanistic-Existentialist'.

-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

.......................................................

The value judgments we make determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and happiness. -- Erich Fromm, 1947.

2. Introduction

The issue of values and value judgments (or evaluations) represents a critical problem in regard to man's life.

On the one hand, man if free to evaluate and to respond to the situations he is confronted with in his day to day life as he or she pleases (usually within the context of what he or she has learned up to that point in the course of his or her life). But on the other hand, man is not free from the very real consequences that these evaluations, choices, and actions will have (or won't have) on his natural and/or social environment, and the consequences that will in turn come back to him or her via these consequences on his/her environment.

The following two 'cosmic truisms' are very applicable to anyone's evolving life.

What goes around comes around.

For every action there is a reaction.

A person's evaluations (which are built on top of his or her epistemological sensory perceptions and interpretations) can be said to be 'effective' or 'functional' to the extent that they are 'life-serving' -- that is, they work towards promoting a person's health and/or happiness.

Conversely, a person's evaluations can be said to be 'ineffective' or 'dysfunctional' to the extent that they are 'life-negating' -- that is, they work towards 'sabotaging' the person's health and/or happiness.

Now, being more of a 'skeptical, cynical realist and post-modern deconstructionist' in 2010, as opposed to the 'young, naive idealist' that I was in 1979, I look back at the last two paragraphs and I see clearly that these statements are not quite as 'rosy' and 'clear' as they were to me when I initially wrote them in 1979, under the dual influence of Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was in the midst of building her 'Objective' epistemological and ethical system which she appropriately came to name -- 'Objectivism'.

By 1979, Rand had already completed two of her 'fictional-philosophical' masterpieces, 'The Fountainhead' (1943), and 'Atlas Shrugged'(1957), in which she laid down her Capitalistic Ideals that she would later blend into her more general philosophy of Objectivism.

But even back between 1974 and 1979, I was getting the beginning of my 'dialectic exposure' even though I hadn't tagged it with that particular label yet. For as well as receiving my father's Capitalistic influence -- who introduced me to the philosophy of Ayn Rand through 'The Fountainhead', and later the philosophy of Adam Smith -- still, at the same time I was reading Erich Fromm's 'Escape From Freedom' (1941), and 'Man For Himself' (1947), and 'The Sane Society' (1955) that introduced me to Fromm's 'Post-Marxian-Post-Freudian-Humanistic-Existential Philosophy'.

The potential and reality for at least partly 'opposite thinking' in epistemological, ethical, econonomic, and/or political philosophy between two very well known and well respected living philosophers at the time sparked the beginning of what would eventually, for me, become the beginning of 'dialectically integrative thinking and philosophy-psychology-ecomomics-politics...' in the 1980s.

The question for me at the time was starting to become: 'How do you understand and account for the seemingly opposite thinking in two polar opposite -- and yet both logically intelligent, rational-empirical, humanistic-existential -- philosophers'; and beyond this, 'How do you potentially integrate the results of their polar-opposite thinking?'...

These two types of dialectic questions would come to dominate my own 'Subjective-Objective', 'Humanistic-Existential', 'Capitalistic-Socialistic', 'Liberal-Conservative, 'Freudian-Adlerian-Jungian-Gestalt' brand of 'Post-Hegelian Multi-Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology-Economics-Politics...'

But a lot of years -- and a lot of ideas -- would have to pass between 1979 and what I am writing now in 2010.

In 1979, I was just getting the ball rolling...

In 1979, I was just starting the preliminary architecture of 'Hegel's Hotel'...

I was a young guy in the woods just starting to stretch out my cognitive faculties...

A thousand essays later and Hegel's Hotel is still not completely built, probably never will be, but it is getting closer to what I continue to envision...as the architecture and construction -- metaphorically speaking -- continues to be filled in, and continues to reach higher and higher into the sky...

How do you integrate Rand's 'Objectivism' with Nietzsche's brand of epistemological and ethical 'Subjectivism' or 'Individual Relativism'?

A banker, a poverty political activist, a playboy, and an artist all walk into the same cocktail party and none of them are likely to 'see' the same things...

We are all individually -- or 'narcissistically' -- biased.

However, 'Subjectivism' or 'Individual Relativism' -- Nietzsche style -- can only take us so far. If I cross a busy street and don't see a car turning the corner and aiming right at me, with the driver not seeing me, I could be in tomorrow's obituary column...or if I, and/or my tragedy, am/is considered by a newspaper writer and/or editor to be important enough, I might even get a first or second page article...

But I won't be around to find out where I ended up in the newspaper, or if I arrived there at all, because the difference between life and death can often be only a matter of a second or two of timing...

And if my subjective, individualistic, narcissistic timing is off by even a second or two when a car is racing towards me, the driver not seeing me, or unable to apply the brakes in time, or an ex-girlfriend 'confusing' the gas with brakes...then my 'Subjective, Relativistic Philosophy' has been steamrolled under the more 'Objective Cosmic Forces of Life and Death' and/or someone else's 'Subjective, Relativisitic Epistemology and/or Ethical -- mistake, or act of Epistemological and/or Ethical judgment (or lack thereof).

In our day to day world, life and death involves a constant 'dialectic collision' between 'subjective-narcissistic' and 'more objective' (and/or other 'subjective-narcissistic') forces.

Kant's 'noumenal'(objective) and 'phenomenal'(subjective) world are constantly colliding even if man will never know perfectly just exactly what it is that is in his 'noumenal/objective' world. He still has to strive for a 'good enough' epistemological and ethical 'fit'.

Fritz Perls, the (co-)founder of Gestalt Therapy, fittingly called this the 'fitting game'.

Alfred Korzybski, one of the best (and philosophically least known) epistemologists in the history of Western Philosophy,
created his school of 'General Semantics' as a 'cognitive toolbox' for people to better learn how to play life's various '(epistemological and ethical) (subjective-objective) fitting games'.

This essay here is a continuation and an extension of Korzybski's (and later S.I. Hayakawa's) General Semantic, language, and epistemology work, as well as the 'Cognitive Theory and Therapy' ('epistemological fitting game work') of writers such as Beck, Kelly, Ellis, and Meichenbaum, as well as the political-economic philosophies ('economic-political fitting game work') of Branden, Rand and Fromm, and the 'ethical fitting game work' of other Humanistic-Existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Binswanger, Heidegger, Sartre, and Rollo May...

The two main principles that are slowly starting to be built here are:

1. The principle of 'post-Enlightenment-rational-empirical-egalitarian-humanistic-existentialism';

2. The principle of 'bi-polarity', 'dialectic interaction and negotiation between bi-polar extremes', and 'ideally evolving/resulting homeostatic-dialectic balance between bi-polar extremes in epistemology, ethics, politics, economics, and/or whatever other human endeavor we wish to partake in...

I hope you are sufficiently motivated to follow through with me on this 1979 to 2010 evolution of the 'original architecture and later construction' of -- Hegel's Hotel.

-- dgb, Nov. 30th, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain

Evaluation and Health: From The DGB-GAP Archives (originally written in 1979; edited, modified, and updated, May, 2009)

2009-05-05T05:03:00.000-07:00

Evaluation and Health -- By David Bain, 1979

The value judgments we make determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and happiness. -- Erich Fromm (1947)

Introduction

The issue of values and evaluation represents a crucial problem in regard to our lives. On the one hand, we are free to evaluate and respond to the situations we are confronted with in our day-to-day lives as we please. But on the other hand, we are not free from the very real consequences that these evaluations and responses have on our lives and well-being.

Our evaluations then, can be said to be 'healthy' and/or 'functional' to the extent that they are life-serving -- that is, they work towards protecting or enhancing our personal health and happiness. Conversely, our evaluations can be said to be 'pathological', 'neurotic', and/or 'dysfunctional' to the extent that they are life-negating -- that is, they work towards sabotaging the person's health and happiness.

Now to be sure, there are numerous areas of complication here such as the matter of 'individual taste', and also the matter of 'short term pleasures' of the 'healthy' and/or 'unhealthy' variety vs. 'longer term life-serving and life-preserving choices'.

For example, if I like bananas and you like apples, there is not much to be said about this -- both are generally 'healthy' choices (unless it is a rotten apple or rotten banana). However, if over time, you develop a deficiency in calcium, magnesium, and/or potassium, then 'rational-empirical logic' would suggest that you introduce more bananas into your diet to address your nutritional deficiency and imbalance -- and to correct this deficiency/imbalance. The same would go for me if I was missing some important nutritional needs that could or can easily be found in 'apples' but not as much so in 'bananas'. (Obviously, eating both would probably be a generally good health practice for both of us, all else being equal.)

Then there are the 'unhealthier' pleasures that we may or may not disregard when warning signs start cropping up relative to our health and/or happiness. Too much food, not enough food, not enough nutritional food, too many carbs, too much alchohol, too many exotic desserts, dangerous drugs, smoking, not enough exercise...and on and on we could go...The older we get, the more we are likely to realize that there is the very real issue of our 'mortality' -- and that life is not forever -- unfortunately, some young people never reach this level of 'wisdom' before they run into tragic disaster and for my fellow aging 'baby boomers' (obviously this is me writing in 2009, not 1979), there is the issue of all of the acute and/or chronic diseases that can start to hit us in our 40s and/or 50s -- clogged arteries, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, adrenal fatigue, liver problems, kidney problems, colon problems, cancer, male problems, female problems, and on and on we could/can go...Welcome to our 50s for those who have made it this far...

And then there are all the psychological, economic, political, social, relgious, moral, and ethical issues...

Enough to more than fill an essay of this size with issues that could require an essay of 10 or 20 or 50 times this size to even begin to properly address...(See 'Hegel's Hotel'...)

What we are primarily interested in here is what might be called: 'Central Ego Functioning' including language, perception, interpretation, evaluation, a brief introduction to the idea of balancing 'Narcissistic-Dionysian' impulses with 'Apollonian moral-ethical restraints', generating response-alternatives, judging possible consequences of different actions, making decisions and choices, and the execution of action. Followed by the perception, interpretation, and evaluation of feedback -- and the resulting 'learning and/or mislearning' process.

That is the essence of 'Evaluation and Health'.

The essay will be divided into 3 parts.

In Part 1, we will look at three different 'sub-processes' in Central Ego Functioning -- specifically: 1. The Stimulus-Evaluation Stage; 2. The Response-Evaluation Stage; and 3. The Feedback-Learning Stage.

In Part 2, we will look at potential 'disturbances', 'neuroses', and/or 'pathologies' within each of the previously mentioned stages of Central Ego functioning.

In Part 3, we will look at a more 'wholistic' -- as well as 'reductionistic-compartmentalized' -- model of the personality, including The Central Ego in the centre of all the 'soap opera conflict-generating and conflict-resolving or unresolving action' as what we might also call the 'Chief Executive Officer' (CEO) in our personality. The model is designed to give us some idea of how we might approach the 'art and science of living -- from a (Post-Hegelian, multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential) DGB-GAP perspective. Part 3 was never written in the original 1979 essay but will be 2009 addition from the context of 'Hegel's Hotel'.

Let's look at the interactive dynamics of language, epistemology, evaluation, response choice, action or inaction -- and the resulting effects on our health.

Let's look at 'Evaluation and Health'.

-- March 5th, 2009.

The Four Idols of Francis Bacon

2009-05-05T04:43:00.000-07:00

From the internet...google...The Four Idols, Sir Francis Bacon

I don't know much about Sir Francis Bacon -- I plan to learn more -- but I love the way he thinks...as attested by the following essay on Bacon written by Manly P. Hall. To me, Bacon is a 'good idol' of what it means -- and how -- to be a good epistemologist.

-- dgb, August 24th, 2008.

................................................................................

The Four Idols
of Francis Bacon
&

The New Instrument of Knowledge

by Manly P. Hall

In the Novum Organum (the new instrumentality for the acquisition of knowledge) Francis Bacon classified the intellectual fallacies of his time under four headings which he called idols. He distinguished them as idols of the Tribe, idols of the Cave, idols of the Marketplace and idols of the Theater.

An idol is an image, in this case held in the mind, which receives veneration but is without substance in itself. Bacon did not regard idols as symbols, but rather as fixations. In this respect he anticipated modern psychology.

Idols of the Tribe are deceptive beliefs inherent in the mind of man, and therefore belonging to the whole of the human race. They are abstractions in error arising from common tendencies to exaggeration, distortion, and disproportion. Thus men gazing at the stars perceive the order of the world, but are not content merely to contemplate or record that which is seen. They extend their opinions, investing the starry heavens with innumerable imaginary qualities. In a short time these imaginings gain dignity and are mingled with the facts until the compounds become inseparable. This may explain Bacon's epitaph which is said to be a summary of his whole method. It reads, "Let all compounds be dissolved."

Idols of the Cave are those which arise within the mind of the individual. This mind is symbolically a cavern. The thoughts of the individual roam about in this dark cave and are variously modified by temperament, education, habit, environment, and accident. Thus an individual who dedicates his mind to some particular branch of learning becomes possessed by his own peculiar interest, and interprets all other learning according to the colors of his own devotion. The chemist sees chemistry in all things, and the courtier ever present at the rituals of the court unduly emphasizes the significance of kings and princes.

(The title page of Bacon's New Atlantis (London 1626) is ornamented with a curious design or printer's device. The winged figure of Father Time is shown lifting a female figure from a dark cave. This represents truth resurrected from the cavern of the intellect.)

Idols of the Marketplace are errors arising from the false significance bestowed upon words, and in this classification Bacon anticipated the modern science of semantics. According to him it is the popular belief that men form their thoughts into words in order to communicate their opinions to others, but often words arise as substitutes for thoughts and men think they have won an argument because they have out talked their opponents. The constant impact of words variously used without attention to their true meaning only in turn condition the understanding and breed fallacies. Words often betray their own purpose, obscuring the very thoughts they are designed to express.

Idols of the Theater are those which are due to sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up in the field of theology, philosophy, and science, and because they are defended by learned groups are accepted without question by the masses. When false philosophies have been cultivated and have attained a wide sphere of dominion in the world of the intellect they are no longer questioned. False superstructures are raised on false foundations, and in the end systems barren of merit parade their grandeur on the stage of the world.

A careful reading of the Novum Organum will show. Bacon used the theater with its curtain and its properties as a symbol of the world stage. It might even be profitable to examine the Shakespearean plays with this viewpoint in mind.

*************

After summarizing the faults which distinguish the learning of his time, Bacon offered his solution. To him true knowledge was the knowledge of causes. He defined physics as the science of variable causes, and metaphysics as the science of fixed causes. By this definition alone his position in the Platonic descent is clearly revealed. Had he chosen Aristotle as his mentor the definition would have been reversed.

It was Bacon's intention to gather into one monumental work his program for the renewal of the sciences. This he called Instauratio Magna (the encyclopedia of all knowledge), but unfortunately the project was never completed. He left enough, however, so that other men could perfect the work.

The philosophy of Francis Bacon reflects not only the genius of his own mind but the experiences which result from full and distinguished living. The very diversity of his achievements contributed to the unity of his thinking. He realized the importance of a balanced viewpoint, and he built his patterns by combining the idealism of Plato with the practical method of Aristotle. From Plato he derived a breadth of vision, and from Aristotle a depth of penetration. Like Socrates, he was an exponent of utility, and like Diogenes a sworn enemy of sophistry. Knowledge was not to be acquired merely for its own sake, which is learning, but for its use, which is intelligence. The principal end of philosophy is to improve the state of man; the merit of all learning is to be determined by its measure of usefulness.

Bacon believed that the first step was to make a comprehensive survey of that which is known, as distinguished from that which is believed. This attitude he seems to have borrowed from Paracelsus and shared with Descartes. Knowledge may be gathered from the past through tradition. It may be accumulated and augmented by observation, but it must be proved and established by experimentation. No theory is important until it has been proved by method. Thus Bacon set up the machinery of control which has since become almost the fetish of science.

Upon the solid foundation of the known, trained minds can build toward universal knowing, which is the end of the work. Knowledge alone can preserve and perfect human life. In spite of his scientific approach, Bacon in no way discounted the spiritual content in the world. Knowledge might arise from inspiration and the internal illumination of the consciousness, but this illumination is not knowledge until, through experimentation, the truth is physically established.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More on the 4 IDOLS

Finding Truth

2009-01-21T12:58:00.000-08:00

We will take Nietzsche as our starting point, and then see where we can evolve to from there -- in our goal of finding truth.

'All facts are interpretations.' -- Nietzsche

We have a world both outside of us and inside of us that is impossible to know fully and completely because our senses are imperfect, our logical faculties are imperfect -- and our 'will to truth' is imperfect. In fact, our will to truth is often the biggest problem of all. We simply don't want to know the truth. As Jack Nicholson said in his famous speech (forgive me but I have forgotten the name of the movie with Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson in it, just looked it up -- 'A Few Good Men') -- 'You can't handle the truth!'

When it comes to truth, personal and/or collective narcissism (greed, selfishness, egotism, ambition, anxiety, fear...) often rears its ugly head to hide, suppress, distort, embellish, and/or push people away from the truth.

So the first thing that is absolutely necessary in finding the truth -- is a 'will to truth'. I do not say this lightly. The truth is not always attractive to the squeemish or the faint-harded...indeed, the truth often requires courage and bravery to seriously look for it in the first place.

My definition of truth: 'A strong structural similarity between things and processes as we believe them to be, and things and processes as they really are -- or were.

Unfortunately, that raises the huge Kantian problem -- the 'subject-object split' and the fact that we can't step outside of our own skin, our own senses, our own logical faculties, and our own narcissistic biases -- to 'know for sure how things and processes really are'.

Thus, we are, and man is, stuck in a paradoxical, epistemological 'Catch 22' -- one that man has been 'epistemologically cursed' with since the beginning of man's existence -- and probably to the end.

There is no such thing as 'perfect truth' unless we are talking about 2 plus 2 equals 4, and/or maybe 'The sun rose up this morning' although that for me is an assumption because I never saw it rise this morning. And of course, the sun didn't really 'rise' -- that is all human relativity at work and play.

So we just have to keep pursuing the 'best approximations of truth' that we can possibly get to, on our own, and/or with the help of our fellow human beings who are similarly interested in 'pursuing truth'.

And of course, truth means nothing without 'context'. If we want to talk about truth -- at least in any practical, pragmatic, functional sense -- we have to talk about something happening in some place and time. And then describing the way it happened. How it happened. Why it happened becomes even more interpretive, more problematic, more complicated, and more controversial. What caused her death? What caused the accident? Who was responsible? Who was to blame? What was to blame?

The danger is -- or at least one of the main dangers -- is that we 'box the truth', call it 'the truth' and forget that we are only giving a 'theory of the truth' that may be right, may be wrong, may be partly right and partly wrong, or it may be the 'truth at first' but then 'life changes' and our 'box of truth' does not change with the evolution of a changing life process.

Five 'Truth Dangers' I call respectively:

1. Idols of Theoretical Boxes and Labels (that don't fit the real world and how it works);

2. Idols of Reification (hanging on to an idea or theory that becomes 'dead' as life changes);

3. Idols of Reductionism (Dividing life into 5, 10, or a hundred pieces -- and not putting it back together again);

4. Idols of Abstraction, Association, and Generalization (One or two instances of a life process do not necessarily imply an 'iron clad rule of nature that will never change'; likewise, just because something looks like a duck and swims like a duck does not necessarily mean that it is a duck -- it could be a swan.)

5. Idols of Narcissistic Bias (Too much unethical, narcissistic bias at work and play -- selfishness, jealousy, envy, greed, anxiety, egotism, pride, money... -- to truly want to know the truth, and/or want it to be known.

Four Rules of Thumb For Pursuing The Truth...

1. Observations first, inferences/interpretations second, value judgments third...Don't jump to premature and/or unwarrented conclusions because then the value judgments -- even before any discussion or debate of 'values and ethics' -- are going to be wrong.

2. Skepticism is a good thing -- people are often jumping to fast and wrong interpretations, assumptions, conclusions...Check you assumptions, check society's assumptions, observe, observe, observe, check different sources, check different biases, check, check, check...

3. Life changes -- make sure your 'conceptual representations of life' change too in order to keep up with all of life's changing processes...evolution, mutation, compensation, etc...

4. Make sure your information comes from credible, reliable sources, and know what their line of bias and potential 'conflict of interest' might be relative to 'steering you away from the truth'.

Avoid these epistemological traps and follow these epistemological rules and you will be putting yourself in a good position towards steering yourself towards the epistemological truth.

A strong 'will to truth' -- and the strength, courage, and perseverence to chase it down like a bull terrier, even a pit-bull -- remains your greatest asset.

-- dgbn, Jan. 21st, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...

Central Ego Functioning (Part 5): What is a 'Stimulus'? What is a 'Gestalt'?

2009-01-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

What is a stimulus?

This is a critically important question.

The first thing we need to recognize is this -- and it is a huge shift in emphasis from where I was as a 'cognitive, one line of emphasis, psychology-philosophy student' in 1979 -- and that is the DGB concept of 'stimulus' today encompasses the idea of 'dual influence-dialectic causality', indeed, often 'multi-dialectic influence and causality'.

The 1980s impressed upon me the ideas of Perls, Freud, Jung -- and Hegel -- all of whom were dualist integrationists and/or dialectical psychologists.

By 1979, I had already been exposed to the 'dualist' ideas of General Semantics: 'The map vs. the territory.' and an 'intensional orientation' (constantly being inside your head0 vs. an 'extensional (scientific, empirical) orientation' geared more towards constantly checking our inside thoughts, words, and assumptions vs. our day to day observations in our 'objective world'.

However, I had not been fully exposed to Hegelian dialectic thinking (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis). And the shift in emphasis to dialectic thinking is what brings you 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy-Psychology' in its 2009 version here today.

We are all 'dialectically engaged with our natural, social, and political environment -- and with the people we meet in this environment.

We all give influence -- and take influence -- overtly and/or covertly, consciously and/or subconsciously, intentially and/or unintentionally.

I influence you. You influence me. That is the nature of dialectical -- meaning two-sided -- influence, accountability and causality.

If this essay is not of interest to you, then you hold the option -- the choice -- of walking (or keyboarding) away from the essay -- and doing something else with your time and energy.

The same option -- and choice -- holds for me too. If I am finding the essay too boring, then I hold the option too of walking (or keyboarding) away from it, and/or working harder to make the essay more personally engaging -- and interesting.

The easiest essays to write are the ones where you do not have to 'try hard' to write it.

I have said before in similar or different words that I have more trouble writing a strictly 'Apollonian' essay that only involves the use of my mind-brain than it does to write an essay that involves all of my more 'passionate-emotionally embracing faculties' -- meaning my 'heart' -- as well as my Apollonian faculties.

This brings us to the Gestalt idea of 'figure' and 'background'.

A 'figural stimulus' is one that is right at the forefront of our attention and energy.

A 'background stimulus' is one that stays or fades into the background due to the presence of another, stronger, more figural 'gestalt-stimulus'. The word 'gestalt' is of German origin and similar in meaning to the word 'stimulus'. Thus, I could say that writing this essay is a 'figural gestalt' for me. Or conversely, I could say that, as of this moment, it is no longer a figural gestalt for me, that I have been sitting on this computer for too long now, and need to take a break -- need to go outside and get some fresh air before coming back to finish this essay.

And that is exactly what I will do.

.....................................................................

Stimuli control the direction of our lives -- and yet not in a deterministic sense.

I am not a believer in any kind of 'stimulus-response' model that does not include the 'black box' in the middle of the model which is 'the organism', the 'animal', the 'man or woman', and in particular, the 'mind-brain-heart' of the man or woman who is not only reacting positively or negatively to any particular stimulus, but who is also creating new stimuli as well.

The act of 'pro-active creationism' is not the same as 'conditional, reactive behavioral determinism', and the behaviorists in their seeming wish to suppress and oversimplify certain imperative internal, invisible -- cognitive-emotional factors -- God forbid, that the behaviorists should lose hold of their ever so prescious title as 'empirical scientists' --
succumb to, and become victimized by scientific reductionism. If you cannot see or 'measure' something, then it is not there. That was the classic behaviorist's (read B.F. Skinner) 'scientific position' on 'thoughts', 'ideas', 'concepts', 'values', 'beliefs', 'dreams', 'goals', 'priorities' and the like when I was going to University in 1979 but alas, that was 30 years ago, and I have not followed the evolution of the Behaviorists' philosophical position.

Somehow, I don't think it has changed much, although admittedly the Professor I had who marked my Honors Thesis was an 'Integrative Cognitive-Behaviorist'.

Bravo! Bravo! Dr. Donald Meichenbaum. A conscious -- or subconscious -- post-Hegelian integrative 'Cognitive-Behavioral Psychologist' before I even knew who Hegel was, and before I even knew what 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' meant.

The synthesis of Cognitive Therapy and Behaviorism is an example of what I now call 'Dialectical Evolution'. I am a strong proponent of Dialectic -- and Multi-Dialectic -- Evolution. It happens subconsciously even when men and women are not conscious of trying to make it happen, but for the most part, it happens more happily and healthily when people are practising this form of evolution consciously, not subconsciously -- and diplomatically, not violently.

The Gaza Strip, Iraq, Afghanastan, and Pakistan...may all have 'happy' futures at some point in time, if some working type of homeostatic balance is ever arrived at...
but in the mean time, as Israel and the Hamas continue to send rockets and bombs into each other's home land, each trying to the best of their ability to exercise their own respective 'Will to Power Over Their Enemy', nobody wins, everybody loses, friends and family die, and everyone else in the world is put through Hell...

That's what I call 'negative stimulus' -- and 'Negative Dialectic Evolution' -- or 'Dialectic Regression'.

That is where I will leave things tonight.

I think I have adequately described what I mean by 'stimulus'.

It is interesting how the last part of this essay flowed much faster than the first part.

Perhaps I moved to some more interesting, motivating, gestalts.

There is a lesson here that I learned from Gestalt Therapy back in the 1980s but which I easily lose track of from time to time, and have to continue to remind myself of:

Stay with your 'figural gestalts' as they are your top energizers, your top motivators.

Don't get lost in, and become a slave to, your 'background gestalts' which are low energizers and low motivators. They will drive you into an early 'existential grave'.

As my Gestalt teachers used to say to me:

'Get out of your head and come to your senses.'

-- dgbn, Jan. 11th, 2008

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

Are still in process...

My Honours Thesis, 'Evaluation and Health', 1979, Revisited 29 Years Later

2009-01-10T08:31:00.000-08:00

(Sept. 6th, 2008)

Below is a presentation of my honors thesis, written in 1979 for my degree in psychology at the University of Waterloo. It was written for one of my professors, a cognitive-behavioral psychologist, who shared my interest at the time of the research I had already been exposed to, and started to do from high school, in the area of General Semantics. At the time, I wanted to take my studies in General Semantics to a higher level, integrating it with my studies in cognitive therapy and psychotherapy in general on one side of things, and with my studies in humanism (Erich Fromm mainly), which was just starting to lead me in the direction of existentialism -- and humanistic-existentialism, on the other side of things.

At this point in time, I had not yet been seriously exposed to Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy, nor Alfred Adler and Adlerian Psychology, nor Freud and Psychoanalysis, nor Carl Jungand Jungian Psychology, nor Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis, nor Friedrich Nietzsche -- nor the primary integrator of all these great psychologist-philosophers -- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

What you have in Evaluation and Health is the beginnings of Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy as I started my evolutionary process of moving from being a unilateral philosopher to a dialectical one.

A 'dialectic philosopher' by the definition of DGB Philosophy is a person who embraces both the concept and the phenomenon of opposite polarities-perspectives-lifestyles because he or she sees an opportunity for new, integrative learning and humanistic-existential evolution in these polar differences -- and the opportunity for negotiating differential unity, harmony, and homeostatic (dialectic-democratic) balance by working both extreme ends of the polarity-continuum towards the middle where people ideally can live together with each other, or in close proximity to each other, without trying to kill each other and/or destroy each other's polar opinions.

Dialectic-democratic philosophy-politics is integrative philosophy-politics; it aims not to be divisive, 'either-or' politics although, to be sure, there will be times when DGB Philosophy takes a hard stand against those who are not deemed to be in support of what it takes to get to a 'dialectic-democratic-homeostatic-middle-ground civil balance position'.

DGB Philosophy, in general, is closer to the politics of Obama, Biden, and the Democratic Party in America; however, having said this, DGB Philosophy has some Republicanism-Conservatism-Capitalism in it; just not as much as Bush, McCain, Palin, Romney, Guiliani, Huckabee...In this regard, DGB Philosophy sees the opportunity for an open democratic-dialectic debate and dialogue between the strengths and weaknesses of both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

DGB Philosophy -- in the terminology of American Politics -- might be better described as 'The Democratic-Republican Dialectic Party'

Alternatively, in Canada, DGB Philosophy might be described as 'The Conservative-Liberal Dialectic-Democratic Party'.

Again, DGB Philosophy looks towards embellishing and integrating the strengths of each and every Philosphical-Political Party.

DGB Philosophy believes in 'Humanistic-Existential Capitalism' as opposed to 'Narcissistic-I'm-Only-In-It-For-Me Capitalism'.

DGB Philosophy ideally looks for a working integration between the rich, the middle class, and the poor, as well as between Capitalists and Socialists, and between employers and employees. DGB Philosophy is always looking for 'win-win, dialectic-democratic conflict resolutions and problem solutions'.

DGB Philosophy integrates many of the Capitalist Criticisms of Karl Marx and Erich Fromm with the Capitalist Idealism of Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and Nathaniel Branden.

This paper below -- 'Evaluation and Health' begins to show the 'two-sided, opposite-polarity' influence and political-economic criticisms of Karl Marx and Erich Fromm (mainly Erich Fromm) on the one side vs. the aforementioned Capitalist Idealism of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden.

'To live purposefully, you need to pay attention to outcomes. You need to notice whether your actions are producing the results you expected-whether they are bringing you closer to your goal. Perhaps you have a well-formulated purpose, a well thought out action-plan, and a pattern of action consistent with your intentions, but the problem is that the action-plan isnt the right one, and you need to go back to the drawing-board. The only way to discover this is by paying attention to outcomes. As someone observed, doing more of what doesnt work, doesnt work.'

— Nathaniel Branden

DGB Philosophy is a philosophy that is comprised of a 'post-Hegelian, humanistic-existential-multi-bi-partisan, integrative, philosophy-psychology-economics-law-business-science-arts-sports-entertainment-idealistic-realistic-enlightenment-romantic-constructive-deconstructive-modern-post-modern-pragmatic-rational-empirical-narcissistic-altruistic-ethical ideology.

In short, every new and old ideology or philosophy generally contains some philosophical strength that makes this strength worthy of being integrated into a larger philosophical union, harmony, and whole.

At the same time, this same one-sided perspective that defines a particular philosophy 'contains the seeds of its own self-destruction' (Hegel) when implemented to a one-sided extreme. Thus, the evolutionary value and indeed necessity of integrating other, polar or differential, one-sided philosophies into a larger, more all-encompassing, philosophical stew.

Another 'dialectic split' that 'Evaluation and Health' walked partly into the middle of but also partly avoided was the 'famous Cartesian-Kantian subjective-objective split'.

My epistemological gurus back in 1979 were Korzybski, Hayakawa, Rand, and Branden.

Ayn Rand's epistemology evolved to become known as 'Objectivism'. Again, in taking the dialectic route, DGB Epistemology would differentially be called either 'DGB Subjective-Objectivism' and/or 'DGB Rational-Empiricism'.

In Evaluation and Health there is no mention of the term-concept of 'narcissism' or 'narcissistic bias'. That would come later when I started to read Freud more seriously, and then Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Evaluation and Health was a mainly 'Enlightenment' style philosophy paper, written from the neck up, without much if any 'Romantic Philosophy' in it, and little if any talk discussion on sexuality which later would become connected to and integrated with my use of the concept-term of narcissism.

There would be little to no talk about 'Freudian defense and/or learning mechanisms such as: transference, projection, introjection, identification, identification with the aggressor...and the influence of memories on learning structures, processes, associations, and resulting evaluations or judgments. These were all at least partly foreshadowed in this paper, with my realizing by the end of it, that I had significant more research to do, although not by a long shot realizing just how much further this research would take me.

Of course, entering The Gestalt Institute and The Adlerian Institute in 1980 opened up a whole new world for me, and the first thing I attempted to do -- partly successfully and partly unsuccessfully -- was to integrate Gestalt Therapy with Adlerian Psychology around their dialectically conflicting philosphical positions of 'unity in the personality' vs 'multiple bi-polariities in the personality'.

I sided mainly with Perls and Gestalt Therapy on this issue as I tried the best I could at that time to resolve the Gestalt-Adlerian differences in my paper, 'Conflict in The Personality'. However, at the same time, I was most impressed with the Adlerian concept of 'lifestyle' and the interconnection between this concept and their 'interpretation of conscious early memories'. My wheels were starting to turn in terms of future potential integrations not only between Gestalt Therapy and Adlerian Psychology, but also between these and Psychoanalysis -- Traumacy and Seduction Theory, Classic Freudian, Life and Death Instinct Theory, Jungian Psychology, Post-Freudian, Neo-Freudian, Kleinian, Fairbainian, Kohutian, Transactional Analysis...all grist for the future DGB Psychology-Philosophy Gristmill...

However, it would not be until the 2000s before I reached the conflict resolution I was fully looking for on this Gestalt-Adlerian issue of 'unity vs. polarity and conflict in the personality'. My conflict resolution on this matter finally took the form of: 'dialectical negotiation and integration to the point of win-win conflict resolutions in the form of differential unity, wholism, homeostatic balance, and harmony'.

But again, that was much later to come.

However, Evaluation and Health was my first major philosophical starting-point for what was much later to come in the form of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.

In particular, Evaluation and Health provides a good introductory study of General Semantics through these two classic General Semantic books: Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 1933; H.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 1941, 1949). The General Semantics of Korzybski and Hayakawa provide the main philosophical grounding for DGB Epistemology and much of DGB Dialectic Philosophy as a whole. Wrote Hayakawa,

"The original version of this book, Language in Action, published in 1941, was in many respects a response to the dangers of propaganda, especially as exemplified in Adolf Hitler's success in persuading millions to share his maniacal and destructive views. It was the writer's conviction then, as it remains now, that everyone needs to have a habitually critical attitude towards language — his own as well as that of others — both for the sake of his personal well-being and for his adequate functioning as a citizen. Hitler is gone, but if the majority of our fellow-citizens are more susceptible to the slogans of fear and race hatred than to those of peaceful accommodation and mutual respect among human beings, our political liberties remain at the mercy of any eloquent and unscrupulous demagogue."

See my article on the American Politics blogsite called, Faceoff: DGB Philosophy vs. The Republican Party. It should be finished by lunch tomorrow, Sunday September 7th, 2008.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I now introduce to you to the beginning of my 1979 Honors Thesis -- Evaluation and Health. I expect to have it typed out in its entirety by the third or fourth week of September, 2008, as long as not too many interrupting essays -- like the 'DGB Philosophy vs. The Republican Party' essay -- come into stronger focus.

-- dgb, September 6th, 2008.
..................................................................................

Evaluation and Health: Then (1979) and Now (2008), Part 1: Introduction

2009-01-10T08:25:00.001-08:00

The value judgments we make determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and happiness.

-- Erich Fromm

Introduction

The issue of values and evaluation represents a crucial problem in regard to man's life. On the one hand, man is free to evaluate and respond to the situations he is confronted with in his day-to-day life as he or she pleases, but on the other hand, man is not free from the very real consequences that these evaluations and responses on his or her life and well-being.

A person's evaluations then, can be said to be 'effective' or 'functional' to the extent that they are life-serving -- that is, they work towards protecting and/or enhancing the person's health and happiness. Conversely, a person's evaluations can be said to be 'ineffective' and 'dysfunctional' to the extent that they are life-negating -- that is, they work towards sabotaging the person's health and happiness.

........................................................................

Editorial Commments, dgb, 2008

In 1979, I was 24 years old. My main influence in the top two paragraphs was Nathaniel Branden and his book, 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem'. Nathaniel Branden was working very closely with Ayn Rand at the time, herself an avid Capitalist writer-philosopher in the Adam Smith mold. I had read Rand's famous book, 'The Fountainhead', 1943which I was smitten by, and breezed through in short order, so I was not unfamiliar with Ayn Rand. On top of both of these factors, my dad was an 'Adam Smith-Ayn Rand Capitalist' and he had introduced me to The Fountainhead -- so none of this stuff I was reading in The Psychology of Self-Esteem was really new to me; it was simply building on a philosophy that I already largely believed in -- Nathaniel Branden was writing to a sold believer in me, he was singing to the choir.

............................................................................

The Psychology of Self-Esteem*

This major psychological work presents a brilliant new concept of human nature, of mental health and illness, and of the conditions necessary for the achievement of mental well-being. Nathaniel Branden breaks radically with the mainstream of contemporary psychology, challenging and rejecting the basic premises of both psychoanalysis and behaviorism. his book is a revolutionary contribution to man's understanding of himself.

From the introduction to The Psychology of Self-Esteem

The central theme of this book is the role of self-esteem in man's life: the need of self-esteem, the nature of that need, the conditions of its fulfillment, the consequences of its frustration — and the impact of man's self-esteem (or lack of it) on his values, responses, and goals.

Virtually all psychologists recognize that man experiences a need of self-esteem. But what they have not identified is the nature of self-esteem, the reasons why man needs it, and the conditions he must satisfy if he is to achieve it.

Virtually all psychologists recognize, if only vaguely, that there is a relationship between the degree of a man's self-esteem and the degree of his mental health. But they have not identified the nature of that relationship, nor the causes of it.

Virtually all psychologists recognize, if only dimly, that there is some relationship between the nature and degree of a man's self-esteem and his motivation, i.e. his behavior in the spheres of work, love, and human relationships. But they have not explained why, nor identified the principles involved. Such are the issues with which this book deals.

If the science of psychology is to achieve an accurate portrait of man, it must, I submit, question and challenge many of the deepest premises prevalent in the field today — must break away from the anti-biological, anti-intellectual, automaton view of human nature that dominates contemporary theory. Neither the view of man as an instinct-manipulated puppet (psychoanalysis), nor the view of him as a stimulus-response machine (behaviorism), bears any resemblance to man the biological entity whom it is the task of psychology to study: the organism uniquely characterized by the power of conceptual thought, propositional speech, explicit reasoning and self-awareness.

This work serves as the theoretical foundation for much of Branden's later writings.

......................................................................

The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and movie rights brought her fame and financial security. The book's title is a reference to Rand's statement that "man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress".

The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is a young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. He refuses to pander to the prevailing "architect by committee" taste in building design. Roark is a singular force that takes a stand against the establishment, and in his own unique way, prevails. The manuscript was rejected by twelve publishers before a young editor, Archibald Ogden, at the Bobbs-Merrill Company publishing house wired to the head office, "If this is not the book for you, then I am not the editor for you." Despite generally negative early reviews from the contemporary media, the book gained a following by word of mouth and sold hundreds of thousands of copies, along with garnering critical acclaim over time.[citation needed] The Fountainhead was made into a Hollywood film in 1949, with Gary Cooper in the lead role of Howard Roark, and with a screenplay by Ayn Rand herself.

......................................................................

More Editorial Comments, dgb, 2008

Having said what I just said in my editorial comments above, Erich Fromm had also become one of my 'philosopher-heros' back in the mid to 1970s. And Erich Fromm was a known post-Marxian humanistic philosopher. So without knowing it at the time, this was perhaps my first academic introduction to what we might call a 'dialectical split' -- two obviously very intelligent sets of men and women believing in two totally opposite philosophical points of view -- Capitalism vs. Socialism. I was left trying to walk down the middle and sort out the strengths and weaknesses of each respective philosophical system -- and then decide where this left me and my own particular philosophical viewpoint.

A second and a third dialectical split were also starting to crop up in my work with or without my awareness. The second was the dialectical split between 'freedom and determinism'. You can catch Branden talking about this dialectical -- and philosophical -- split in his introduction where he sees his own 'Psychology of Self-Esteem' approaching man's life and his philosophy from an entirely different angle than two of his philosophical-psychological competitors: 1. Psychoanalysis (and its theory of 'instinctual determinism'; and 2. Behaviorism (and its theory of 'external, social-conditioning determinism'). In contrast, Branden -- following partly in both Adam Smith's and Ayn Rand's philosophical footsteps, laid out a 'cognitive-free-will' philosophy-psychology of man.

So did/do I, in what was/is to come in 'Evaluation and Health', although today, I incorporate a strong Freudian and post-Freudian influence into my philosophical-pscyhological thinking.

At issue in Evaluation and Health -- although buried in my lack of knowledge and awareness at the time -- was the famous 'Kantian subjective-objective dialectical split' How do we know that what we believe to be true -- is true? This is the 50 million dollar epistemological question of the last 225 years in Western philosophy, going back to the epistemology of Emmanuel Kant in 'The Critique of Pure Reason', 1781, and longer even than that if you want to go back to the epistemology of John Locke, The Conduct of Understanding (published posthumously in 1706, John Locke, 1632-1704), and before that to Sir Francis Bacon, The Four Idols, 1620, or still even further back to William of Ockham, famous for 'Ockham's Razor'...

................................................................

Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony" or "law of succinctness"): "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", roughly translated as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".

This is often paraphrased as "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.

Originally a tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism, it is more often taken today as an heuristic maxim (rule of thumb) that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity, often or especially in scientific theories.

.......................................................

Final Editorial Comment, dgb, 2008

At stake in the famous 'subjective-objective' split is not only the epistemological issue of 'truth' and 'fact', but also the ethical-moral issue of 'value'.

How do you know or judge which is better: Capitalism or Socialism; religion or science, evolution or creation theory, conservatism or liberalism, Republicanism or Democratism, the Kantian moral imperative, or the Nietzschean Dionysian existential imperative?

Do we live every day as if it is our last -- or would that make our life too 'wild', too 'Dionysian', 'too existentially extreme', not properly factoring in the feelings of our loved ones? Is a life of 'existential balance' the better way to go, the better way to be?

'To be or not to be.' -- Shakespeare wrote that.

'How should I be. How do I want to be. How do I want to behave each and every day. Am I living the life I want to live? Or am I living a 'shadow' of the life I want to live.? God, can you divide my mind and my body into two different people -- call one the 'Apollonian David Bain, and the other the 'Dionysian David Bain' -- and I will live one life according to Kant's moral imperative, and the other life according to Nietzsche's Dionysian existential extremism -- and we can meet again after this life is over, in either Heaven and/or in Hell -- and take up the argument again. Then I will be able to make perhaps a better judgment based on my dual, dialectical experience.

Apollo and Dionysus went for a walk. They argued with each other, had a fight with each other, defied each other, defiled each other, both were strong -- but only one came back.' Who came back for you? Apollo or Dionysus? Or both partly beaten up but one, the smiling victor, the other, the grudging loser, still beating you up from the shadows? Who's the grudging loser -- Apollo raging righteously at you with guilt-trips from his corner in your personality? Or Dionysus and Nietzsche second-guessing you for not having 'made a move', or fully experienced a potential encounter, for in effect, having turned your back on life?

These are the types of questions that challenge me now...

These are the types of questions whose answers define usin our life, from moment to moment, day to day. They determine our personal history.

You are what you choose.

But, of course, that is me at 53, not 24. At 24, I was simply racing ahead on my Cognitive-Epistemological-Enlightenment horse -- with just a hint of what was to dialectically and existentially to come.

Let's see how things evolved....

-- dgb, Sept. 13th, 2008, modified Sept. 15th, 2008, Jan. 24th, 2009.

Parmenides Poison Revisited: 'Who Says The Sophistry and The Trojan Horse Are Dead and Buried In Mythological Greece?'

2008-12-15T15:41:00.000-08:00

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.

............................................................

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.

...............................................................

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:

..................................................................................

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.
.....................................................................................

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.

.....................................................................................

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.

On The Bi-Polar -- Narcissistic and Social -- Nature of Words and Their Meaning

2008-12-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

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...

Faceoff: DGB Philosophy vs. Hume and Kant: On Hume and 'Causality'; and Kant's 'Subjective A Priori Categories'

2008-12-14T08:44:00.001-08:00

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.

Three Inter-Connected Areas of DGB Epistemology: 1. DGB Cognitive Theory; 2. DGB Dialectic Theory; and 3. DGB Cognitive-Dialectic Theory

2008-10-19T05:32:00.000-07:00

In constructive process...

In this essay, we will begin to explore two different areas of DGB Epistemology: 1. DGB Cognitive Theory; and 2. DGB Dialectic Theory; and 3. the synthesis of these two ideas: DGB Cognitive-Dialectic Theory.

You can see the three different areas or components of 'The Hegelian Dialectic Cycle' here: 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3. synthesis.

DGB Philosophy holds the belief -- in standard Hegelian style -- that whenever two theories stand in opposition to each other, and both seem to have an element of 'truth' and/or 'value' in them, the reality of the situation is such that both probably do have and an element of both 'truth' and 'value' in them -- even as they seemingly contradict each other -- and in effect the two polar or differential theories are crying for a good 'Hegelian' or 'post-Hegelian' philosopher (or set of philosophers, set of philosopher-business-men(women), set of philosopher-politicians, etc. such as Parliament and/or The Senate, and/or The Senate and House of Representatives) to enter the situation and work on the two theories -- dialectically and democratically -- negotiate their respective strengths and weaknesses -- and start to synthesize them, in the process, coming up with an integrative theory that is superior to either of the two paradoxical, polar, and/or differential theories or philosphies standing on its own.

This is the heart of Hegelian Dialectic Theory. And it is also the heart of DGB Post-Hegelian Dialectic Theory. The only difference between the two is about '200 years of further evolution' in which DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy has integrated some elements of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, 'Enligtenment-Romanticism', 'Apollonian-Dionysianism', 'Subjective-Objectivism', 'Free-Will-Determinism, Freud, Adler, Jung, Perls, Sartre, Korzybski, Hayakawa, Foucault, Derrida, Branden, Rand, and others...along the way to where I sit right now...

DGB Post-Hegelian Dialectic Theory is basically more of a 'free-will-determinist-humanistic-existential' theory than Classic Hegelian Dialectic Theory. 'Free-will' and 'Determinism' are two polar theories whereby DGB Dialectic Theory splits the difference and integrates the two theories. Similarly, 'Humanism' and 'Existentialism' -- in DGB Philosophy at least -- are two polar theories, the first emphasizing 'compassion and empathy' and the second emphasizing 'existential accountability' whereby DGB Dialectic Theory again splits the difference and integrates the two theories.

One can easily see how -- politically -- Hegelian Dialectic Theory became split between 'Left-Wing Hegelian Dialectic Theory' and 'Right Wing Hegelian Dialectic Theory. Indeed, Hegel has often been at least partly blamed for 'Left Wing Marxist Dialectic Extremism' and at the same time, 'Right Wing Nazi-Fascist Dialectic Extremism'.

In the view of DGB Philosophy, both of these editorial viewpoints miss the Hegelian Dialectic Point. Specifically, neither Hegelian Classic Dialectic Theory nor DGB Post-Hegelian Dialectic Theory advocate or trumpet any form of 'philosophical and/or behavioral extremism'.

Now obviously, I can speak more for myself than for Hegel, and Hegel seemed to be very 'non-committal' and/or 'diplomatic' when it came to his political points of view. Correct me if I am wrong on this opinion -- any of you Hegelian scholars out there -- but from what I have read, it seemed like Hegel didn't want to 'upset the political apple cart'. There seemed to be a certain element of -- shall we say 'political lobbyism' (The American and Canadian people would know something about that) -- between Hegel who was being 'treated kindly by the 'Prussian Aristocrats' in exchange for Hegel calling the 'Prussian Goverment the best in evolutionary history'. Private, personal narcissism rears its ugly head again -- and undermines 'philosophical integrity' shall we say. Maybe I am not being fair to Hegel here. I will search for 'scholarly references' and perhaps come back to this point.

Similarily, if in my political essays, I have been fairly hard on the American Republic Party it is not because I don't have some strong 'Republcan Ideals' -- because I do; I just don't share any taste for the type of 'negative campaigning' that McCain and Palin have emphasized in their speeches and ads, believing that the closer we come to the actual voting, and the further McCain has fallen behind in the polls, the more he has gone to a 'right-wing extremist, almost Fascist-Nazi style, hate-division rheoric that I see no place for in any form of Republican Idealism that I advocate and/or trumpet.

Similarily, if Obama does become President and takes America even deeper and deeper into debt with increased spending, larger government, and no compensatory savings to get America out of the huge debt abyss that it is in, then I will start to come down hard on Obama as well. But we haven't got there yet.

That is why I view myself as a 'Republican-Democratic, Conservative-Liberal, Integrative Idealist-Realist'. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. We haven't got there yet. Back to epistemology...and the influence of 'General Semantics' on DGB Epistemology.

Alfred Korzybski

2008-10-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

Alfred Korzybski
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)
Alfred Korzybski

Born July 3, 1879(1879-07-03)
Warsaw, Congress Poland
Died March 1, 1950 (aged 70)
Lakeville, Connecticut, USA
Occupation Engineer, philosopher, mathematician
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (pronounced /kɔ'ʐɨpski/) (July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is most remembered for developing the theory of general semantics.

Contents [hide]
1 Early life and career
2 General semantics
3 Korzybski and to be
4 Anecdote about Korzybski
5 Criticisms
6 Impact
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

[edit] Early life and career

Alfred Korzybski's family coat-of-arms (Habdank).He was born in Warsaw, Congress Poland. He came from an aristocratic family whose members had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations. He learned Polish at home and Russian in the schools; and having a French governess and a German governess, he became fluent in four languages as a child. As an adult, he chose to train as an engineer.

Korzybski was educated at the Warsaw University of Technology. During the First World War Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the Russian Army. After being wounded in his leg and suffering other injuries, he came to North America in 1916 (first to Canada, then the United States) to coordinate the shipment of artillery to the war front. He also lectured to Polish-American audiences about the conflict, promoting the sale of war bonds. Following the war, he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1940. His first book, Manhood of Humanity, was published in 1921. In the book, he proposed and explained in detail a new theory of humankind: mankind as a time-binding class of life.

[edit] General semantics
Korzybski's work culminated in the founding of a discipline that he called general semantics (GS). As Korzybski explicitly said, GS should not be confused with semantics, a different subject. The basic principles of general semantics, which include time-binding, are outlined in Science and Sanity, published in 1933. In 1938 Korzybski founded the Institute of General Semantics and directed it until his death in Lakeville, Connecticut, USA.

Korzybski's work held a view that human beings are limited in what they know by (1) the structure of their nervous systems, and (2) the structure of their languages. Human beings cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). Sometimes our perceptions and our languages actually mislead us as to the "facts" with which we must deal. Our understanding of what is going on sometimes lacks similarity of structure with what is actually going on. He stressed training in awareness of abstracting, using techniques that he had derived from his study of mathematics and science. He called this awareness, this goal of his system, "consciousness of abstracting." His system included modifying the way we approach the world, e.g., with an attitude of "I don't know; let's see," to better discover or reflect its realities as shown by modern science. One of these techniques involved becoming inwardly and outwardly quiet, an experience that he called, "silence on the objective levels."

[edit] Korzybski and to be
Many supporters and critics of Korzybski reduced his rather complex system to a simple matter of what he said about the verb 'to be.' His system, however, is based primarily on such terminology as the different 'orders of abstraction,' and formulations such as 'consciousness of abstracting.' It is often said that Korzybski opposed the use of the verb "to be," an unfortunate exaggeration (see 'Criticisms' below). He thought that certain uses of the verb "to be," called the "is of identity" and the "is of predication," were faulty in structure, e.g., a statement such as, "Joe is a fool" (said of a person named 'Joe' who has done something that we regard as foolish). In Korzybski's system, one's assessment of Joe belongs to a higher order of abstraction than Joe himself. Korzybski's remedy was to deny identity; in this example, to be continually aware that 'Joe' is not what we call him. We find Joe not in the verbal domain, the world of words, but the nonverbal domain (the two, he said, amount to different orders of abstraction). This was expressed in Korzybski's most famous premise, "the map is not the territory." Note that this premise uses the phrase "is not", a form of "to be"; this and many other examples show that he did not intend to abandon "to be" as such. In fact, he expressly said that there were no structural problems with the verb "to be" when used as an auxiliary verb or when used to state existence or location. It was even 'OK' sometimes to use the faulty forms of the verb 'to be,' as long as one was aware of their structural limitations. This was developed into E-prime by one of his students 15 years after his death.

[edit] Anecdote about Korzybski
One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he suddenly interrupted the lesson in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row, if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think", said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies". The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to throw up, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see, ladies and gentlemen", Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter." Apparently his prank aimed to illustrate how some human suffering originates from the confusion or conflation of linguistic representations of reality and reality itself.[1]

[edit] Criticisms
See the criticism section of the main General Semantics article.

[edit] Impact
Korzybski's work influenced Gestalt Therapy[citation needed], Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy[2], and Neuro-linguistic programming[3] (especially the Meta model and ideas behind human modeling for performance). As reported in the Third Edition of Science and Sanity, The U.S. Army in World War II used his system to treat battle fatigue in Europe under the supervision of Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, who also became the psychiatrist in charge of the Nazi prisoners at Nuremberg. Other individuals influenced by Korzybski include Kenneth Burke, William S. Burroughs, Frank Herbert, Albert Ellis, Gregory Bateson, John Grinder, Buckminster Fuller, Douglas Engelbart, Stuart Chase, Alvin Toffler, Robert A. Heinlein (Korzybski is mentioned in the 1949 novella Gulf), L. Ron Hubbard, A. E. van Vogt, Robert Anton Wilson, entertainer Steve Allen, and Tommy Hall (lyricist for the 13th Floor Elevators); and scientists such as William Alanson White (psychiatry), physicist P. W. Bridgman, and researcher W. Horsley Gantt (a former student and colleague of Pavlov). He also influenced the Belgian surrealist writer of comics Jan Bucquoy in the seventh part of the comics series Jaunes: Labyrinthe, with explicit reference in the plot to Korzybski's "the map is not the territory."

In part the General Semantics tradition was upheld by Samuel I. Hayakawa, who did have a falling out with Korzybski. When asked over what, Hayakawa is said to have replied: "Words".

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Alfred Korzybski
[edit] See also
General Semantics
The map is not the territory
Structural differential
E-Prime
Institute of General Semantics
Robert Pula
Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture
Science and Sanity Complete work online.

[edit] References
^ R. Diekstra, Haarlemmer Dagblad, 1993, cited by L. Derks & J. Hollander, Essenties van NLP (Utrecht: Servire, 1996), p. 58.
^ http://time-binding.org/misc/akml/akmls/58-ellis.pdf
^ Bandler, Richard & John Grinder (1975). The Structure of Magic I: A Book About Language and Therapy. Palo Alto, CA: Science & Behavior Books.

[edit] Further reading
Manhood of Humanity, Alfred Korzybski, forward by Edward Kasner, notes by M. Kendig, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, hardcover, 2nd edition, 391 pages, ISBN 0-937298-00-X. (Copy of the first edition)
Science and Sanity An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Preface by Robert P. Pula, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, hardcover, 5th edition, ISBN 0-937298-01-8, (full text online)
Alfred Korzybski: Collected Writings 1920-1950, Institute of General Semantics, 1990, hardcover, ISBN 0-685-40616-4
Montagu, M. F. A. (1953). Time-binding and the concept of culture. The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Sep., 1953), pp. 148-155.
Murray, E. (1950). In memoriam: Alfred H. Korzybski. Sociometry, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Feb., 1950), pp. 76-77.

[edit] External links
Institute of General Semantics
Alfred Korzybski and Gestalt Therapy Website
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski"
Categories: 1879 births | 1950 deaths | General semantics | Naturalized citizens of the United States | Neuro-Linguistic Programming predecessors | Americans of Polish descent | Polish engineers | Polish philosophers | Polish mathematicians | Polish linguists

A Brief Synopsis Of The Life and Works of General Semanticist, S.I. Hayakawa

2008-10-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

S. I. Hayakawa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
S. I. Hayakawa

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

United States Senator
from California
In office
January 2, 1977 – January 3, 1983
Preceded by John V. Tunney
Succeeded by Pete Wilson

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born July 18, 1906
Vancouver, British Columbia
Died February 27, 1992 (aged 85)
Greenbrae, California
Political party Republican
Profession English professor
Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa (July 18, 1906 – February 27, 1992) was a Canadian-born American academic and political figure. He was an English professor, served as president of San Francisco State University and then a United States Senator from California from 1977 to 1983. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, he was educated in the public schools of Calgary, Alberta and Winnipeg, Manitoba; received his undergraduate degree from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg in 1927; graduate degrees in English from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1928, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1935.

Contents [hide]
1 Academic career
1.1 Student strike at San Francisco State University
2 Political career
3 References

[edit] Academic career
Professionally, Hayakawa was a psychologist, semanticist, teacher and writer. He was an instructor at the University of Wisconsin from 1936 to 1939 and at the Armour Institute of Technology from 1939 to 1947. Hayakawa was an important semanticist. His first book on the subject, Language in Thought and Action, was published in 1949 as an expansion of the earlier work, Language in Action, written since 1938 and published in 1941 to be a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. It is currently in its fifth edition and has greatly helped popularize Alfred Korzybski's general semantics and in effect semantics in general, while semantics or theory of meaning was overwhelmed by mysticism, propagandism and even scientism. In the Preface, he said:

"The original version of this book, Language in Action, published in 1941, was in many respects a response to the dangers of propaganda, especially as exemplified in Adolf Hitler's success in persuading millions to share his maniacal and destructive views. It was the writer's conviction then, as it remains now, that everyone needs to have a habitually critical attitude towards language — his own as well as that of others — both for the sake of his personal well-being and for his adequate functioning as a citizen. Hitler is gone, but if the majority of our fellow-citizens are more susceptible to the slogans of fear and race hatred than to those of peaceful accommodation and mutual respect among human beings, our political liberties remain at the mercy of any eloquent and unscrupulous demagogue."

In addition to such motivation, he acknowledged his debt as follows:

"My deepest debt in this book is to the General Semantics ('non-Aristotelian system') of Alfred Korzybski. I have also drawn heavily upon the works of other contributors to semantic thought: especially C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, Thorstein Veblen, Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield, Karl R. Popper, Thurman Arnold, Jerome Frank, Jean Piaget, Charles Morris, Wendell Johnson, Irving J. Lee, Ernst Cassirer, Anatol Rapoport, Stuart Chase. I am also deeply indebted to the writings of numerous psychologists and psychiatrists with one or another of the dynamic points of view inspired by Sigmund Freud: Karl Menninger, Trigant Burrow, Carl Rogers, Kurt Lewin, N. R. F. Maier, Jurgen Ruesch, Gregory Bateson, Rudolf Dreikurs, Milton Rokeach. I have also found extremely helpful the writings of cultural anthropologists, especially those of Benjamin Lee Whorf, Ruth Benedict, Clyde Kluckhohn, Leslie A. White, Margaret Mead, Weston La Barre."
He was a lecturer at the University of Chicago from 1950 to 1955. During this time he presented a talk at the 1954 Conference of Activity Vector Analysts at Lake George, New York in which he discussed a theory of personality from the semantic point of view. This was later published as The Semantic Barrier. This was a definitive lecture as it discussed the Darwinism of the "survival of self" as contrasted with the "survival of self-concept".

He became an English professor at San Francisco State College (now called San Francisco State University) from 1955 to 1968. In the early 1960s, he helped organize the Anti Digit Dialing League, a group in San Francisco that opposed the introduction of all digit telephone exchange names. Among the students he trained were commune leader Stephen Gaskin and author Gerald Haslam. He became president of San Francisco State College during the turbulent period of 1968 to 1973, becoming president emeritus in 1973 and then wrote a column for the Register & Tribune Syndicate from 1970 to 1976.

[edit] Student strike at San Francisco State University
During 1968-69, there was a bitter student strike at San Francisco State University that was a major news event at the time and chapter in the radical history of the United States and the Bay Area. The strike was led by the Third World Liberation Front supported by Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers and the counter-cultural community, among others. It demanded an end to racism, creation of a Black Studies Department and an end to the War in Vietnam and the university's complicity with it. Hayakawa became popular with mainstream voters in this period after he pulled the wires out from the speakers on a student van at an outdoor rally, dramatically disrupting it. [1] , [2] , [3]

[edit] Political career

1977, Congressional Pictorial DirectoryHe was elected in California as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1976, defeating incumbent Democrat John V. Tunney. Hayakawa served from January 3, 1977 to January 3, 1983. He did not stand for reelection in 1982 and was succeeded by Republican Pete Wilson.

Hayakawa founded the political lobbying organization U.S. English, which is dedicated to making the English language the official language of the United States.

The Senator was a resident of Mill Valley, California until his death in Greenbrae, California, in 1992. He was also a member of the Bohemian Club, the first member of the club of Japanese ancestry. He also had an abiding interest in traditional jazz and wrote extensively on that subject, including several erudite sets of album liner notes. Sometimes in his lectures on semantics, he was joined by the respected traditional jazz pianist, Don Ewell, whom Hayakawa employed to demonstrate various points in which he analyzed semantic and musical principles.

[edit] References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
S. I. HayakawaS. I. Hayakawa at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Fox, R. F. (1991). A conversation with the Hayakawas. The English Journal, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Feb., 1991), pp. 36-40.

Evaluation and Health: Then (1979) and Now (2008), Part 1: Introduction

2008-09-13T03:50:00.000-07:00

The value judgments we make determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and happiness.

-- Erich Fromm

Introduction

The issue of values and evaluation represents a crucial problem in regard to man's life. On the one hand, man is free to evaluate and respond to the situations he is confronted with in his day-to-day life as he or she pleases, but on the other hand, man is not free from the very real consequences that these evaluations and responses on his or her life and well-being.

A person's evaluations then, can be said to be 'effective' or 'functional' to the extent that they are life-serving -- that is, they work towards protecting and/or enhancing the person's health and happiness. Conversely, a person's evaluations can be said to be 'ineffective' and 'dysfunctional' to the extent that they are life-negating -- that is, they work towards sabotaging the person's health and happiness.

........................................................................

Editorial Commments, dgb, 2008

In 1979, I was 24 years old. My main influence in the top two paragraphs was Nathaniel Branden and his book, 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem'. Nathaniel Branden was working very closely with Ayn Rand at the time, herself an avid Capitalist writer-philosopher in the Adam Smith mold. I had read Rand's famous book, 'The Fountainhead', 1943which I was smitten by, and breezed through in short order, so I was not unfamiliar with Ayn Rand. On top of both of these factors, my dad was an 'Adam Smith-Ayn Rand Capitalist' and he had introduced me to The Fountainhead -- so none of this stuff I was reading in The Psychology of Self-Esteem was really new to me; it was simply building on a philosophy that I already largely believed in -- Nathaniel Branden was writing to a sold believer in me, he was singing to the choir.

............................................................................

The Psychology of Self-Esteem*

This major psychological work presents a brilliant new concept of human nature, of mental health and illness, and of the conditions necessary for the achievement of mental well-being. Nathaniel Branden breaks radically with the mainstream of contemporary psychology, challenging and rejecting the basic premises of both psychoanalysis and behaviorism. his book is a revolutionary contribution to man's understanding of himself.

From the introduction to The Psychology of Self-Esteem

The central theme of this book is the role of self-esteem in man's life: the need of self-esteem, the nature of that need, the conditions of its fulfillment, the consequences of its frustration — and the impact of man's self-esteem (or lack of it) on his values, responses, and goals.

Virtually all psychologists recognize that man experiences a need of self-esteem. But what they have not identified is the nature of self-esteem, the reasons why man needs it, and the conditions he must satisfy if he is to achieve it.

Virtually all psychologists recognize, if only vaguely, that there is a relationship between the degree of a man's self-esteem and the degree of his mental health. But they have not identified the nature of that relationship, nor the causes of it.

Virtually all psychologists recognize, if only dimly, that there is some relationship between the nature and degree of a man's self-esteem and his motivation, i.e. his behavior in the spheres of work, love, and human relationships. But they have not explained why, nor identified the principles involved. Such are the issues with which this book deals.

If the science of psychology is to achieve an accurate portrait of man, it must, I submit, question and challenge many of the deepest premises prevalent in the field today — must break away from the anti-biological, anti-intellectual, automaton view of human nature that dominates contemporary theory. Neither the view of man as an instinct-manipulated puppet (psychoanalysis), nor the view of him as a stimulus-response machine (behaviorism), bears any resemblance to man the biological entity whom it is the task of psychology to study: the organism uniquely characterized by the power of conceptual thought, propositional speech, explicit reasoning and self-awareness.

This work serves as the theoretical foundation for much of Branden's later writings.

......................................................................

The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and movie rights brought her fame and financial security. The book's title is a reference to Rand's statement that "man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress".

The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is a young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. He refuses to pander to the prevailing "architect by committee" taste in building design. Roark is a singular force that takes a stand against the establishment, and in his own unique way, prevails. The manuscript was rejected by twelve publishers before a young editor, Archibald Ogden, at the Bobbs-Merrill Company publishing house wired to the head office, "If this is not the book for you, then I am not the editor for you." Despite generally negative early reviews from the contemporary media, the book gained a following by word of mouth and sold hundreds of thousands of copies, along with garnering critical acclaim over time.[citation needed] The Fountainhead was made into a Hollywood film in 1949, with Gary Cooper in the lead role of Howard Roark, and with a screenplay by Ayn Rand herself.

......................................................................

More Editorial Comments, dgb, 2008

Having said what I just said in my editorial comments above, Erich Fromm had also become one of my 'philosopher-heros' back in the mid to 1970s. And Erich Fromm was a known post-Marxian humanistic philosopher. So without knowing it at the time, this was perhaps my first academic introduction to what we might call a 'dialectical split' -- two obviously very intelligent sets of men and women believing in two totally opposite philosophical points of view -- Capitalism vs. Socialism. I was left trying to walk down the middle and sort out the strengths and weaknesses of each respective philosophical system -- and then decide where this left me and my own particular philosophical viewpoint.

A second and a third dialectical split were also starting to crop up in my work with or without my awareness. The second was the dialectical split between 'freedom and determinism'. You can catch Branden talking about this dialectical -- and philosophical -- split in his introduction where he sees his own 'Psychology of Self-Esteem' approaching man's life and his philosophy from an entirely different angle than two of his philosophical-psychological competitors: 1. Psychoanalysis (and its theory of 'instinctual determinism'; and 2. Behaviorism (and its theory of 'external, social-conditioning determinism'). In contrast, Branden -- following partly in both Adam Smith's and Ayn Rand's philosophical footsteps, laid out a 'cognitive-free-will' philosophy-psychology of man.

So did/do I, in what was/is to come in 'Evaluation and Health', although today, I incorporate a strong Freudian and post-Freudian influence into my philosophical-pscyhological thinking.

At issue in Evaluation and Health -- although buried in my lack of knowledge and awareness at the time -- was the famous 'Kantian subjective-objective dialectical split' How do we know that what we believe to be true -- is true? This is the 50 million dollar epistemological question of the last 225 years in Western philosophy, going back to the epistemology of Emmanuel Kant in 'The Critique of Pure Reason', 1781, and longer even than that if you want to go back to the epistemology of John Locke, The Conduct of Understanding (published posthumously in 1706, John Locke, 1632-1704), and before that to Sir Francis Bacon, The Four Idols, 1620, or still even further back to William of Ockham, famous for 'Ockham's Razor'...

................................................................

Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony" or "law of succinctness"): "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", roughly translated as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".

This is often paraphrased as "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.

Originally a tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism, it is more often taken today as an heuristic maxim (rule of thumb) that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity, often or especially in scientific theories.

.......................................................

Final Editorial Comment, dgb, 2008

At stake in the famous 'subjective-objective' split is not only the epistemological issue of 'truth' and 'fact', but also the ethical-moral issue of 'value'.

How do you know or judge which is better: Capitalism or Socialism; religion or science, evolution or creation theory, conservatism or liberalism, Republicanism or Democratism, the Kantian moral imperative, or the Nietzschean Dionysian existential imperative?

Do we live every day as if it is our last -- or would that make our life too 'wild', too 'Dionysian', 'too existentially extreme', not properly factoring in the feelings of our loved ones? Is a life of 'existential balance' the better way to go, the better way to be?

'To be or not to be.' -- Shakespeare wrote that.

'How should I be. How do I want to be. How do I want to behave each and every day. Am I living the life I want to live? Or am I living a 'shadow' of the life I want to live.? God, can you divide my mind and my body into two different people -- call one the 'Apollonian David Bain, and the other the 'Dionysian David Bain' -- and I will live one life according to Kant's moral imperative, and the other life according to Nietzsche's Dionysian existential extremism -- and we can meet again after this life is over, in either Heaven and/or in Hell -- and take up the argument again. Then I will be able to make perhaps a better judgment based on my dual, dialectical experience.

Apollo and Dionysus went for a walk. They argued with each other, had a fight with each other, defied each other, defiled each other, both were strong -- but only one came back.' Who came back for you? Apollo or Dionysus? Or both partly beaten up but one, the smiling victor, the other, the grudging loser, still beating you up from the shadows? Who's the grudging loser -- Apollo raging righteously at you with guilt-trips from his corner in your personality? Or Dionysus and Nietzsche second-guessing you for not having 'made a move', or fully experienced a potential encounter, for in effect, having turned your back on life?

These are the types of questions that challenge me now...

These are the types of questions whose answers define usin our life, from moment to moment, day to day. They determine our personal history.

You are what you choose.

But, of course, that is me at 53, not 24. At 24, I was simply racing ahead on my cognitive-expistmological horse -- with just a hint of what was to dialectically and existentially to come.

Let's go back to my 1979 'charging epistemologically idealistic horse'.

-- dgb, Sept. 13th, 2008, modified Sept. 15th, 2008.

My Honours Thesis, 'Evaluation and Health', 1979, Revisited 29 Years Later

2008-09-13T03:46:00.000-07:00

DGB 'Sun-Planet Theory' and The Sixteen Mythological Idols of Philosophical Extremism

2008-09-13T03:39:00.000-07:00

1. Introduction

This is a brand new integrative line of DGB Philosophy combining two different but interconnected sets of essays: 1. 'The DGB Sixteen Mythological Idols'; and 2. the earlier 'Gods, Myths, Philosophers, and Self-Energy Centres' collection of essays...

The rationale and logic for this line of thought runs something like this: 1. Gods are external projections of internals 'mythological-personality archetypes' (This is a Jungian influence.); and 2. Archetypes are internalized or introjected renditions of 'Gods' that can be viewed as 'Self-Energy Centres' and sometimes 'Self-Energy Fixations' when one particular type of archetype comes to dominate a particular person's peronality, lifestyle, existence... One-sided 'archetype fixations' can paradoxically be a person's greatest strength and/or greatest weakness/liability...

Now, think of the sun with the planets revolving around it; the earth needs to be just situated rightly in the distance of its revolution around the sun in order to properly support life on earth as we know it -- not too far from the sun such that we freeze to death; and not too close to the sun such that we burn to death -- which brings back to the main unifying principle of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy which is basically a post-Hegelian extension, modification, and rendition of what Hegel wrote in 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'. Hegel, in turn, believed that his dialectical formula or cycle of 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3. synthesis was not only the central unifying principle of the history of philosophy, but also the central unifying principle of man's culture and life in general, and finally, the central unifying principle of evolving life in general, in all of its different complexities...

Hegel's 'dialectic-evolution' theory was written well before Darwin and basically encompasses Darwinian genetic theory which also relies on the principle of Hegelian Dialectic Theory on a biological and biochemcial level: specifically, 1. 'thesis': a man (or male of any species); 2. anti-thesis: a woman (or female of any species); 3. dialectical negotiation and resulting integration: copulation or sexual intercourse; and 4. synthesis; a child (or offspring of any species).

Let me add one final series of points in this regard before moving on: Hegel was not only influenced by the philosophy of Fichte (1762-1814)and Kant (1720-1804)relative to the birth of his dialectic philosophy; one can also see the much, much older birth of dialectic philosophy in the 'cosmic-power dialectic theory' of the ancient Greek philosopher, Anaxamander (the second oldest known Greek philosopher, 611-547BC) and the 'dialectic balance and differential unity theory' of Heraclitus (535-475BC) who is still much esteemed by modern science and pantheism (the latter of which aims to integrate science and religion, creation and evolution theory).

Fifthly and sixthly, the ancient Chinese philosophies of 'Daoism' or ('Taoism') and later 'The Han Philosophers -- to my present knowledge -- brought to birth the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' in Chinese Philosophy and their need 'for dialectic (homesostatic)balance' (my addition of the words 'dialectic' and 'homeostatic', not theirs) which foreshadowed again the birth of modern scientific and medical theory and particularly the work of Cannon and his famous book 'The Wisdom of The Body', 1932, in which he created the birth of the terms 'homeostasis' and 'homeostatic balance'. Cannon's famous book came significantly after Hegel's masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit', 1807, but in the eyes of DGB Philosophy everything I have written in this paragragph is all intimately connnected -- dialectically and homeostatically. The methodology of 'democratic-dialectic democracy' is the road to self and civil homeostatic balance.

Thus, I have mentioned at least six direct or indirect influences on Hegel that are all important in the eyes of DGB Philosophy: 1. Anaxamander, 2. Heraclitus, 3. Daoism, 4. The Han Philosphers, 5. Kant, and 6. Fichte, although Fichte's philosophy in the eyes of DGB Philosophy is mainly a pathological philosophy that rejected Kant's concept of 'the noumenal (objective)world', and very significantly either led to, and/or exasperated such things as: 1. German nationalism and a national/racial superiority complex; 2. anti-semitic thought, feeling, and behavior; and 3. Nazism.
............................................

"Where there is impossibility, there is possibility; and where there is possibility, there is impossibility. It is because there is right, that there is wrong; it is because there is wrong, there is right...Thereupon the self is also the other; the other is also the self."
Daoism

--Zhuangzi

Taoism (pronounced /ˈdaʊ.ɪ.zəm/ or /ˈtaʊ.ɪ.zəm/; also spelled Daoism) refers to a variety of related philosophical and religious traditions and concepts. These traditions have influenced East Asia for over two thousand years and some have spread internationally.[1] The Chinese character Tao 道 (or Dao, depending on the romanization scheme) means "path" or "way", although in Chinese religion and philosophy it has taken on more abstract meanings. Taoist propriety and ethics emphasize the Three Jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility. Taoist thought focuses on health, longevity, immortality, wu wei (non-action) and spontaneity.

Reverence for nature and ancestor spirits is common in popular Taoism. Organized Taoism distinguishes its ritual activity from that of the folk religion, which some professional Taoists (Daoshi) view as debased. Chinese alchemy, astrology, cuisine, several Chinese martial arts, Chinese traditional medicine, fengshui, and many styles of qigong breath training disciplines are intertwined with Taoism throughout history.

..................................................

Once you get this image in your mind -- of the sun and planets model and the principle of dialectic-homestatic balance -- you are starting to get a picture of my latest perculating model of the human psyche -- a model that borrows from philosophy, psychology, biology, chemistry, and physics, and mythology. There is some Freud in it (projecting and introjecting), some Jung in it (archetypes and Greek Gods), lots of philosophy in it (such as the different 'eras' or 'periods' of philosophy), and running right through the middle of this model are the priniciples of: 1. 'multi-dialectic exchange, interchange, negotiation, power and control maneuvers'; and 2. 'homeostatic (or multi-dialectic) balance.

I remember reading a book a long time ago -- perhaps when I was in university (1974-1979) called, 'Man The Manipulator'. I will research the book and come back to you with the author shortly. I believe the author(s) had some training in both Gestalt Therapy and Jungian Psychology.

Anyways, my present model here reminds me somewhat of what the author(s)in that book were also trying to get at which was basically that (and I will paraphrase in my own words here and now): any 'particualar style of interconnected thought, feeling, impulse, restraint and/or behavior' or what Jung would call a 'complex' or Alfred Adler would call a person's 'lifestyle' has a combination of both positive and negative attributes attached to it (strengths and weaknesses). It's like perhaps the most important statement that Hegel ever made (and again I am both paraphrasing and extending his thought): Every thought, impulse, characteristic, restraint, theory, perspective, lifestyle...carries with it the seeds of its own self-destruction...Or worded otherwise, anything taken too far, will eventually explode, implode, self-destruct, poison, and/or take you off the deep end with it...Any form of extremism will eventually lead to your self-desruction...

Which brings us back to the principle of 'homeostatic -- and/or dialectical -- balance'. Here is my post-Hegelian-extension of Hegel's famous formula: The life cycle follows the pattern of: 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3 synthesis (which -- my DGB extension -- pulls man and all of evolutionary life back to the 'central position of homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance'. 'Not too strong (eg. The Republicans), not too weak (eg. The Democrats) but just right...'The Republican-Democrats or the Democratic-Republicans'. This is the post-Hegelian, bi-polarity synthesizing goal of DGB Philosophy.

Here is my extension of the famous Hegelian formula:

Thesis plus anti-thesis or counter-thesis creatively negotiated together equals homeostatic and/or dialectical balance which in turn provides a compensatory form of psycho- and/or philosophical and/or bio-chemical therapy for all different forms of philosophical and psychological and bio-chemical extremism.

I don't have the technical capability within this blogsite to create the type of model I wish to create with a 'sun' or 'planet' in the centre with all of its revolving planets or moons. So you will have to imagine this.

I have already written a number of different papers that can be found below this essay on 'Gods, Myths, Archetypes, and Self-Energy Centres...' This essay only becomes the essay that starts to pull them all together into one model of the personality.

At centre stage is the 'main energy centre in the personality' -- The Central Mediating Ego' (psychological model) which can also be called the 'Hegelian Ego' (philosophical model: thesis plus counter-thesis equal synthesis and homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance) or Zeus (mythological model) or 'The Sun' (planetary model).

Here are some of the 'revolving planets in similar and/or different human lifestyles, complexes, and/or personalities'...

2. The DGB Sixteen Idols of 'Lifestyle and Personality Extremism'

1. Idols of The Tribe or The Crowd: (Crowd Pleasers, victims of peer pressure...)Don't get caught up and lost in the ideas and behaviors of the crowd or the 'herd' as Nietcsche would put it -- like lemmings you can be taken over a cliff. Think and feel and act independently as well as co-dependently;

2. Idols of The Cave (Hermits, Loners, Thinkers, Philosophers, Introverts, Shy People, Self-Infatuated People...): Don't get caught up and lost within yourself. You will suffocate there. If or when you do, come back out of yourself, and reach out to a person and/or people. This is your therapy;

3. Idols of The Sky (The Greek God, Uranus) (Idealists, Visionaries, Entepreneurs, Architects, pilots, astronauts, skydivers...): Come back to earth young man or woman, come back to earth and re-ground yourself. Your therapy consists of 'touching earth again and feeling the soil beneath your feet, the ground and trees all around you);

4. Idols of The Earth (in Greek mythology, the godesses Gaea): (Empiricists, people who are afraid to take a risk, people who need security above all else in their lives). Take a risk young man or woman, take a risk! This is your therapy. Fly high into the sky and see how high you can soar;

5. Idols of The Theatre (The Magician, The Sophist, The Actor, The Fraud...: Don't be fooled by others using sophistry, illusion, smoke and mirrors; and similarily, don't fool others using sophistry, illusion, smoke and mirrors. Be congruent, be honest, be yourself. Your therapy consists of re-finding your self and who you really are;

6. Idols of Zeus (Authority, Power, Title): Don't be fooled by, or fool others, using a mantle of exploitive authority, power, and/or title. The best leaders can both talk with wisdom and charisma while listening to the wisdom of others. The worst leaders have a self-inflated opinion of themselves and can talk, even act with power and/or violence but they can't listen, and they don't care about others. They are strictly for themselves. Your therapy here consists of 100 hours of community work to try to help cure your self-inflated narcissism. Helping others -- altruism -- is what you are trying to learn here, and truly caring about others;

7. Idols of The Word: Don't be fooled or fool others using a web of words that don't mean what they claim to mean, or you claim them to mean. If your words don't fit your meaning, then perhaps its time to go back to Grade 1, go back to 'the pointing game', or 'the fitting game', show that your words reflect your actions, and your actions reflect your words. To the extent that they don't -- your words are fraudulent and the more you use them this way, the more of a fraud your whole person is. Your therapy consists of going back to square one and making your actions fit your words and visa versa;

8. Idols of Apollo: Don't spend your whole life following the God of Righteousness -- i.e., Apollo -- because it will create for you a one-sided life. You need to show tolerance and non-jugment at times also. This is your therapy -- to practise being 'non-righteous';

9. Idols of Dionysus: Don't get lost in the pursuit of hedonism, narcissism, pleasure, sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, partying, the fast life (Your therapy -- maybe practise Budhism or abstinence for a while, see what it is like to live without your addiction, what you are scared of, and how you can overcome this;

10. Idols of Aphrodite: Don't get lost in -- or consumed by -- love. It will throw everything else in your life out of balance and leave you weak and vulnerable to loss, betrayal, abandonment, rejection -- if you fall in love too easily with the person who is going to create a self-fulling prophecy and your worst nightmare for you. You need to stay grounded, develop your own strengths and not 'project Gods' onto everyone you meet. Your therapy is to imagine that you yourself are the God for a while...;

11. Idols of War (The Greek God, Aries): Don't get caught up in -- and consumed by war. It will eat you up and destroy you. You think that you can destroy your enemies but for every new person who you kill, you are probably creating at least a handful of new enemies. Your therapy lies in developing 'creative ways of negotiating towards win-win solutions', not seeing everyone as your potential enemy -- and treating him or her like it, making your world a more dangerous place than it needs to be;

12. Idols of Hades (God of The Underworld): Don't get caught up and lost in illicit and/or illegal activities. It will bring on your self-destruction perhaps faster than anything else, particularly if you are nurturing hate, power, revenge, and violence. What goes around will eventually come around. You will get yours in the end...What was that Martin Luther King quote that Obama liked so much -- something like...'The cosmic arc is long but bends towards justice'.;

13. Idols of Speed (The Greek God, Hermes): Don't get caught up in, and consumed by speed. Live in the fast lane, die in the fast lane.

14. Idols of Athena (Goddess of Patriotism): Patriotism can be a dangerous thing if you get too caught up, and consumed by it. It breeds righteosness and intolerance -- 'It's my way or the highway'. You will eventually distance yourself, alienate, and/or be subsumed by more powerful groups than you that don't buy your 'patriotic lines';

15. Idols of Hera (Goddess and Protector of Marriage): Marriage can be a beautiful thing but it can also be a strifeful thing. Don't completely lose yourself -- and your identity -- in marriage. Be the person you always were. Develop your own talents and potential even as the two of you seek to evolve together in the relationship. Flexibility and tolerance is important -- and not 'couping each other up in tight boxes that you both suffocate in' (or one person suffocates in by submitting to the other's domination). Win-win negotiatins in marriage are essential;

16. Idols of Narcissus (God of Self-Idolation): Don't become so absorbed in yourself that you can't see the people around you and their own trials and tribulations. In the myth of Narcissus, Narcissus looked into a pool of water, saw his reflection, and fell in love with himself. Be sensitive to the needs, want, feelings, thoughts, and problems of others. This is your therapy.

These are the 'idols of extremism' and DGB Post-Hegelian Dialectic-Democratic Philosophy-Psychology seeks to pull every one away from their 'planet of extremism' and back intoto their 'self-mediating energy centre and life-balancing energy of the sun'. The planets always need to come back to the energy of the sun.

And so it is with 'personality' and 'lifestyle' extremes.

Come back young man or woman, come back, to the warmth and mediating energy of the sun. You need to be not too close to the sun but not too far away from the sun either.

'Health' is generally half-way between bi-polar forms of psycho, physio, and/or philosophical pathology on each opposite extreme side.

-- dgb, Sept. 11th, 2008.

Faceoff: Wittgenstein vs. DGB Philosophy: Part 1 -- What is Philosophy?

2008-08-30T04:29:00.000-07:00

I changed the title a bit on this essay. At first, it was called 'Deconstructing Wittgenstein' whereas now it is called 'Faceoff: Wittgenstein vs. DGB Philosophy: Part 1 - What is Philosophy?'.

I think I will run with this 'Faceoff' idea for the remainder of 'Hegel's Hotel'. The more I can contrast the style, the contents, the process, and the ideas of DGB Philosophy with other known philosophers, the more it helps to define and describe DGB Philosophy as having its own unique place in the sun, located somewhere in the 'gaps' between these other known philosophies and philosophers.

DGB Philosophy is basically a mutation, and the evolutionary product of 2600 years of Western philosophy -- and some Eastern philosophy too ('yin', 'yang', Daoism, some little known philosophy papers by Mao tse Tung which are great papers, even though the man himself was a sociopath who didn't care one iota about how many people died under his leadership -- a collision of the highest order in terms of 'incongruence' between 'philosophical idealism' and 'political realism').

Philosophy, in my opinion, has a bad rap, a bad steretype -- both inside and outside the universities. The stereotype as I see it is one of bearded professors, snoring students -- and 'philosophical mind games' -- i.e., let's see what kind of logical contortions we can put your mind through today? There is also the stereotype of philosophy being something that is practised from 'the head up' and/or a form of 'mind and body relaxation process -- like the theory and practise of Budhism -- where we try to escape from the stresses of our day-to-day urban rat race'.

I remember five years back or so I went into downtown Toronto to check out a 'School of Philosophy' around Spadina and Bloor. I met with the receptionist and asked what kind of philosophy they taught there. They reinforced the stereotype -- or at least my stereotype of the way philosophy is often taught and presented to students and the general public. I can't remember exactly what the receptionist said, but the gist of it ran something like this. They taught a 'philosophy of soothing stressed out souls' -- kind of like an Eastern, Budhist style of philosophy, a philosophy of meditation, taking your brain to soothing places to relieve it from the day's stressful 'rat race'.

I said that's fine -- but do you teach any Hegel or Nietzsche? What about 'social activist, post-modern, deconstructive' philosophy -- do you teach any of that?

Paraphrasing the receptionist: 'No, we don't teach that kind of philosophy. You have to go somewhere else for that type of philosophy.'

DGB: 'Okay. Thank you.'

Now, 'meditative philosophy' is not where this brain wants to go to...I'm a social activist deep down at heart, even though I've never spent a minute in a social activist group -- other than in the board room of the 'Progressive Canadian Party' here in Newmarket, Ontario. I spent about a year attending their meetings -- a squashed version of the old Progressive Conservative Party that didn't want to merge with The Reform Party. They continue to practise 'PWP' -- Politics Without Power' -- and I decided I could practise 'PWMP' -- Politics With More Power' -- right here at my computer chair without moving a leg from my living room. It's not that I'm lazy or that I didn't like part of the process of being involved in a 'political-social-activist' group; it's just that I hated the group's decision-making inefficiency and felt like i could move my own philosophical and political agenda along faster within the confines of my own blogsite than listen to a group of people that couldn't get their heads together and move together with any kind of quality and efficieny -- in the same direction. Call it one of the drawbacks of 'democracy' if you will, but call it also a lesson in 'group inefficiency'. Regardless, I wanted to move in a different direction. Today, the direction is Ludwig Wittgenstein:

..................................................................................

From Wikipedia...

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.[1] His influence has been wide-ranging and he is generally regarded as one of the twentieth century's most important philosophers.

Before his death at the age of 62,[2] the only book-length work Wittgenstein had published was the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Philosophical Investigations, which Wittgenstein worked on in his later years, was published shortly after he died. Both of these works are regarded as highly influential in analytic philosophy.[3][4]

.....................................................................................

DGB: Now I am not here to 'bust egos and intellects' -- well, partly I am -- with allegedly one of the greatest intellects of the 20th century. I fancy myself as having a good, healthy intellect but nothing up around the '160 IQ' range -- to the extent that 'IQ measurements' say anything meaningful about intelligence. (You can be the most intelligent guy or girl in the room but if you don't do anything meaningful with it -- for yourself and/or others -- then what good is it? A gift from God, un-utilized?)

My self-stated job as a philosopher is to ground philosophy in clarity, common sense, rational-empiricism, integration, humanistic-existentialism (compassion, freedom, assertiveness, personal/social/group accountability...), and functional practicality (utility).

Relative to Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein, my self-stated job is to bring the reins in on him to some extent, to catch him in his own philosopohical hypocrisies, and to in effect say: 'Woah, Mr Wittgenstein -- slow down here. I don't care how much mind-bending logic you throw at me, you are not going to convince me -- like you did Bertrand Russell, according to at least one source (John Heaton, Introducing Wittgenstein, 1994, 2005, Penguin Books, Canada, Totem (Icon) Books, the USA) that 'there is a hippo in my living room'... There is a point at which philosophy needs to come back to earth and meet common sense -- even defer to common sense -- and that point is here and now.'

.............................................................................

DGB: I am going to use John Heaton as my 'interpreting guide' to Wittgenstein. We are going to aim to teach and practise 'DGB KISS Philosophy' here -- Keep It Simple, Stupid.

..................................................................................

Wittgenstein: The purpose of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. (Introducing Wittgenstein, pg. 40).

DGB: Philosophy -- at least DGB Philosophy -- is about much, much more than the logical clarification of thoughts. The clarification of thoughts is very important but philosophy is also about 'putting good thoughts into action': it is about demonstrating passion and compassion towards people (humanism); it is about being accountable for our own freedom -- or perceived lack of it -- and at least partly accountable for the effect that our actions have on others (humanistic-existentialism). Furthermore, relative to logic, logic can be a useless and/or even dangerous tool in the mind of the wrong person -- just like 'statistics' that can be used to support or denounce any thesis and/or brand of ideology. Again, logic needs to be grounded in common sense, rational-empiricism, humanistic-existentialism, pragmatism and functionality, dialectic-democracy, and divorced from the context of narcissistic, malicious, dictatorial people in order to be worth giving any degree of philosophical credibility to it. And again, logic should not be used to play 'non-sensical mind games' -- unless that is the explicit, agreed upon goal of the 'mental exercise' -- with all due respect, it should not be used to try to convince anyone -- Bertrand Russell, I'm a bit disappointed in you -- that 'there is a hippo in anyone's room' unless someone can empirically (observationally) verify it, and/or the room is in a 'zoo', and/or the room is large enough -- including the door -- to actually contain a hippo, and/or the room is actually in a country where hippos are known to exist...You get my drift...

.................................................................................

Wittgenstein: Philosophy is not a teaching but an activity.

DGB: Then why did Wittgenstein teach? Because he was hired to help students learn the dynamics of the types of cerebral activities that he did very well -- and was being paid to pass on to them. Having said this, additional clarification is needed relative to the goals of DGB Philosophy. Philosophy is a 'multi-dialectic integrative activity' that can be constructed in the shape of a 'six-sided figure': 1. sensual-empirical activity (primarily observation and personal experience); 2. cerebral activity (involving a combination of language, meaning, epistemology, and ethics); 3. emotional activity (involving hopefully a combination of passion and compassion for your own creative, self-assertiveness, as well as a passion and compassion for the well-being of other people); 4. behavioral activity (involving putting all your 'good' thoughts into action -- with lots of room to argue over the meaning of the word 'good'), with the evolving support functions of: 5. teaching (someone knowing what they are doing and being excited about the opportunity of passing what they know onto others); and 6. learning ('You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.' Similarily, you can lead a student to a philosophy class but you can't make him or her learn unless he or she wants to learn.)

That makes this six-sided figure a 'sexagon' -- which I am sure will wake students up and make them quite happy -- or, I guess that should be 'hexagon' -- having corrected myself from the internet; previously snoring philosophy students can go back to sleep again.

.....................................................................................

Wittgenstein: A philosophical work consists mainly of elucidations.

DGB: When Wittgenstein wrote: 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus', I'm not sure who he thought he was elucidating -- except himself. I get stuck on the title (which I believe I read was named in reference to a work by Spinoza). Essentially, no-one could understand him. He couldn't get a publisher without the credibility and help of Bertrand Russell. And I'm not sure how much he understood the book. Wittgenstein himself wrote in his preference: 'It's purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.' This hardly seems like a work that is aimed at 'elucidating' and 'clarifying' ideas for readers. This seems to make up a good part of the paradox -- dare I say 'elucidating hypocrisy' -- that makes up Wittgenstein and his philosophy.

When I first started writing DGB Philosophy, my dad used to complain that he couldn't understand a thing I was writing -- and my dad is an intelligent man. Way too much 'techno-garble'. This was a few years ago. I have since tried to simplify my writing, eliminate much of my own techno-garble, and make my work more reader-friendly. I still wanted/want my work to be academically important and of a scholarly nature but with some educational and entertainment compromises for my intelligent lay readers and beginning philosophy students in the name of trying to make my work feel less dry than the Sahara desert.

All philosophical works could/can use a little -- if not a lot -- of Nietzschean fire, excitement, and passion. I like Fritz Perls as a writer who in my opinion was a modern day version of Nietzsche.

...................................................................................

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fritz Perls
Born July 8, 1893(1893-07-08)
Berlin, Germany
Died March 14, 1970 (aged 76)
Chicago
Occupation psychiatrist and psychotherapist
Spouse(s) Laura Perls
Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls (July 8 1893, Berlin – March 14, 1970, Chicago), better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent.

He coined the term 'Gestalt Therapy' for the approach to therapy he developed with his wife Laura Perls from the 1940s, and he became associated with the Esalen Institute in California in 1964. His approach is related but not identical to Gestalt psychology and the Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy of Hans-Jürgen Walter.

At Gestalt Therapy's core is the promotion of awareness, the awareness of the unity of all present feelings and behaviors, and the contact between the self and its environment.

Perls has been widely evoked outside the realm of psychotherapy for a quotation often described as the "Gestalt prayer". This was especially true in the 1960s, when the version of individualism it expresses received great attention.

Gestalt prayer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The "Gestalt prayer" is a 56-word statement by psychotherapist Fritz Perls that is taken as a classic expression of Gestalt therapy as way of life model of which Dr. Perls was a founder.

The key idea of the statement is the focus on living in response to one's own needs, without projecting onto or taking introjects from others. It also expresses the idea that it is by fulfilling their own needs that people can help others do the same and create space for genuine contact; that is, when they "find each other, it's beautiful".

Text of "prayer"

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.
(Fritz Perls, 1969)

...............................................................................

Wittgenstein: The result of philosophy is not 'philosophical propositions, but the clarification of propositions. Philosophy should take thoughts that are otherwise turbid and blurred, so to speak, and make them clear and sharp. (Tractatus, 4.112; Introducing Wittgenstein, pg 40).

DGB: I would argue -- I am arguing -- that, in Tractatus, Wittgenstein took a host of intertwined ideas that had the potential to be stated clearly and sharply -- and made them turbid and blurred. DGB Philosophy aims to cut through the smoke and mirrors of the Tractatus and get to what has the potential to be stated more simply, more clearly, and more functionally usefully (i.e., importantly). My main mentor here is Alfred Korzybski, author of 'Science and Sanity', and founder of 'General Semantics'. Personally, I believe that Korzybski was the better linguist, semanticist, and epistemologist -- in fact, I would argue that Korzybski was the best -- and most under-rated -- epistemologist in the history of Western philosophy. The two -- Wittgenstein and Korzybski -- were philosophizing and writing during almost the same period, they wrote about many of the same things, and I cannot believe that there was not some amount of either 'one-sided' or 'mutual, dialectical' influence going on here. More research is needed.

................................................................................

From Wikipedia...

Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (pronounced /kɔ'ʐɨpski/) (July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950), was called, among many labels, a Polish-American, philosopher and scientist. He is most remembered for developing the theory of general semantics.

..............................................................................

DGB: ...I could do a better introduction on Korzybski than this...and will do so at a future time. The Wikipedia introduction only underscores my point that Korzybski deserves more philosophical attention than he is currently getting. Korzybski influened the development of a number of significant psychotherapies today including Gestalt Therapy and various forms of Cognitive Therapy...)

.................................................................................

We will come back to Wittgenstein again shortly and discuss/critique his ideas concerning:

1. The relationship between philosophy and science;

2. His theory of the relationship between: words, meaning, phenomena, and epistemology.

I think we have accomplished enough for today. I'm not sure if this essay is better or worse than the one I wrote yesterday but it shares the same basic focus and theme.

Don't talk about clarity -- and leave us chasing the moon.

(Or looking for phantom hippos in our room -- although we, as independent philosophers, need to take at least half the responsibility here if we are actually so stupid as to allow ourselves to get caught up in this type of nonsense and seriously start looking for them.)

If the argument defies both our empirical senses and our common sense -- then exit the argument. Someone's playing with our head. It's a 'mind game' designed to drive us to drink and/or shake your very sanity. I still can't believe Russell let Wittgenstein take him there.

Shame on you, Bertrand! You were a great philosopher -- you have many, many things to feel very proud of -- but Ludwig must have been slipping you some funny stuff in your coffee on this one. How else could he have taken you for such a magic carpet ride?

For everyone else, alive and ticking, have yourselves all a clear and sharp, rational-empirical, humanistic-existential, common-sense day!

-- dgb, July 19th, 2008. modified Aug. 30th, 2008.

The DGB Sixteen Mythological Idols of Philosophical Extremism (Building From Sir Francis Bacon's Four Idols)

2008-08-29T05:38:00.001-07:00

1. Idols of The Tribe or The Crowd: Don't get caught up and lost in the ideas and behaviors of the crowd or the 'herd' as Nietzsche would put it;

2. Idols of The Cave: Don't get caught up and lost within yourself. If or when you do, come back out of yourself, and reach out to a person and/or people;

3. Idols of The Sky (The Greek God, Uranus): Come back to earth young man or woman, come back to earth and re-gound yourself;

4. Idols of The Earth (in Greek mythology, the goddess Gaea): Take a risk young man or woman, take a risk! Fly high into the sky and see how high you can soar;

5. Idols of The Theatre, The Magician, or The Sophist: Don't be fooled by others using sophistry, illusion, smoke and mirrors; and similarily, don't fool others using sophistry, illusion, smoke and mirrors. Be congruent, be honest, be yourself;

6. Idols of Zeus (Authority, Power, Title): Don't be fooled by, or fool others, using a mantle of exploitive authority, power, and/or title;

7. Idols of The Word: Don't be fooled or fool others using a web of words that don't mean what they claim to mean, or you claim them to mean;

8. Idols of Apollo: Don't spend your whole life following the God of Righteousness -- i.e., Apollo -- because it will create for you a one-sided life;

9. Idols of Dionysus: Don't get lost in the pursuit of hedonism, narcissism, pleasure, sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, partying, the fast life;

10. Idols of Aphrodite: Don't get lost in -- or consumed by -- love. It will throw everything else in your life out of balance and leave you weak and vulnerable to loss, betrayal, abandonment, rejection -- except perhaps to only the person or people you most trust, and even this is dangerous, because things can change, people can change;

11. Idols of War (The Greek God, Aries): Don't get caught up in -- and consumed by war;

12. Idols of Hades (God of The Underworld): Don't get caught up and lost in illicit and/or illegal activities. It will bring on your self-destruction;

13. Idols of Speed (The Greek God, Hermes): Don't get caught up in, and consumed by speed. Live in the fast lane, die in the fast lane.

14. Idols of Athena (Goddess of Patriotism): Patriotism can be a dangerous thing if you get too caught up, and consumed by it;

15. Idols of Hera (Goddess and Protector of Marriage): Marriage can be a beautiful thing but it can also be a strifeful thing. Don't completely lose yourself -- and die -- in marriage.

16. Idols of Narcissus (God of Self-Idolation): Don't become so absorbed in yourself that you can't see the people around you and their own trials and tribulations. In the myth of Narcissus, Narcissus looked into a pool of water, saw his reflection, and fell in love with himself. Be sensitive to the needs, want, feelings, thoughts, and problems of others.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)...From The Internet

2008-08-24T04:44:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia...

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban KC QC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, and author. He is also known as a catalyst of the scientific revolution. Bacon was knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618, and created Viscount St Alban in 1621; without heirs, both peerages became extinct upon his death.
.......................................................................

From The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Sir Francis Bacon (later Lord Verulam and the Viscount St. Albans) was an English lawyer, statesman, essayist, historian, intellectual reformer, philosopher, and champion of modern science. Early in his career he claimed “all knowledge as his province” and afterwards dedicated himself to a wholesale revaluation and re-structuring of traditional learning. To take the place of the established tradition (a miscellany of Scholasticism, humanism, and natural magic), he proposed an entirely new system based on empirical and inductive principles and the active development of new arts and inventions, a system whose ultimate goal would be the production of practical knowledge for “the use and benefit of men” and the relief of the human condition.

At the same time that he was founding and promoting this new project for the advancement of learning, Bacon was also moving up the ladder of state service. His career aspirations had been largely disappointed under Elizabeth I, but with the ascension of James his political fortunes rose. Knighted in 1603, he was then steadily promoted to a series of offices, including Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613), and eventually Lord Chancellor (1618). While serving as Chancellor, he was indicted on charges of bribery and forced to leave public office. He then retired to his estate where he devoted himself full time to his continuing literary, scientific, and philosophical work. He died in 1626, leaving behind a cultural legacy that, for better or worse, includes most of the foundation for the triumph of technology and for the modern world as we currently know it.

The Four Idols of Sir Francis Bacon

2008-08-24T04:32:00.000-07:00

Faceoff: Kant vs. DGB Philosophy Re-visited

2008-08-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

This essay was written about 9 months ago and then just re-written a couple of weeks ago (August 9th, 2008). Now, I am re-addressing the essay for a third time and this essay eliminates the last two. Perhaps with an evolving better and better knowledge of Kant in the months or years to come, I will have to rewrite this essay again at some future point.

Time will tell but hopefully this essay will stand the test of time for a while. It is based on new and conflicting information I just recently read about Kant from the internet. Interpretation is critically important -- it creates the foundation for our evaluations and actions. Different interpretation; different evaluation.

Also, the credibility of the author is at stake here. Just as you must reasonably ask the question: How well do I know Kant and what he believed? -- similarily, I must ask the same 'credibility' question of the author I am reading who is interpreting Kant. Because, obviously, if I am taking the author as being a credible Kantian source, then it may mean the difference between my making a 'left turn' and making a 'right turn' in terms of the way I interpret and evaluate Kant. One way makes me a 'post-Kantian epistemologist' whereas the other way makes me an 'anti-Kantian epistemologist'. That is a big difference.

This is where a Kantian scholar -- or any person seriously concerned with epistemological accuracy -- would insist on 'proper references' -- and rightly so.

The critical 'new interpretation' for me lies in this sentence here:

The path to resolving the paradoxes of Kant's theory opens up with two basic realizations: (1) Kant always believed that reason connected us directly to things-in-themselves, and (2) Kant's system is not a Cartesian theory of hidden, transcendent objects, but a version of empirical realism, that we are directly acquainted with real objects.

It can be found if you google Kant and read the essay that is now second from the top...The essay appears scholarly and knowledgeable but no author is listed -- which raises some degree of suspicion relative to its credibility. I will search other credible sources to verify and/or contradict what is being said here...

For years now, I have tried not to get dragged too deeply into the world of Kant -- because I could get lost in there forever and I have so many other things I still want to write about -- but I can feel myself starting to dig -- or be dragged in -- deeper. At least a decent knowledge of Kant is important for the credibility of my own presentation of DGB Epistemology -- and DGB Philosophy as a whole. Kant's epistemology -- as well as his philosophy as a whole -- was a major turning point in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy, influencing Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer and other major philosophers in major ways. One of my readers has even said -- rightly so by the looks of things -- that there would have been no Hegelian dialectical philosophy if it was not for Hegel leading him in this direction. Other essays and references obviously look like they will be needed here... And -- God forbid -- I may (will) have to read sinificant parts of 'The Critique of Pure Reason' myself.

-- dgb, Aug. 23rd, 2008.

...............................................................................

From Wikipedia...on the internet...see Kant...

Immanuel Kant (IPA: [ɪmanuəl kant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and of the late Enlightenment.

His most important work is the Critique of Pure Reason, a critical investigation of reason itself. It encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics and epistemology, and highlights Kant's own contribution to these areas. The other main works of his maturity are the Critique of Practical Reason, which concentrates on ethics, and the Critique of Judgement, which investigates aesthetics and teleology.

Kant’s metaphysical and epistemological priorities were to find out whether metaphysics, the science of ultimate reality, is possible. He asked if an object has certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can only think in terms of causality -- which he concluded that it does -- then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this, that it is possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, and so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside of experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. And so the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind.[1]

In this sense, Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists and the rationalists. The former, according to Kant, believe that knowledge necessarily comes from experience, and that experience can yield only imperfect laws of nature, that past events do not predict future events. Therefore, there is no sound foundation for science. Knowledge of our selves, the external world and causality are off limits. The latter believed that reason alone provides us with certain truths that can provide a sound foundation for science. Kant said we can know some things through reason, but these things are only of how the world appears to us, and that the world we know is objective, compromising with the empiricists. But he also said that what we know through pure reason can only be applied to experience, and that it is through experience that we get most of our knowledge, compromising with the rationalists.

Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany while he was still alive, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists and empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer all saw themselves as correcting and expanding the Kantian system, thus bringing about German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental Philosophy.

..............................................................................

From Wikiquote...on the internet...see Kant...

Critique of Pure Reason (1787)

Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer. (Preface, A vii)

Abbot Terrasson tells us that if the size of a book were measured not by the number of its pages but by the time required to understand it, then we could say about many books that they would be much shorter were they not so short. (A xviii)

Criticism alone can sever the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which can be injurious universally; as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous chiefly to the Schools, and hardly allow of being handed on to the public. (Preface to 2nd edition, B xxxiv)

There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. (B 1)
The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space. (B 8)

Thoughts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. (B 75)
Sometimes paraphrased: "Concepts without percepts are empty, percepts without concepts are blind."

A plant, an animal, the regular order of nature—probably also the disposition of the whole universe—give manifest evidence that they are possible only by means of and according to ideas; that, indeed, no one creature, under the individual conditions of its existence, perfectly harmonizes with the idea of the most perfect of its kind—just as little as man with the idea of humanity, which nevertheless he bears in his soul as the archetypal standard of his actions; that, notwithstanding, these ideas are in the highest sense individually, unchangeably, and completely determined, and are the original causes of things; and that the totality of connected objects in the universe is alone fully adequate to that idea. (B 374)

Metaphysics has as the proper object of its enquiries three ideas only: God, freedom, and immortality. (B 395)

Human reason is by nature architectonic. (B 502)

Thus all human knowledge begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts, and ends with ideas. (B 730)

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope? (B 832-833)

.................................................................................

Kant vs. DGB Philosophy: Kant Re-visited

I will say this about Immanuel Kant: for me, he is the most difficult philosopher that I have ever had the cognitive pain -- or shall we say the cognitive exercise -- of trying to understand, of trying to figure out just exactly what he said and what he meant. Let us make the dualistic, and dialectic, distinction -- as Kant himself is most famously known for -- between: 1. Kant-the-person-in-himself-and-what-he-believed; vs. 2. my subjective understanding of the-either-knowable-and/or-unknowable-so-called-objective-Kant-and-what-he-believed.

Did you follow that distinction? This is as difficult as epistemology gets -- or at least it is where Kant took it, and where I am trying to follow. The 'subjective/objective' problem is arguably one of the two or three most difficult metaphysical problems in the history of philosophy. I put it right up there with the 'mind/body' dualism and the 'religion/atheism' dualism.

Now to be a 'dialectic philosopher' in the sense that I mean being a dialectic philosopher means that we seek to integrate or synthesize all dualities or apparent paradoxes/contradictions/polarities/conflicts/impasses. And so this is what we shall aim to do here.

Complicating the problem here, is the separate problem of 'sound and/or visual bites'.

I have read different authors -- different interpreters of Kant -- and come away with different interpretations of what Kant said and what he meant. This problem is critical to what we are trying to do here because if my understanding of Kant and what he said/meant is wrong, then everything that I write here is also wrong and subject to both re-interpretation and re-evaluation. Similarily, with anything I might have written previously about Kant and this same problem of the 'subjective/objective split'.

At the heart of the matter is this philosophical question: Can we directly know what is in our 'objective world'(Kant's outdated term for 'objective' was 'noumenal') and/or is it colored by the subjective nature of our own 'cognitive-evaluative processing brain-mind-psyche' -- specifically, the unique individual combination of our senses, percepts, power of reasoning/logic, understanding of 'causality', time, space, and structure, concepts, generalizations, abstractions, value-judgments...anything we use to help us (or hinder us) to better understand our 'objective world' and/or the 'thing-in-itself'?

This question -- the Kantian epistemological question -- encompasses two rather large 'semantic time-bombs' that turn the question into a 'epistemologist's living nightmare'. I think the question messed up a lot of people's minds back in Kant's day, as it is still at least partly doing today. Focus too hard on the question and your mind might explode. It will take you on one of those 'magic carpet rides' that I keep writing about relative to any philosopher who wants to 'fly high with you and not return you to the ground -- to the stability of the earth beneath your feet.' Certain philosophers -- to name a few -- Parmedines, Plato, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein... -- have been very good at taking us on 'fly-high-with-me-magic carpet rides'. When reading them -- if we are dialectically bound by the cognitive interplay between the sky and the earth, between the abstract and the concrete particularities, then there comes a time when we are reading these philosophers when we have to blow the whistle on them, and tell them to either take us back to earth again -- or we are taking over the controls. Back to earth we go.

The crux of the semantic problem with the Kantian epistemological question are these two words: Can we directly know...?

That is the semantically loaded, time-bomb part of the question -- the part that will quite possibly drive you to drink, take you over the deep end, and/or cognitively blow your mind, if you focus too hard on it, and you don't see the potential 'double meaning contradiction' in the question.

Kant's epistemological question is very simlar to this one: Is the glass half full or half empty -- which is it?

If you fall for the question -- then you have been epistemologically trapped -- with no way out of this apparent epistemological conundrum.

Back up a moment -- and approach the question properly -- and you can become untrapped.

You answer the epistemological question the same way you answer the 'half-full, half-empty drink' question.

It depends on your perspective.

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

Are you a Humean epistemological skeptic and pessimist; or are you a Hegelian epistemological idealist?

Or are you a Bainian multi-dialectic 'skeptic-pessimist-optimist'?; a Bainian multi-dialectic 'epistemological realist-idealist'?

Let's look at it this way. Every person's sensory-perceptual-conceptual-evaluative system is different -- and some are better than others. But even this is relative over time. Let me explain.

When I was 20 years old I could hit an 80 mile an hour fastball. Today, I would be lucky to hit a 50 mile an hour fastball.

What's changed? The efficiency of my senses have changed. At 20 years old, my eyesight was 20/20. It certainly isn't today. In the words of one dominant scientific theory today, 'oxidation' has eroded the sensorary efficiency of my eyes relative to the biological function they are supposed to be performing for purposes of my survival. I made better 'sensory maps' of my environment back when I was 20 than I do now.

So to answer Kant's epistemological question in a way that I don't know whether he would have agreed with me or not (He would have been confused by the 'baseball analogy' because baseball hadn't been invented yet.) -- I say, we can partly directly, partly indirectly, know our objective world through our imperfect senses, some people of whom have better sensory systems than others, all of us subject to the oxidation and erosion of our senses over time, and all of us subject to the very imperfect and narcissistically biased nature of our logical-reasoning-evaluation process as well.

Thus, in relative to any particular situation, our 'epistemological glass' may range anywhere from 'almost completely empty' (no knowledge and/or very bad knowledge) to 'almost completely full' (very good knowledge). To change the analogy a bit here, based on the quality of our epistemological knowledge relative to a particular situaion, we could be running on a relatively full tank of gas or a relatively empty one.

Now on the other side of the 'younger vs. older' polarity -- an epistemological polarity that is very relavent to the Obama vs. McCain election competition -- I'd have to say that my overall experience and knowledge is much superior now to what it was when I was 20. It usually comes down to this: the younger the adult we are, the greater our energy level and sensory efficiency is; whereas the older we are, the greater our experience, knowledge, and wisdom is likely to be -- at least until our cognitive faculties start to seriously erode.

In Obama's defense, as others have pointed out before me, more experience does not always lead to better judgment.

And then -- like a dirty shirt -- there is always the factor of 'narcissistic bias'.

This is where Nietzsche's version of 'relativistic, post-modern, deconstructive epistemology' comes into effect.

For many of us, we hold up 'scientists' and 'doctors' as being our 'epistemological idols'. However, if a particular pharmaceutical company is a paying a particular scientist or group of scientists a lot of money to present a particular 'epistemological position' to the FDA or to the general public regarding the 'safety' of a particular medication -- and this 'epistemological position' is tainted/corrupted/pathologized by 'conflict of interest' -- the money the scientist is getting -- then obviously this type of 'epistemological knowledge is worse than useless, it's downright dangerous, and criminal.

This priniciple of 'narcissistic bias' and 'conflict of interest' also applies to philosophers who are being paid and/or threatened by kings and/or religious institutions; it applies equally to politicians who are being paid, directly or indirectly, a great deal of money by lobbyists who are lobbying for something important that they want (usually at the expense of the general public); and it applies equally to people who are paid or cajoled into 'altering the information on passports and birth certificates' which again reflects all of the following: narcissisic bias, conflict of interest, and 'cheating' and/or criminal intent.

From an epistemological and a narcissistic bias point of view, there is a lot less to worry about in the question: What are you sitting on? (A chair.) than there is in the question: Were the Chinese gymnasts under 16 years old? (Let's just say that probably like most of the rest of you, I have my strong suspicions that narcissistic bias has probably raised its ugly side, and had its dominant power influence -- again. We shall see what unfolds. Who was it Bonds, Palmeiro...? 'No, I've never taken steroids -- or at least knowingly. How about unknowingly, then? I know -- you thought you were taking vitamins. Or maybe you didn't want to destroy your career -- and your chances at the hall of fame and being a baseball legend -- by admitting to what you knew you were taking? How about that one? That one fits for me.)

Call me a 'post-Kantian' if you wish. Or maybe partly or mainly -- an 'anti-Kantian'. It depends on how you interpret Kant and his famous/infamous 'Critique of Pure Reason'.

For myself -- I've done enough interpreting for today.

-- dgb, Aug. 23rd, 2008.

Evaluation and Health -- David Bain, 1979

2008-06-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

Preface

This is my honors thesis, written in 1979 for my degree in psychology at the University of Waterloo. It was written for one of my professors, a cognitive-behavioral psychologist, who shared my interest at the time of the research I had already been exposed to, and started to do from high school, in the area of General Semantics. At the time, I wanted to take my studies in General Semantics to a higher level, integrating it with my studies in cognitive therapy and psychotherapy in general on one side of things, and with my studies in humanism (Erich Fromm mainly), which was just starting to lead me in the direction of existentialism -- and humanistic-existentialism, on the other side of things.

At this point in time, I had not yet been seriously exposed to Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy, nor Alfred Adler and Adlerian Psychology, nor Freud and Psychoanalysis, nor Carl Jungand Jungian Psychology, nor Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis, nor Friedrich Nietzsche -- nor the primary integrator of all these great psychologist-philosopohers -- Georg Hegel.

..................................................................................
The value judgments we make determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and happiness. -- Erich From

Words and Their Meaning/Depression

2008-06-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hi Dave,

Words and their Meaning: An excellent topic for an essay. So often in conversations, you wonder if the other person received the gist of what you were trying to communicate. Many times, it's clear that they did not. There is also the case where an explanation is given and even though the other person says that they understand you, you know clearly that they could not possibly fully understand, because they have not walked in your shoes.

No matter what descriptive words you try to draw upon...The meanings of your words don't match up with the other persons experience's, or, simply fall short, expressing an emotion, feeling or thought. Then along comes someone who has walked in your shoes, and they can actually complete your sentences, as they know first hand the feelings, the words, the intention of your thoughts and communication. Or, maybe, you find another who you just click with, they have the ability to lay the foundation of easy back and forth flow. It's Amazing!

Words, meanings, communication, the willingness to engage in dialectic, and the acceptance that sometimes the other person doesn't get our meaning, for many reasons - they just don't have the same understanding.

***Narcissism was a great example for your essay. Over the past few days, I have thought about your entry on 'Depression.' I like it a lot. I think back on some of my experiences and awareness's. I recognize that depression can sometimes be chemical but most often, it boils down to choices and /or decisions, eventually, even in the case of grief. The choice/decision to live or die. The choice/decision to be negative,sad, angry etc.. OR, not, and PUSH towards a life with happiness, joy, intrigue etc.

It doesn't matter what hardship has put you in the emotional gutter - The decision needs to be made to climb out. The 'push'...towards more existential awareness, contact, meaning, and value... as you've stated. Different issues take various amounts of time landing at the same conclusion - as long as we always end up landing in the best place...

Noreen.

Words and Their Meaning: Example -- 'Narcissism'

2008-06-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone has ever really looked at words from this light before but words are an ongoing process of 'dialectical negotiations, integrations, and compromises'. In this regard, words evolve too -- just like animals, people, cultures, and ideas... Indeed, words have to evolve to keep up with a constantly changing world.

In this regard, words have both a 'narcissistic' and a 'social' function -- and they are 'compromise-formations' aimed at meeting both functions at the same time. In this regard also, words have both a range and focus of different 'narcissistic meanings' for the same and different people; and at the same time, they have a range and focus of different 'social meanings' that are used within a particular 'social context' depending on the particular culture and/or sub-culture, the country, the region, the municipality, the community, the sub-community, the school of kids, the gang, etc. Meanings can change significantly within all of these different social contexts -- and within the context of one particular person using one particular word in one particular sentence and paragraph at one particular time. When it comes to the meaning of words -- narcissistic and social context means everything. Words -- and their meaning -- are very slippery things.

This is why you have politicians, sports athletes, entertainers, public speakers and the like constantly complaining about 'sound bites' -- and the assertion that they have been taken 'out of context'. The politiciaan, athlete, actor, or public speaker may have a particular message he or she wishes to convey to the community -- the particular journalist may or may not have an 'underhanded agenda to create a provocative, controversial story' -- and the public figure is left 'crying foul' after the story has been written and/or the newsclip is shown on tv, Now partly or mainly, the 'communication problem' may be of the speaker's own making -- a careless use of words, an easy to draw inference from something a speaker seems to be implying (I am thinking about Hillary Clinton's reference to Robert Kennedy's assassination), a 'joke' that is not funny and/or that is alluding to but partly hiding a serious statement beneath it, an abstract word or sentence that can be taken in more than one way..and so on..

Freud may use the word 'narcissism', Kohut may use the word narcissism, I may use the word narcissism -- and it can be practically guaranteed that we will all have a partly similar, partly different, range and focus of meaning for this word -- and again, meaning in each of our individual cases will be 'contextually bound'. We may mean one thing by it in a particular sentence, and something else, slightly or significantly different in a different sentence, a different paragraph, a different essay. There will likely be a particular range of social meaning that will bind all of these individual meanings together into 'one house of social meaning' if you will but within this one house of social menaing it is still very appropriate and relevant to ask the questions: What does Freud mean by 'narcissism'? What does Kohut mena by narcissism? What does Bain mean by 'narcissism'? And what does Freud or Kohut or Bain mean by 'narcissism' in this particular context here? These are all very relevant questions when it comes to the relationship between words and meaning...

Sticking to the same word and its meaning -- narcissism --
we could again quite appropriately and significantly ask the question(s):

Does narcissism include the 'word-concept-phenomenon' (wcp) of 'hedonism'? 'Pleasure'? 'Assertiveness'? 'Aggressiveness'? 'Sensuality'? 'Sexuality'? 'Selfishness'? 'Egotism'? 'Greed'? 'Power'? 'Revenge'? 'Sadism'? The 'pursuit of money'? . 'Survival'?

In every case, I would answer -- 'yes'. But here is the kicker -- Freud and Kohut would probably each answer partly differently.

Is 'altruism' narcissistic? No -- unless it involves 'conditional giving'. Is 'approval-seeking' narcissistic? Perhaps partly. There may be a sense in which we may believe that we 'need' another person's approval in order to 'survive' or in order to get what we want. The same argument can be applied to both 'submission' and 'masochism'. A person may 'submit' because he or she thinks submission is necessary in order to survive -- or to keep one's husband or wife, or to keep one's job. And the same goes at least partly with 'masochism'. Masochism is a complicated subject addressed by Freud. I would have to go back over the material but it is most likely that I will express some agreements with Freud on this subject matter and some disaggrements. I can say right now that I believe that masochism presents a mixture of narcissistic and anti-narcissistic processes. There may be pleasure connected to the masochism. That is narcissistic. There usually involves the 'disownment' of self-assertiveness, self-integrity in masochism. That is 'anti-narcissistic'. Thus, masochism presents a mixture of narcissistic and anti-narcissistic activities.

Obviously, this discussion here is equally relevant to the subject of both 'words and meaning' -- and to the subject of 'narcissism'.

In my opinion, there is a responsibility on the part of both the writer and the reader, the speaker and the listener, to engage in these types of questions -- and their answers in order to clean up the possibility of 'referent confucsion' -- of not knowing what 'phenomenon' a word is referring to, and/or two people having different ideas, different phenomena, in mind when they use the same word.

Coming down the abstraction ladder -- and if necessary -- pointing at the 'real world phenomenon' we are talking about (see Korzybski, Wittgenstein) can significantly reduce this very common type of communication problem.

-- dgb, June 1st, 2008.

Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health

2008-05-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to do this for quite a while now, and avoiding it because it is a significant task that I have set before myself -- specifically, re-doing my Honours Thesis in Psychology which that I wrote almost 30 years ago.

The essay was primarily a work on language, epistemology, values, and health -- specifically, showing how the first three factors affected -- even largely determined -- the outcome of the fourth factor, mental, emotional, psychological, and physical -- health.

At the same time, my honours thesis was my first or second major swing at what today I am calling 'Hegel's Hotel' and/or 'DGB Philosophy'. In the 1980's, I called it 'Gap Psychology' as I learned and integrated important elements of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Transactional Analysis. In the 1990a I started calling it 'Gap Philosophy' or 'Gap Philosophy-Psychology' as I took Gap Psychology into the realm of philosophy and started studying the various philosophers that I viewed as relevant to my evolving work.
In the 1990s, I started calling my work 'DGB Philosophy' or 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' which still covertly retained part of the names of 'Gap Psychology' and 'Gap Philosophy' because the initials 'DGB', as well being the initials of my name, were also an anacronym for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy-Psychology. At one point in my writing, which will see in some of my essays, I even started calling it 'DGBN' Philosophy which stood for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'.

But Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy all started with this present-day rendition of my original Honours Thesis back in 1979 called 'Evaluation and Health'.

Looking back at it now, I see the work as having been very dry, stale, and mechancial -- I was trying to treat human epistemology and evaluation as an 'objective science' which it partly should be treated as an objective science -- just like what is supposed to happen in a court of law, and/or, for those of you who might be able to remember this far back, like in those old 'FBI' television shows (the 60s, 70s, maybe?) where the one detective would always say something to the extent of: 'Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.' The essay was kind of like science was during the 'Enlightenment Period' of the late 1700s and early 1800s before Nietzsche arrived on the scene and came at the apparently indestructible 'objective arrogancy' of Science and pulverized it with his philosophical wrecking ball -- which building on the work of Schopenhauer -- showed the world just how much every aspect of man's life -- his thinking, his feeling, his actions, and every aspect of his culture including religion and science -- is subjectively biased by by what Freud would later call 'human narcissism'.

That philosophical picture hasn't changed today. We cannot properly approach the study of epistemology without fully realizing that there is a world of difference separatedd by a major 'gap', 'chasm' or 'abys' between what we might want to call 'ideal human epistemology' ('Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.') and 'applied human epistemology' which quickly and quietly gets bent out of shape by the dominating influence and force of human narcissism and the resulting subjectivism and bias. One only has to listen to a 'he said, she said' argument to realize that 'ideal objective epistemology' has just been blown out the door.

It is becoming increasingly apparent to me by the moment that this network of essays to follow on 'Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health' is going to involve a huge re-making, modification and extrapolation of what I originally wrote in 1979. I cannot copy the old thesis, word for word, because I am no longer there. I have to take that old, dry, mechanical thesis and turn it into something more 'human', more interesting, and more relevant to Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology today as it is currently evolving in 2008. And to do that we will start our re-make of this work with a discussion on rationality and irrationality in man.

I think what I am saying here is that we need to move out of the realm of 'epistemology' and examine an overview model of the workings of man's whole psyche before we can properly come back to epistemology and do it full justice. I didn't expect to be doing this, but that's the way it is going to go down. You can find my next segment of essays in my 'Ten Most Recent Essays' section and/or the section on 'From Mythology to Personality Theory'. I hope to see you in either section before I come back here.

-- dgb, April 6th, 2008, modified and updated May 11th, 2008.

Evaluation and Health Re-visited: Introduction

2008-04-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to do this for quite a while now, and avoiding it because it is a significant task that I have set before myself -- specifically, re-doing my Honours Thesis in Psychology which that I wrote almost 30 years ago.

The essay was primarily a work on language, epistemology, values, and health -- specifically, showing how the first three factors affected -- even largely determined -- the outcome of the fourth factor, mental, emotional, psychological, and physical -- health.

At the same time, my honours thesis was my first or second major swing at what today I am calling 'Hegel's Hotel' and/or 'DGB Philosophy'. In the 1980's, I called it 'Gap Psychology' as I learned and integrated important elements of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Transactional Analysis. In the 1990a I started calling it 'Gap Philosophy' or 'Gap Philosophy-Psychology' as I took Gap Psychology into the realm of philosophy and started studying the various philosophers that I viewed as relevant to my evolving work.
In the 1990s, I started calling my work 'DGB Philosophy' or 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' which still covertly retained part of the names of 'Gap Psychology' and 'Gap Philosophy' because the initials 'DGB', as well being the initials of my name, were also an anacronym for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy-Psychology. At one point in my writing, which will see in some of my essays, I even started calling it 'DGBN' Philosophy which stood for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'.

But Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy all started with this present-day rendition of my original Honours Thesis back in 1979 called 'Evaluation and Health'.

Looking back at it now, I see the work as having been very dry, stale, and mechancial -- I was trying to treat human epistemology and evaluation as an 'objective science' which it partly should be treated as an objective science -- just like what is supposed to happen in a court of law, and/or, for those of you who might be able to remember this far back, like in those old 'FBI' television shows (the 60s, 70s, maybe?) where the one detective would always say something to the extent of: 'Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.' The essay was kind of like science was during the 'Enlightenment Period' of the late 1700s and early 1800s before Nietzsche arrived on the scene and came at the apparently indestructible 'objective arrogancy' of Science and pulverized it with his philosophical wrecking ball -- which building on the work of Schopenhauer -- showed the world just how much every aspect of man's life -- his thinking, his feeling, his actions, and every aspect of his culture including religion and science -- is subjectively biased by by what Freud would later call 'human narcissism'.

That philosophical picture hasn't changed today. We cannot properly approach the study of epistemology without fully realizing that there is a world of difference separatedd by a major 'gap', 'chasm' or 'abys' between what we might want to call 'ideal human epistemology' ('Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.') and 'applied human epistemology' which quickly and quietly gets bent out of shape by the dominating influence and force of human narcissism and the resulting subjectivism and bias. One only has to listen to a 'he said, she said' argument to realize that 'ideal objective epistemology' has just been blown out the door.

It is becoming increasingly apparent to me by the moment that this network of essays to follow on 'Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health' is going to involve a huge re-making, modification and extrapolation of what I originally wrote in 1979. I cannot copy the old thesis, word for word, because I am no longer there. I have to take that old, dry, mechanical thesis and turn it into something more 'human', more interesting, and more relevant to Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology today as it is currently evolving in 2008. And to do that we will start our re-make of this work with a discussion on rationality and irrationality in man.

-- dgb, April 6th, 2008.

Rationality and Irrationality in Man

2008-04-11T04:28:00.000-07:00

When I was coming to the end of my Honours Thesis in Psychology in 1979, the subject of energy and motivation was just starting to come up as I was winding down. I knew that there was a whole new world that I had to investigate in terms of man's psychology because man is not an 'automaton' or a 'machine' or a 'computer' -- even though in some ways man's mind certainly does function like a computer, or rather visa versa.

The computer operates much like man's brain with a 'processor', 'memory', and so on...But man is not a computer -- he doesn't always think rationally and logically and objectively like a computer -- rather, he is subject to massive motivational and emotional influences and biases that can easily stray him from the path of 'objective epistemology'. My work back in 1979 was largely a work aimed at teaching 'objective epistemology' (even though the word 'epistemology' hadn't really entered my vocabulary and thought process yet. I was studying psychology, not philosophy even though the two I was to find out later are intimately connected to each other and cannot really be talked about 'wholistically' except in the way that they have influenced each other, or primarily that philosophy stimulated the birth of psychology as a more specialized realm of philosophy).

I was an 'Enlightenment' student of philosophy and psychology back in 1979 which means that in my writing I was basically functioning from the neck up. Yes, I knew about man's capability for 'irrationality' but back in 1979 it was all about 'teaching people to be different -- teaching people to be more 'rational' and 'logical'. The writers I was primarily influenced by were 'General Semantic' and 'cognitive' writers like Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Albert Ellis, Nataniel Branden, Aaron Beck, combined with the beginnings of a 'humanistic-existential' influence in the writings of Erich Fromm.

It was easy -- or so I thought -- I was simply going to teach people the lessons and skills of 'General Semantics' and 'Cognitive Therapy' -- and the whole world was going to be a better place for my having taught these lessons and skills.

Not. I was an idealistic university student. What did I know about living in the world of 'reality' -- of trying to make a living, and keeping up with my bills, and raising two kids and dealing with 'emotional-passionate' women. Trying to 'teach' cognitive therapy and General Semantics to either of my two earliest girlfriends in the throes of a 'passionate' and 'irrational' argument was like trying to funnel an ocean backwards into a river. There was a lot of 'emotional spillage and chaos' where 'rationality', 'logic' and 'Enlightenment Philosophy' just did/do not carry the day. After the experiences with my first girlfriend, I didn't even try to teach General Semantics or Cognitve Therapy to any girlfriend after that -- especially in the throes of an argument. It was dangerous. Something more was needed to better understand the full extent of man's propensity for 'narcissistic bias and subjectivity'.

Men and women simply do not function solely from the 'neck up'.

Welcome to the world of Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard, and Doestevsky, and Nietzsche, and Freud, and Jung, and Perls...(although Perls did add a Korzybski-General Semantic influence to Gestalt Therapy). Welcome to man's 'ocean of irrationality trying to fit within the banks of a river of rationality'. Schopenhauer called man's huge propensity for irrationality and narcissistic bias 'the deterministic will of the universe'. Kierkegaard called it man's 'Aesthetic' influence. Nietzsche called it man's 'Dionysian' influence. Freud called it the 'id'. Jung called it 'the shadow'. Perls called it 'the underdog'.

One could argue that even in the heart of darkness -- even in man's most seeminlgy 'irrational' moments -- that 'reason' and 'logic' is still prevailing. But reason and logic are dancing to the tune of a 'different God'. Reason and logic have tuned out 'Apollo' (in ancient Greek mythology, God of 'ethics', 'morality', 'law' and 'order') and tuned in 'Dionysus' (the ancient Greek God of 'dance, celebration, and hedonistic pleasure). Or you could say that man in the throes of irrationality is still following 'logic' and 'reason' but dancing to the tune of 'Narcissus' (the God of self-interest/self-absorption).

What I am starting to show here -- and to be sure, this is me writing in 2008, not 1979 -- is that there is a very useful connection between the study of ancient mythology (for me so far, mainly Greek mythology), and the study of present day philosophy and psychology. In a similar regard, what I am also starting to show here is the connection between 'energy centres', 'value priorities', 'motivational bias' and epistemology.

There is a huge gap -- once again a chasm or an abyss -- between 'objective, idealistic, Enlightenment epistemology' and 'realistic, motivationally biased epistemology'. Applied human epistemology does not occur in an emotional vacuum. It occurs in a context and a backdrop of different types of human motivational subjectivity. Trying to change a person's epistemology -- or 'style' of epistemology -- without getting to roots of his or her subjective motivational energy centre and bias -- is like trying to get rid of dandelions by pulling out the stems without digging out the roots as well. Without digging out the roots of a dandelion, the dandelion is just going to grow another flower and stem.

Trying to teach rational, objective, Enlightenment epistemology is not going to be very useful or fruitful unless or until you are sure that the person you are working with is dancing to the tune of Apollo and not Dionysus or 'Aprhrodite' (Goddess of love and romance), 'Aries' (God of war) or any of a host of other possible 'energy-centred Gods'.

Carl Jung went much deeper into this subject area than I will ever go. There are two ways of looking at a 'myth': one way is to look at a myth as an 'objective, epistemological falsity'; the second way to look at a myth is as a 'human subjective, motivational truth'. We are more interested in the second way of looking at myths in this context here.

But there is an even larger picture here. What I'm trying to do now -- which I didn't do back in 1979 because I couldn't, I didn't have the knowledge -- is to put the study of epistemology, or at least DGB Epistemology, into the larger context of 'Hegel's Hotel' as an entirely integrated network of 'sub-works'. In this regard, epistemology is not only a division of philosophy but it is also indirectly a division of psychology as well. For example, in Psychoanalysis, the study of epistemology might indirectly be incorporated into the study of 'ego-functioning' or 'Central-Ego-Functioning'.

If 'ego' means basically 'self', then 'ego-functioning' can be defined as all the different functions of the self. 'Epistemology' is one such function -- or actually, a number of 'inter-connected sub-functions' like 'sensory perception', 'association', 'distinction', and 'logical (or illogical) deduction and interpretation', 'feedback'...which I am all including under the name of 'central-ego-functioning'. This was mainly what my 1979 essay -- 'Evaluation and Health' was all about.

However, there are other 'ego-functions' other than 'epistemology' and 'central-ego-functioning. As well, epistemology is not the only function of the 'Central Ego'. 'Conflict-mediation', 'evaluation', 'response-choosing', 'consequence-interpreting', 'and 'executive action' -- within a 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' mindset' -- are five other related sub-functions of 'The Central Ego'. The Central Ego is a metaphysical concept used to help breakdown and better comprehend all the different sub-functions of the 'Self' -- or 'Ego' -- or 'I'. I am my 'Central Ego' and my 'Central Ego' is me. But there are other 'periphery' or 'subsidery' functions of the Ego that are also worth naming, describing, and better understanding. These can be analogized to the 'Parliament', 'Senate', or 'Congress' in a 'State's' political activities relative to the 'President's Office', the 'Prime Minister's Office' -- or in business, the 'CEO's office'. All of these other names that can and will be discussed here in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology are 'metaphysical concepts' used to help understand all the various 'sub-functions' relative to the philosophy, the psychology, and the executive action of the entire 'Ego', 'Self', or 'I'

You see, everything that man thinks and feels and does is 'projected outward into culture' -- politics, religion, mythology, art, music, sports, business, family, medicine, architecture, philosophy, psychology...

Religion is mythology and mythology is religion -- and both are a particular type of 'energy centre' dealing with a particular set of ego-functions and sub-functions that all can be equated to a particular type or brand of 'philosophy-psychology'.

Each part is connected to -- and plays a vital role in the overall functioning of -- the whole -- the Self, the Ego, or the I. In turn, the Self, the Ego, or the I, has a vital 'multi-dialectical relationship' with the functioning of the body -- and all its different part-functions. But we are primarily concerned with 'philosophy-psychology here -- not biology, physics, and chemisry -- although here too, everthing is wholistically connected -- mind and body, subject and object, spirit, senses, and soul...

In Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology everything is wholistically connected -- philosophy-psychology-science-medicine-art-religion-mythology-business-sports-entertainment-hobbies...These are all 'outward projections and reflections of the internal workings of man's multi-dialectical-philosophy-psychology'. They are all different cultural expressions of the many different internal 'energy-centres' and 'subsidiary-ego-functions' that are wholistically connected to the 'central-ego-functioning' of The Self.

This is 'the wholistic context of man's entire philosophy-psychology' that I didn't have back in 1979 when I wrote 'Evaluation and Health'. 'Evaluation and Health' provided the epistemological and the humanistic-existential foundation which is now 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology'.

Epistemology is the pursuit of 'truth and knowledge' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Humanistic-Existentialism' is one particular perspective in the pusuit of 'value, meaning, and action' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Evaluation and Health' was the foundational starting-point for both of these branches in the study of philosophy-psychology as presented through 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology.

For those of you who are interested in the study of 'epistemology' -- and the part language and semantics plays in epistemology -- I invite you to focus on your 'Apollonian energy centre' as we begin to study the interplay between 'truth and ethics' in my 1979 essay: 'Evaluation and Health'. I'm expecting a lot from you here as we focus for a while on man's philosphy-psychology primarily from the 'neck up'. Then after this, we will step away from 'Apollo' for a while and visit other more entertaining and dramatic 'energy-ego-centres': 'Narcissus' (narcissism), 'Dionysus' (sensuality, pleasure, celebration, dancing, sex...), 'Aphrodite' and/or 'Eros' (romance, love, passion, nature..), 'Aries' (war, deconstructionism...), and more...

I probably just made the study of 'Apollo', 'epistemology', and 'ethics' sound so boring that you may want to 'jump ship' on me here in order to 'fast-forward' to some of these other mythological Gods and external projections of internal 'energy-ego-centres'.

Alas, there can be no truth, ethics, justice, peace and harmony on earth if we all ignore 'Apollo'. Apollo is important -- and so too are both 'epistemology' and 'ethics'...So please...follow Apollo...with me...through 'Evaluation and Health'...

dgb, April 8th, 2008; modified and expanded, April 11th, 2008.

Seeking More/New Semantic Clarity and Evolutionary Development in The Area of Epistemological Idealism -- The Pursuit of Truth (Part 2)

2008-03-02T06:36:00.000-08:00

This essay is aimed at moving a few steps beyond Part 1 on this same subject matter -- epistemological idealism.

Firstly, to re-summarize from the last essay, the term 'idealism' has two quite different meanings that need to be clarified in order to prevent serious confusion. Idealism in its first sense -- which is its more standard every day meaning -- means something in the ballpark of 'perfection', 'utopoa', etc. Eg. We might say something like: 'That is an ideal house as far as I am concerned.' (Notice the subjectivity involved in that what is ideal for me may not be ideal for you -- and visa versa.) Now we come to the meaning of idealism as it tends to be used in academic philosophical circles. Wikipedia may be able to help us here although it points the way to new potential confusions as well as clarities:

Idealism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the philosophical notion of idealism. For other uses, see Idealism (disambiguation).
Idealism is the doctrine that ideas, or thought, make up either the whole or an indispensable aspect of any full reality, so that a world of material objects containing no thought either could not exist as it is experienced, or would not be fully "real." Idealism is often contrasted with materialism, both belonging to the class of monist as opposed to dualist or pluralist ontologies. (Note that this contrast between idealism and materialism has to do with the question of the nature of reality as such — it has nothing to do with advocating high moral standards, or the like.) Subjective Idealists and Phenomenalists (such as George Berkeley) hold that minds and their experiences constitute existence. Transcendental Idealists (such as Immanuel Kant) argue from the nature of knowledge to the nature of the objects of knowledge--without suggesting that those objects are composed of ideas or located in the knower's mind. Objective Idealists hold either that there is ultimately only one perceiver, who is identical with what is perceived (this is the doctrine of Josiah Royce), or that thought makes possible the highest degree of self-determination and thus the highest degree of reality (this is G.W.F. Hegel's Absolute Idealism). Panpsychists (such as Leibniz) hold that all objects of experience are also subjects. That is, plants and minerals have subjective experiences--though very different from the consciousness of humans.

Idealism in general is the metaphysical doctrine sketched in the previous paragraph. A separate doctrine, epistemological idealism (also known as the "way of ideas"), asserts that minds are aware of or perceive only their own ideas, and not external objects. The basic assumption of epistemological Idealism is that we only know our own ideas (representations or mental images). We can't directly know things in themselves or things as they are other than as a mental appearance. Any data regarding external physical objects must be received through an observer's physiological neural system. The external object is thus presented in accordance with the particular constitution of the observer's brain and nerves. This was held by (for example) John Locke, who was certainly not a metaphysical idealist. Berkeley's argument for his metaphysical idealism was indeed built around the difficulties in Locke's epistemological position. But other influential metaphysical idealisms, such as those of Plotinus, Leibniz, and Hegel, are not based primarily on epistemological considerations. So "idealism" in general--that is, metaphysical idealism--should not be defined in a way that makes it depend on epistemological considerations.

The approach to idealism by Western philosophers has been different from that of Eastern thinkers. In much of Western thought (though not in such major Western thinkers as Plato and Hegel) the ideal relates to direct knowledge of subjective mental ideas, or images. It is then usually juxtaposed with realism in which the real is said to have absolute existence prior to and independent of our knowledge. Epistemological idealists (such as Kant) might insist that the only things which can be directly known for certain are ideas. In Eastern thought, as reflected in Hindu idealism, the concept of idealism takes on the meaning of higher consciousness, essentially the living consciousness of an all-pervading God, as the basis of all phenomena. A type of Asian idealism is Buddhist idealism.

Seeking New Semantic Clarity and Evolutionary Development in The Area of 'Epistemollgical Idealism' -- The Pursuit of Truth (Part 1)

2008-02-24T05:38:00.000-08:00

There are a few different things I want to accomplish in this essay. Firstly, I wish to differentiate between different types of idealism such as ethical idealism, political idealism, aesthetic idealism, and epistemological idealism.

Secondly, I wish to show how there is a switch in the meaning -- a 'semantical switch' -- of the term-concept of 'idealism' when we start to talk about 'epistemological idealism'. This is not a good thing as it tends to create confusion between what the general public usually means by the term-concept of 'idealism' and what philosophy academics generally mean by it. It is confusing also for beginning philosophy students because they generally have a layperson's idea of what the term-concept of 'idealism' means stamped in their mind-brain, only to find out that in philosophy circles it generally means something quite different.

Thirdly, the switch in meaning of the term-concept of idealism in epistemological circles (i.e., pertaining to what is knowledge0-and in ontological circles (pertaining to what 'really exists') tends to undermine, sabotage, and marginalize the first, layperson's more pragmatic concept of what the term-concept of idealism means. My goal in this essay then, is to sort through all of this potential and/or actual semantic confusion and bring more clarity to thw whole subject matter. One might say that I am trying to bring more 'semantic idealism' to an area of philosophy where there is room for significant smenatic confusion and misunderstanding.

Let us go back to point one. If I say that I am writing on the subject of 'ethical idealism', it is probably fairly clear to most educated people -- laypersons and philosophy academics alike -- what I am wriing about. I am writing about my idea of a 'perfect ethical system'. Same with the subject of 'political idealism' -- here it is likely that I am writing about my idea of a perfect political system. Same with 'aesthetic idealism' -- writing about perfect beauty, 'economic idealism' -- writing about 'perfect economics', 'legal idealism' -- writing about perfect law...and so on. In all of these cases, it seems like we could simply substitute the word-idea of 'perfect' for 'idealism' and we have a pretty good working defiintion of what 'idealism' means.

We could alos contrast the idea of 'idealism' with 'realism' -- idealism pertaining to that which is perfect but not real, and realism pertaining to that which is not ideal but which exists in reality -- and you have a further clarification of what the term-concept of 'idealism' means.

Now let us move a little closer to our problem area of semantic confusion. If I say I am writing on the subject of 'semantic idealism', we could say that I am writing about 'perfect meaning or semantics' -- and/or a system-process I have devised and/or partly borrrowed from someone else in order to aim to get closer to the ideal of 'perfect semantic clarity'.

Now still closer to our semantic problem within the field of philosophy. If I say that I am writing on the subject of 'epistemological idealism', it makes perfect sense -- based on everything we have said about the term-concept of 'idealism' so far -- to believe that what I have in mind is to either write about a 'perfect or idealistic epistemological system (of knowledge) -- and/or to write about a process/means by which to aim for and/or achieve a more idealistic (closer to perfect) epistemological system (of knowledge).

However, this is where we come to a huge semantic and epistemological roadblock because, all of a sudden, in philosophical circles, the meaning of the term-concept of 'epistemelogical (and ontological) idealism' does a bi-polar 180 degree switch. All of a sudden the ideal becomes the 'real' as well as the ideal. Reality is no longer reality -- rather, it is a 'false illusion'. So where did the 'real' disappear to? Well, philosophers are still scratiching their heads on that one. Ask Parmenides and Plato -- which of course we can't anymore because they are both long, long dead -- on this one because they seem to have been the main two trumpeters and propogaters of this semantic and epistemological quagmire relative to what is 'real' vs. what is not.

If I could go back in a time machine and interview the esteemed Mr. Plato, here is something close to what I would say: 'Mr. Plato, with all due respect, I'm not sure whether you have been looking up at the sky too much, whether you have been munching on too many poppy seeds or something else with hallucinatory effects that no one today knows about, and/or whether you were simply brainwashed by Mr. Parmenides, one of your esteemed philosophical mentors -- but don't try to tell me that if I am standing right in front of you, looking at you eyeball to eyeball, and/or if I reach out to shake your hand and say that you did some wonderful things for philosophy -- don't try to tell me that the person I am looking at and/or touching doesnt' really exist, or is just an 'illusion' or a 'carbon copy' or a 'shadow' of someone somewhere else in 'Never, Never Land' where only you and Paremides seem to know where this supposedly real 'Never, Never Land' exists -- don't try to tell me, and sell me on, any of this 'epistemological smoke and mirrors' because if you do, then I will say to you -- again with all due respect -- get your head out of the clouds and re-ground your legs on this earth. Mr. Parmenides has poisoned you. He brainwashed you. You are confusing the ideal with the real. This is epistemological treason. In the words of Gestalt Therapy, Mr. Plato, "Get out of your head and come to your senses." In the words of Mr. Sartre, "Existence precedes essence." At best, you put the cart before the horse (idealism before realism instead of the other way around. At worst, you created an epistemological-ontological-metaphysical world that didn't/doesn't exist. Again, Mr. Plato, you created epistemological treason by marginalizing your senses rather than honoring them. This was your Achilles heel. This was your 'Plato's heel' -- the place where you failed your fellow philosopher by not being properly grounded on earth and by not providing a good role model for all epistemologists and ontologists who followed you. Your biggest weakness as a philosopher was that you passed on 'Parmenides Poison' for anyone naive enough and epistemologically submissive enough to take a big gulp of the poisonous concoction that you and Parmenides were offering up to the rest of the world. Mr. Plato, you created much of the foundation for the study of modern philosophy. You are still looked upon as the the 'ultimate philosophical idealist' -- and that is in a good way, not the bad way that I am specifying here.'

However, philosophy is not all about heaping accolades on our 'hall of fame' philosophers. Ultimately, it is about the pursuit of truth -- at least within the boundaries of epistemology. And in this regard, sometimes a philosopher has to bring out his or her 'Nietzxshean hammer' to get to the bottom of truth, and to dispose of all epistemological toxins, poisons -- and nonsense -- that may be blocking the way to truth.

In this regard also, it is long past time to take these old ideas of epistemological idealism -- particularly Plato -- and take them off of their philosophical semantic and teaching pedestal. Teach them -- yes -- but don't continue to carry them around as if they are the be all and end all of what 'epistemological idealism' means.

New semantic distinctions are necessary here. The names and distinctions may seem partly bizarre, partly funny, partly semantically confusing in their own right but they are logically necessary due to the fact that we have at least two significantly different meanings of the term-concept 'idealism' kicking around in discussions of the same overall subject matter -- epistemology. (There are even different 'sub-meanings' within these two significant different meanings of idealism that also need to be distinguished from each other but we will save these distinctions for a different essay.)

Until I or someone else can propose better name-distinctions, the name-distinctios I will use are these;

1. Idealistic (meanng 'other world') epistemological idealism (meaning the pursuit of epistemological perfection)-- This is the pursuit of perfect, idealistic truth (redundancies, yes, I know) in 'other worlds' other than the empirical, physical world around us (egs. Parmenides, Plato, Berkely);
2. Rational epistemology -- This is the pursuit of truth in logic and reason only(including mathematics, and/or geometry without an empirical-sensory foundation (egs. Descartes, Spinoza)
3. Empirical epistemological idealism -- This is the pursuit of truth through sensory observation only; what is 'real' is only that which can be seen and/or otherwise experienced through our senses (egs. Locke, Berkely, Hume)
4. Dialectical epistemological idealism -- This type of epistemological idealism combines different elements of different epistemological categories together and/or 'marries' bi-polar epistemological categories together such as 'rational-empiricism' and/or 'thesis-anti-thesis' and/or 'constructive-deconstructionism'.
a) Sensory-rational-empirical epistemological idealism (egs. Aristotle, Bacon, Darwin, Korzybski, Hawakawa);
b) Integrative epistemological idealism -- thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis (eg. Hegel) constructive-deconstructionism -- getting rid of 'epistemological toxins, poisons, smoke and mirrors', etc. (egs. Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida)

Now none of these distinctions are perfectly clean or completely separated from each other. Things in the real world are rarely perfectly distinguishable from each other.

Things become even less clean when you try to sort each philosopher -- each epistemologist -- into one category or another. Again reality rarely gives us 'pure, isolated, perfectly distinguishable' categories. Complications arise such as with Berkely who was both an epistemological idealist in the Paramedean and Platonic sense of the word 'idealist' as well as an epistemological empiricist in the Lockean and Humean sense of the word 'empiricist'. More on these complications in a later essay.

Some of these distinctions -- such as between 'idealism', 'rationalism' and 'empiricism' -- have been around in philosophy for a long time. These are not new distinctions. They are used in most introductory philosophy texts.

The additional involvement of 'dialectic thinking' in epistemology goes back mainly to Hegel with earlier dialectical or partly dialectical philosophers like Anaxamander, Heraclitus, the Han Philosophers, Kant, and Fichte setting the stage for the birth of Hegelian Dialectical Idealism (in the sense of the epistemological pursuit of perfection or 'Absolute Truth').

What is important here is two things: first, that every distinction mentioned above can be viewed as a different epistemological path taken up by different philosophers in their individucal quests for Epistemological Truth and Perfection; and second, that some paths are qualitatively better than others -- that is why we like to call what we are doing here 'epistemological evolution'.

So for example, from an epistemological point of view, kiss Parmendides and Plato goodbye. They hold no place in modern epistemology. It makes no sense to chase epistemology/ontology and the pursuit of Truth/Existence into some phantom world that we can neither see nor touch because if we do this then epistemology and the pursuit of truth loses all meaning and credibility. There is a reason why 'eye witness' testimony is the foundation of most democratic systems of justice -- as long as the witness is credible and doesn't have a narcissistic motivation to lie, and as long as we believe the witness was not mistaken in what they saw, then this is generally considered to be the 'firmest epistemological grounds that we have to stand on in our pursuit of truth'; DNA has more recently become a foundation for most democratic systems of justice and here again the evidence is 'physical', 'observational', and 'empirical'. There is no one who can logically dispute this type of physical evidence unless it is tampered with and/or corrupted.
I would argue that 'rational-empiricism' either is -- or should be -- the epistemological heart of all democratic justice systems, and the biggest deterrent to this type of justice system is human narcissism -- and particularly -- money and power.

One of the best things that I believe Hegel ever wrote -- and it pains me but I cannot find the exact quote right now to put me on firmer epistemological grounds -- but what I remember goes something like this: Every theory carries within it the seeds of its own self-destruction. (The same can be said about life incidently: life carries within it the seeds to its own self-destruciton -- aging and death. This almost sounds like Freud's 'death instinct'. More on this controversial idea at a probably much later date.)

And so it was with both rationalism and empiricism. Both had their respective day on the pedestal of human value and both collapsed under the lop-sided weight of their respective one-sided extremism. In the end, they both needed each other, like Romeo and Juliet, to unite each other's bi-polar chemistries, and to complement each other's weaknesses. Bi-polarity -- indeed, multiple bi-polarity -- is the essence of life, and what's good for life is also good for epistemology. Epistemology -- ideally speaking -- follows life, and epistemology -- ideally speaking -- works like life. Epistemology functions better dialectically. Rationalism needs empiricism and empiricism needs rationalism. Thesis needs anti-thesis and anti-thesis needs thesis. Constructionism needs deconstructionism and deconstructionism needs constructionism. Realism needs idealism and idealism needs realism. Whenever one bi-polar partner gets too far away from the other, bad things start to happen. Homeostatic balance is lost. The pathology of one-sided extremism starts to set in. Self-destruction is just around the corner.

And on that note we will end our little essay-lecture on epistemology for today. If you have followed me this far, then you like I, probably need a break. Too much epistemology all at one time can also unsettle homestatic balance. Life is about resolving one homeostatic imbalance only to stir up another. I learned this principle first and foremost from reading Fritz Perls, the main founder of Gestalt Therapy. He called it 'organismic self-regulation'. (Yes, even 'orgasmic self-reglulation is part of the larger process. Woke you up perhaps!)

To summarize this final connection and perhaps leave you something extra to think about, I will re-state one final philosophical principle that is the product of this essay: specifically, you cannot separate the study of epistemology from the study of homeostatic balance -- and the bridge between them is the 'dialectic' and/or 'multi-dialectic'. The path to truth and homeostatic balance -- as with everything else in life, not just epistemology and the pursuit of Truth, Democracy, and Justice but also the pursuit of Existence, Being and Becoming -- is the path of dialectic exchange and interchange. Worded otherwise, the path of dialectic, democratic, passionate encounter.

This sounds like a combination of Hegel, The Enlightenment, Romanticism, Existentialism, and Gestalt Therapy all rolled into one. Yep! That's my intentions.

Enough for today!

dgb, Feb. 25th, 2008

Finding Truth: When Logic Defies Common Sense -- Choose Common Sense: The Lesson of 'Parmenides Poison'

2008-02-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

Foundations and Distinctions for a DGB Post-Hegelian Epistemology (Part 2): The Truth Shall Set You Free

2008-02-16T03:31:00.000-08:00

Epistemology is like the wheels of a plane. You have to be grounded -- have good contact with the ground -- before you can fly. Otherwise, you won't likely return safely.

A philosopher has to be properly grounded before he or she can fly. In this regard, I am not only talking about the philosophers who call themselves philosophers. I am talking about all of us. Because like it or not -- formally or informally, overtly or covertly, academically or practically -- we are all philosophers. We all have to come up with some sort of understanding of ourselves and the world we live in, what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, what is real and what is ideal, and how we should proceed in the world -- what type of choices we should make, and/or want to make, and whether these choices should be 'either/or' choices that demand that we choose one item/action or the other, whehter they should be 'integrative' choices that aim to work two sides of a 'bi-polarity-continuum' towards the middle ('splitting the difference', or 'making a compromise'), or finally aiming to make 'double ended choices' (working both ends of the polarity continuum at their respective ends or worded otherwise, in effect, aiming to 'have your cake and eat it too'. In some areas this last type of philosophy might not be viewed as a 'philosophy with integrity' and may be called 'cheating' or 'collusion' or 'conflict of interest', particularily if and when it is done covertly, naricsisitically, manipulatively, underhandedly).

So again -- whether we like it or not -- we are all philosophers.

And all philosophy starts with epistemology. We have to be properly grounded before we can fly. We have to observe before we reason. We have to know what is real before we search for the ideal. Existence before essense -- I thing Sartre said that. Being before becoming -- I think Fritz Perls and many of the other Gestaltist therapists have said that. Realism before idealism -- if nobody has said that before me, then I said that. Same with Epistemology before Ethics. And Observation before Reason. I would even say Philosophy before Science and Science before Spirituality and Religion. You have to be properly grounded and be able to crawl, walk and then run before you can fly.

Many philosophers have argued that you cannot connect epistemology (what is) to ethics (what should be). I disagree with that. You look at the world around you, what is happening in it, how things work, how things function -- before man's narcissistic and/or ethical intrusion into it -- and you can see a number of different but related things: that things are linked to each other, that some things are attracted to each other and connect with each other, while other things reject each other and eitheer separate and/or compete with each other. You see that there is life and death, living and dying, growth and decay. You see that the world is full of 'opposites' -- plus and minuses, hot and cold, wet and dry, water and fire, earth and sky, males and females, attraction and rejection, union and separation, alkaline and acidic, too much and too little...You see that the world is precariously balanced and that things that affect others affect you. Things that affect your brother or sister affect you, things that affect your father or mother affect you, things that affect your community can affect you, things that are passed in law affect you, things that happen in the economy affect you, that your positive and negative experiences affect you, things that happen in your environment affect you, things that happen half way around the world affect you, or can affect you....

It is impossible to understand the world properly and ourselves properly without understanding the principle of 'homeostatic balance'. (See W.B. Cannon's 'The Wisdom of the Body', 1932). The meeting ground of epistemology and ethics is the principle of homeostatic balance.

You cannot talk about either epistemology or ethics without talking about the principle of homestatic balance. Many of our earliest philosophers -- West and East -- saw that: Anaximander, Heraclitus, Plato to some extent, Confuscius, the Han Philosophers ('yin', 'yang'...). Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Shelling, and Marx saw that at least in some partial realistic-idealistic capacity in their respective ideological developments of the 'dialectic' ...Nietzsche saw that (especially in his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy')...Freud saw that (the 'id' vs. the 'superego'), Jung saw that (the 'persona' vs. the 'shadow'), Perls saw that (the 'topdog' vs. the 'underdog'), Cannon saw that in 'The Wisdom of the Body'...Erich Fromm saw that as articulated in two of his many books: 'Man For Himself' (1947) and 'The Sane Society' (1955).

There are some epistemological philosophers -- indeed, some of our most famous and cherished philosophers -- who tried to epistemologically fly before they could crawl, walk, and run. Parmenides and Plato are two of the guiltiest culprits in this regard. Descartes and Spinoza -- as much as I like Spinoza -- were not far behind. Any philosopher who tried to 'reason' without 'observing with the senses' first was putting the cart before the horse. We call these types of epistemologists 'idealistic epistemologists' (Parmenides, Plato...) or 'Rationalists' (Descartes, Spinoza...). These are the epistemologists who tried to fly before they could crawl, walk, or run. They tried to 'bipass sensory observation'. Their main argument was that sensory observation was flawed -- thus, the rationale for 'bipassing' it and trying to use 'logic and reason' alone to get to an 'idealistic' or 'rational' epistemology. Big mistake. It was a recipe for epistelogical pathology and disaster waiting to happen. (Parmenides was Plato's pathological influence in the realm of epistemology -- and the consequence was Plato's theory of 'Ideal Forms'.)

Aristotle went a long way towards compenating for, and correcting, the epistemological pathologies and disasters of Parmenides and Plato. Aristotle was more like the Pre-Socratics (Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus...but not Parmenides) in that he started with sensory observation, and then moved up the 'latter of abstraction' to 'reason and logic', 'causes', 'universals', and 'ethics'. In contrast, Plato 'philosophized from the sky' without having any 'epistemological roots and/or wheels on the ground. This was Plato's biggest weakness as a philosopher -- and particularly as an epistemologist. Epistemology needs to be emprically based on sensory observation before reason and logic. Plato dismissed sensory observation -- and in effect, physics and biology -- and this was his greatest undoing as a philosophy. Plato -- at least in terms of his philosophy -- was a man who was alienated from the physical world around him, and/or dismissed the world around him for its imperfections. And this in turn caused the greatest imperfections in his philosophy. A man or woman alienated from the biology and physics of the earth is a man or woman alienated from the biology and physics of him or herself. And this in turn will affect -- adversely at least to my way of thinking -- the person's psychology, spirituality, and soul. Both epistemologically and ethically speaking, there needs to be a dialectic (mutual) influence between biology and physics on the one hand and psychology, philosphy, politics, law, econimics, art and culture...on the other hand. Either extreme -- idealism without realism or realism without idealism, or biology and physics without philosophy and psychology or philosophy and psychology without biology and physics, or spirituality and religion without science or science without spirituality and religion, or self-assertion without social sensitivity or social sensitivity without self-assertion -- will create a one-sided extremist philosophical pathology headed for self-destruction.

The truth shall set you free. The truth is balance and balance is the truth. Biologically speaking. Phsycially speaking. Philosophically speaking. Psychologically speaking. Medically speaking. Politically speaking. Economically speaking. Legally speaking. Relgiously speaking. Epistemologically speaking. Ethically speaking.

The truth is balance and balance is the truth. Many others -- more intelligent thann me -- have said this in similar and/or different ways. I am just summarizing 2700 years of both Western and Eastern philosophy. This is the goal of DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy. Hegel said that 'The real is the rational and the rational is the real.' I don't entirely agree with this assertion. Man's rationality -- and particularity the 'rationality of balance' -- can be easily corrupted and pathologized by his one-sided longing for narcissistic extremism (sex, violence, righteousness, egotism, selfishness, greed, covert manipulation and collusion...). But in the end, narcissistic extremism usually ends in self-destruction.

Which brings us back to either God's and/or Science's Ultimate Truth: The truth is balance and balance is the truth. And this truth shall set you free.

dgb, Feb. 16th, 2008.

Foundations and Distinctions For A DGB Post-Hegelian Approach to the Study of Epistemology (Part 1)

2008-02-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Finding Truth: Foundations and Distinctions for a DGB, Post-Hegelian View Of Epistemology (Part 1)

In order to determine where the study of epistemology 'fits' into the study of philosophy, we need to 'go up and down the abstraction ladder' - up to determine what lies 'above' the study of epistemology, and 'down' to determine what lies 'below' and/or 'within' the study of epistemology.

To do this, I wound up asking myself a question that may or may not seem quite separate from the study of epistemology, but which is definitely related: specifically, 'What are some of the main different elements of mind-brain function?' Before I take this argument any further, I would like to demonstrate some of the logistics behind 'dialectical reasoning' and the use of many 'hyphenated words' where a single word is generally the standard language norm in such instances probably because it is generally much easier for standard communication purposes.

Whereas standard practise might dictate the use of the term 'brain' or in another instance the term 'mind', a 'dialectical philosopher' might instead choose to use the term 'mind-brain' as a substitute for both. A 'multi-dialectic-philosopher' might even use the term 'mind-brain-self' or 'mind-brain-psyche' or 'mind-brain-soul'. The emphasis here is on the 'mutual exchange of influence and causality', either two-fold, three-fold, or even many-fold. This can potentially make a mess of communication but at the same time it does, or can, help people to think more 'wholistically' and 'integratively' as opposed to 'reductionistically'. Consequently, my use of many hypenated (dialectical) words such as 'term-concepts' and 'mind-brain'.

Is the physiology of our brain totally disconnected and separate from the psychology and/or philosophy of our mind? Or does everything come in 'one big multi-dialectical-integrative package' which, as humans, we tend to too easily separate conceptually even though they may not be separated phenomenally. We compartmentalize, classify, and define phenomena into 'conceptual pieces' because this makes it easier to think and talk about them. But life is not only about the 'pieces'. Life is also very much about how the different pieces all come together into one great big functional, multi-dialectical-integrative package.

The pieces support the whole and the whole supports the pieces. And talking about the pieces without talking about the whole - and how the whole is precariously and homeostatically balanced together by the way the pieces come together in just the right amounts to make up the proper functioning of the whole - is one of the most dangerous things that we Westerners continue to do in our every day thinking - from science and medicine to business and economics to philosophy and psychology to politics and law to spirituality and religion... This is the main purpose of Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Business-Science-Medicine...to show how everything is connected, to show how everything is dialectically connected, and indeed to show how everything is multi-dialectically connected.

Now, back to my main argument relative to the interconnection between 'mind-brain function' and epistemology (the search for knowledge and truth), as well as the conception that just as the study of philosophy is generally viewed as being a more 'abstract' realm of study than the study of epistemology (the former encompassing the latter as well as other areas of study such as the foundations and assumptions of ethics, law, politics, art, science and medicine, religion, and more) - so too, the study of 'mind-brain function' can be viewed as a more abstract study than both (since it encompasses all of philosophy as well as elements of psychology, biology, physics, chemistry, and potentially still more...)

So let us look briefly at the potential study of 'mind-brain function' at least from a 'philosophical-psychological-biological-evolutionary' point of view.

What is the main function of the mind-brain? How about this? Problem-solving. If we accept this assumption as to the mind-brain's function, then every 'sub-function' of the mind-brain can be said to be 'wholistically and reductionistically in the service of problem-solving'. From this philosophical assumption, the mind-brain can be divided and sub-divided into more and more sub-functions - all supportive of, and inter-connected relative to, the overall goal of 'problem-solving'.

If we accept the problem-soving function as the main overall function of the mind-brain, then at least two further levels of 'sub-function' can be further differentiated from - but at the same time seen to be interconnected with - each other.

The first realm of mind-brain sub-function can be viewed as having five different sub-functions: 1. perception and cognition (epistemology); 2. conversion (symbolism, language, and meaning); 3. evaluation (narcissism, altruism, morality, ethics, rules, laws...); 4. choice-making and choice of choices (awareness of choices, excitement, fear, freedom vs determinism, use of narcissism, ethics, and/or other evaluation factors vs. genetic and/or social-bioligical-historical conditioning of choices) 5. execution of action (existentialism, ontology (the study of 'being'), behaviorism (the study of manipulating or 'conditioning' of choices through positive and/or negative consequences...)

We can also talk about the mind-brain as having an assortment of second realm sub-functions which are inter-related to each other and to all functions above these sub-functions such as:

1. memory; 2. planning; 3. creativity, visualization; 4. association; 5. differentation or distinction (boundary-making); 6. integration; 7. symbolism and language; 8. classification, categorization, compartmentalization; 9. reasoning, logic, inferences; 10. spatial-judging; 11. time-judging; 12. introjection and identification (copying); 13. projection (seeing ourselves in others); 14. compensation; 15. function-judging; 16. modification.

These subsidiary functions are similar to Kant's 'a priori' categories although I do not agree with all of Kant's arguments and opinions in this regard. It is not the place and the time to get into those arguments and opinions here other than to say that I view these secondary mind-brain functions as being evolutionary survival tools that man brings to the table in his bid both individually and collectively to survive - and to survive well.

In summary, what we have done here is laid out the larger 'mind-brain context' in which man's individual and collective, formal and informal, study of epistemology - and the search for knowledge-truth - takes place.

Epistemology in its reductionist format does not include the study of narcissism, hedonism, egotism, altruism, ethics, justice, laws, etc. Nor does it involve the cognitive-existential act of 'choice-making' - at least as it pertains to 'external behavioral action'. Epistemology does pertain to the act of choice-making relative to the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and 'what is real'. In this pursuit, 'either/or' decisions - or 'choices' - often need to be made, sometimes even life or death choices. Oftentimes too, the best 'epistemological choices' can lie in the 'middle ground' - in the unfolding epistemological play-out between thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis, or speaking metaphorically, in 'Hegel's Hotel' if not always in my particular rendition of Hegel's Hotel but more so in the larger, more all-encompassing, multi-dialectic-pluralistic-evolutionary rendition of Hegel's Hotel.

This version of Hegel's Hotel - and in particular here, this version of DGB's post-Hegelian vision of the study of epistemology, is just a small subset of the much larger world-wide multi-dialectical constantly unfolding epistemological drama. People don't always get the truth right the first time, maybe not even the second or third time, maybe not in time to free an innocent prisoner from a wrong epistemological judgment, maybe not in time to save hundreds of people from a non-properly understood disease or a bad medication that should never have been legalized, but usually somewhere down the line, often after heavy casualties and/or traumacies, people start to get the epistemology right, individually and/or collectively, maybe first as sporadic individuals, gradually gaining more 'social power', and the power of greater and greater accepting numbers - like the growth of the natural health industry in North America - until 'underdog knowledge' finally becomes 'topdog knowledge', reaching the Kingdom of Established Social Truth - until life changes again and/or a 'better and/or more powerful Social Truth' comes along to supplant it. For better or for worse, established Social Truths eventually become accepted as 'Knowledge'. It is the job of the good epistemologist - academically recognized or otherwise - to 'deconstruct' Social Truths that hold more social power than they should, and/or to construct or re-construct Social Truths that have more Realism, 'Subjective-Objectivism', and Integrity on their side than the misplaced, fraudulent, often narcissistically power-based Social Truths that they are replacing.

Let us move on now to a discussion of what lies 'within' the study of epistemology, including a number of distinctions and sub-distinctions that may or may not be partly or fully recognized and/or supported by the 'social powers' and 'status-quo' that be in the world of Academic Western Philosophy. I fully acknowledge some of my technical-academic limitations in the study of advanced epistemology. However, I believe that I more than make up for this limitation in the creativity of my thought, in my ability to 'build epistemological bridges between the 'Constructionists' and the 'Deconstructionists', between the Grand Narrators and the Post-Modernists, between the Structuralists and the Process Thinkers, between the Idealists and the Realists, between the Rationalists and the Empiricists, between the Subjectivists and the Objectivists...That is what Hegel's Hotel is all about - at least within the confines of epistemology and the search for Truth.

dgb, Feb. 10th-11th, 2008.

The Beginning of Dialectics in Pre-Socratic, Greek Epistemology and Science

2008-02-03T06:18:00.000-08:00

'Dialectics' -- at least within the context of Hegel's Hotel -- refers to the battle of opposing ideas (within the context of man's mind and spirit) and whether these opposing ideas come together -- or lend themselves to coming together -- into some sort of integrative compromise; or alternatively, whether they continue to do 'dialectical battle' with each other even thousands of years after their known initial confrontations in the history of man.

We can distinguish between these two types of dialectics respectively with the names of: 1. 'integrative' or 'homeostatic' dialecics; vs. 2. 'will to power, 'righteous, eihter/or', or 'control' dialectics.

It is not unusual for both types of dialectic dynamics to be taking place at essentially the same time as two polar positions collide with each other in the minds and spirits of men and women, and then finally 'reach a truce' with each other in the form of a 'workable, negotiated, integrative compromise' that keeps both sides in the dialectical tussle 'workably happy'. A distinction might also be made in this regard between 'love (attraction, co-operation)' dialectics and 'war' (repulsion, competition, hate) dialectics.

The dynamics and evolution of dialectic philosophy was probably most clearly articulated by the philosopher who is also probably (or arguably at least) the philosopher who is most easily connected to the birth of its name -- G.W.Hegel. A strong, technical case could be made for the spirit and essence of the dialectic having arisen earlier out of the work of Kant (The Critique of Pure Reason) and Fichte who was strongly influenced by Kant. Also, Marx turned Hegel's 'rathional-idealistic' philosophy on its head and delivered stinging critiques of Capitalism -- to inspire, ignite, and/or instigate the growth of revolution, socialism, communism, and huge philo-socio-political-economic change in the Eastern world using dialectic philosophy as his main weapon of offense and defense.

However, the history and the birth of the dialectic goes back much further than even Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. It goes right back to the birth of philosophy -- in both the Western (predominantly Greek) and Eastern (primarily Chinese) world. I want to take a little time here to trace some of the beginnings and the foundations of dialectic philosophy in Pre-Socratic, Greek philosophy in particular, with a small bit of attention also being brought to similar development in the birth of Chinese philosophy. These evolutionary developments in both ancient Greece and China can still be seen, felt, and heard in current Western and Eastern philosophy (epistemology, metaphysic, ethics...), science, medicine, politics, law, and culture in general. So it is certainly worth taking a good look at some of these ancient philosophical developments as an ongoing source of inspiration, creativity, and philosophical evolution today.

If you go back to the first acknowledged and decently known Western (Greek) philosopher -- Thales (624BC-546BC) -- you will see that he was the first known 'philosopher' to stop looking for 'causes amongst the Gods' and to start looking for more 'natural, scientific causes' of what created the world and made it the way it was. Thales was a 'monist' -- a one-cause theorist -- who looked at the source of all life as stemming from 'water'.

If we pass the second oldest Western (Greek) philosopher -- Anaximander (610BC-546BC)for the moment and move to the man who is usually considered the third oldest Western (Greek) philosopher -- Anamimenes (585BC-525BC) -- we see that he too was a monist who took up a counter-position to Thales in arguing that the source of all life stemmed from 'air', not 'water'. Here we have the beginning of a clear, righteous, 'either/or' will-to-power dialectic. Neither of the two philosophers can be viewed as being a dialectic philosopher in his own right -- rather both were monists -- but the articulation of their differences set up the clear dynamics of a 'dialectic struggle for theoretical supremacy) -- no differently than the dialectic debate between Clinton and Obama in their struggle for Democratic Supremacy, or the dialectic debate between McCain and Romney in their struggle for Republican Supremacy (with the additional 'underdog' presence of Paul and Huckabee to make the latter debate a situation that we might label as a 'multi-dialectic debate').

What is Meant By The Study of Dialectical Epistemology?

2008-01-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Epistemology is the study of knowledge which is essentially the study of, and search for, truth. What is 'truth' but knowledge that we trust as being highly reliable or in the language of the courts, 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Indeed, we hear the word -- and concept -- of 'truth' most often when we are talking about what comes out of the mouths of people -- does it have credibility, reliability, substance, and congruence, or does it not?

'Subjectivism' for the most part, rules people's hearts, rules people's attitudes, and rules people's behavior. Subjectivism is also the biggest reason for what we might call 'distortions' of truth, 'manipulations' of truth, 'embellishments' of truth, and/or 'suppressions' of truth. Thus, the search and the study of truth has to reach behind the 'smoke and mirrors' of human subjectivism and bias in order to get to what we might call that promised land, that holy land, of 'objective and untarnished truth'. That is an extremely formidable task as most men and women spend much of their living day putting up smoke and mirror displays of what they are only pretending to think, feel, do, and/or be. Often, we do this in the name of 'politeness', 'discreetness', 'diplomacy', 'political correctness' and/or we do it in order to diguise and/or defend against our real subjective beliefs, feelings, impulses, biases, motives, and/or behaviors.

In short, human narcissism colors and distorts the search and study of 'truth' and 'objective knowledge (epistemology)' in a thousand and one different ways.

It is in this regard that I would like to intoduce an assortment of new terms and/or ideas that are all connected to a particular perspective on the study of truth and/or epistemology that might be called respectively: 'dialectical truth' and/or 'dialectical epistemology'.

Firstly, there are two types of dialectical truth: 'either/or truth'; and/or 'integrative (bi-polar, subjective-objective) truth'. The same can be said for both 'knowledge' and 'epistemology' -- i.e. we can talk about 'either/or knowledge' and/or 'integrative knowledge'; and we can talk about 'either/or epistemology' and/or 'integrative, bi-polar, subjective-objective epistemology'.

Example: A divorced husband and wife are in court fighting over support of the kids, access, money, property, rights, privildges, etc. The lawyer of the husband gets up and paints a particular picture of what exactly happened to lead to the breakup of this husband and wife relationship. Then the lawyer of the wife gets up and paints a totally different picture.

The judge is left with the rather formidable question here: Where is the truth? What really happened here?

Does the judge reach an 'either/or' dialectical judgment? Or does he/she reach an 'integrative, mixed, bi-polar and bi-partisan judgement? Is the judgment skewed to one side or the other based on either 'either/or' epistemology and/or by 'either/or' ethical-legal discriminatory-preferential templates? In this latter regard, does the judge tend to be an 'either/or' judge and/or an 'integrative' judge? Does the judge base his/her judgment on sexual stereotypes, sexual discrimination, sexual preferentialism, legal templates which themselves may contain sexual sterotypes, discriminations, preferentialisms, and the like. Or is the judge looking for a 'balanced, integrative judgment'?

A partly artifical and arbitrary -- but partly not -- distinction can also be drawn between what might be called 'subjective epistemology' vs. 'objective epistemology' with the dialectically integrative epistemologists like myself aiming to 'split the difference' and/or 'bridge the gap' between 'subjective' and 'objective' epistemology.

Who were the great 'subjective epistemologists'? Off the top of my head, the list might read something like this: Anaxamander, Plato, Hobbes, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucualt...

Who were the great 'objective epistemologists'? Again off the top of my head, the list might read something like this: Aristotle, Bacon, Newton, Locke, Darwin, Diderot, Ayn Rand...

Who were the great bi-polar, epistemological integrationists? Heraclitus, the Han Philosophers, Hegel, Korzybski, Einstein, Hayakawa, Derrida, (hopefully and ideally myself someday...)...

Let's call it a day for our introduction to 'dialectical truth' and 'DGB Dialectical Epistemology'.

dgb, jan. 26th, 2008.

15.17. The Relationship Between Words, Ideas, and Phenomena

2008-01-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

Words represent ideas, and ideas represent 'things' and 'processes' -- together of which we will call 'phenomena'.

There are different types of words: 1. 'action or process words' -- which we call 'verbs'; 2. 'object, structure, animal or people words' -- which we call 'nouns'; 3. 'description words' which includes 'descriptions of actions or processes' -- which we call 3a. 'adverbs'; and 'descriptions of objects, structures, minerals, plants, or animals including people -- which we call 3b. 'adjectives' or sometimes 3c. 'pronouns'; 4. 'relationship words' which include 4a. 'prepositions' (egs. 'up', 'in', 'out', 'under', 'over'), and 4b. 'conjunctions' (eg. 'and', 'or'); and 5. 'exclamation or emotion words' (eg. "heh!, 'Ughh!'). Those five categories are just about all the different categories of words wee have in the Enlgish language -- I don't think I've left any significant categories out even if there are many exceptions to the general rules, and even if my grammar names, categories, and rules are very rusty -- which they are.

Now my ideas on epistemology have been influenced by a number of different 'sets' of epistemologists -- let's call Aristotle and Locke one set of influences; Berkeley and Hume a second set of influences; Plato and Kant a third set of influences; Ruseell and Wittgenstein a fourth set of influences; Korzybski and Hayakawa a fifth set of influences; Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden a sixth set of influences; and Hegel a seventh influence. I would call the fifth, sixth, and seventh sets of influences the dominant influences in my epistemological viewpoint.

A distinction can be made between an 'associative or harmonious influence' on the one hand, and a 'differential, counter, anti, or competitive influence' on the other hand. For example, Plato and Kant have provided a differential, counter-influence for me whereas Korzybski and Hayakawa have provided an associative, harmonious influence for me. More on this as we go along.

This unique set of epistemological influences combined with the way that these influential forces have been combined in my unique, creative, editorial or screening machinery -- i.e., my brain -- has resulted in an approach to epistemology that is at least a little -- and I think significantly -- different than any other existing mainstrean and/or offstream approach to epistemology. Much of what I am arguing for is pragmatic and mainly common sense -- a la Aristotle and Locke, Russell and Wittgenstein, Korzysbki and Hayakawa, Rand and Branden -- while my two main epistemological adversaries are Plato and Kant. Berkely and Hume remain partial adversaries: Berkeley was too much of a 'perceptual and epistemological relativist' (as Nietzsche would become later in a partly different sense introducing the idea of 'narcissistic bias'); and Hume was a very intelligent skeptic who just went a little too far to the point of 'trashing common sense and epistemological pragmatism'.

My DGB perspective on epistemology can be viewed visually as an 'upside down triangle' with 'words' and 'ideas' represented by the upper two points on the triangle and 'phenomena' ('things' and 'processes') represented by the bottom point of the triangle. The bottom point of the triangle can be referred to as the 'grounded, emprical point' whereas the upper two points can be referred to as 'metaphysical points' (above and beyond physics in the form of symbols and conceptuology -- except for the fact that they stem from the human brain and human vocal chords, writing hands, and/or typing hands).

Again, words represent ideas which in turn are usually meant to represent 'real phenomena in the real world' -- but not always, due to such things as a vivid human imagination, fiction, mythology, errors, false perception, false beliefs, and narcissistic manipulation where there is a purposeful intent to socially deceive...

That word 'real' can be epistemologically troublesome just like the word 'objective' and the words 'truth' and 'fact'. Epistemology is full of human subjectivity even as it usually paradoxically strives for 'truth', 'objectivity', 'fact', and 'knowledge' that is not tainted or corrupted by narcissitic human bias. This is what led Nietzsche to write:

....................................................................

'There are no facts, only interpretations.'
Notebooks, (Summer 1886 – Fall 1887) (Wikipedia).

......................................................................

Nietzsche's point was overstated -- like most of his points -- but it was this overstatement that gave more impact and clout to what he said.

Here is an extrapolation of Nietzsche's point that I found overtop of the last Wikipedia link.

............................................................................

José Pablo Feinmann, in Part 6 of his ongoing history of Peronism which comes with Pagina/12 on Sundays and which I’d link to if it was on the website, says,

Ah, the truth! Yes, that’s quite a topic. He who believes himself to be in possession of it doesn’t know what it is. The truth isn’t. To establish the truth about something would be to kill it, reify it, give it a definitive sense among the infinite number which it undoubtedly possesses. On the 17th of October [1943] there were thousands of people on the streets and at the end of the day a colonel called Perón gave a speech to the multitude gathered in the Plaza de Mayo. Is that the truth? No, it’s a fact (hecho). The truth is not a fact. […] Nietzsche famously said “There are no facts only interpretations.” […]…that phrase is worth its weight in gold […] We all know, more or less what occurred on the 17th of October. We know the facts. But what interpretation do we give them? Thought is a struggle between interpretations. Truths collide. There are no innocent truths. Truths represent interests.

.................................................................................

I like that piece but it is the topic of another essay (or more) -- an essay on the influence of narcissistic bias and/or power on 'the corruption of truth claims'.

Words/concepts like 'truth' and 'fact' have value within a 'pragmatic, common-sense epistemology'. However, epistemologically credible and reliable 'truth claims' have to come from people who are sincerely looking for the 'unbiased, objective truth' and don't have a narcissistic stake in the outcome. Furthermore, they need to be good at finding this type of 'unbiased truth'. And even then, they can still be wrong. Epistemological skepticism -- as long as it is not taken to extreme -- is a good philosophical outlook to have. It is harder for people to manipulate you with truth claims that are distorted for purpose of narcissistic, personal benefit.

Let's move on to the subject of 'epistemological congruence and existence'.

dgb, jan. 6th, 2008.

15.16. Empirical Concepts vs. Non-Empirical (Metaphysical) Concepts

2007-12-30T05:06:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a 'David Hume-like' essay -- but with a difference. I don't throw out metaphysical concepts -- or 'commit them to flames' -- quite as easily as Hume did.

Epistemology can start off very simple but then get complicated real quickly.

Example: I get out of my chair here that I am sitting on. My chair has a physical presence. I can 'empirically' verify its existence by 'pointing at it' and by 'phyically touching it'.

Now here is where we do a 'cognitive dialectical split'. This is the age old 'subjective/objective' split.

My chair can be viewed as a 'subjective phenomenon' that has a presence as a part of my 'perceived phenomenal field of immediate, empirical, sensory contact -- seeing, touching...'.

When I leave the room and step into the kitchen, the chair ceases to be a 'sensory, phenomenal object' for me. However, this does not mean that the chair ceases to exist, a la Berkeley who tried to argue that 'perception equals existence'. He quickly ran into trouble with this point of view: specifically, 'What happens when there is no-one present to perceive something? Does that mean that the 'thing not being perceived' does not exist? Berkeley's response to this was: It still exists because 'God can still perceive it'.

....................................................................................

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Berkeley (pronounced /ˈbɑrkli/, like Bark-Lee) (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Irish philosopher. His primary philosophical achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory, summed up in his dictum, "Esse est percipi" ("To be is to be perceived"), contends that individuals can only directly know sensations and ideas of objects, not abstractions such as "matter."

Berkeley's theorizing was empiricism at its most extreme. In his first publication, regarding vision, he stated that we only really perceive two spatial dimensions, height and width. The third spatial dimension of depth is not directly known; rather, it is inferred by the mind. As a young man, Berkeley theorized that individuals cannot know if an object is, individuals can only know if an object is perceived by a mind. He stated that individuals cannot think or talk about an object's being but rather think or talk about an object's being perceived by someone; individuals cannot know any "real" object or matter "behind" the object as they perceive it, which "causes" their perceptions. He thus concludes that all that individuals know about an object is their perception of it.

Under his empiricism, the object individuals perceive is the only object that they know and experience. If individuals need to speak at all of the "real" or "material" object, the latter in particular being a confused term which Berkeley sought to dispose of, it is this perceived object to which all such names should exclusively refer.

This raises the question whether this perceived object is "objective" in the sense of being "the same" for fellow humans, in fact if even the concept of other human beings, beyond individual perception of them, is valid. Berkeley argues that since an individual experiences other humans in the way they speak to him —something which is not originating from any activity of his own —and since they learn that their view of the world is consistent with his, he can believe in their existence and in the world being identical or similar for everyone.

It follows that:

Any knowledge of the empirical world is to be obtained only through direct perception.
Error comes about through thinking about what individuals perceive.
Knowledge of the empirical world of people and things and actions around them may be purified and perfected merely by stripping away all thought, and with it language, from their pure perceptions.
From this it follows that:

The ideal form of scientific knowledge is to be obtained by pursuing pure de-intellectualized perceptions.
If individuals would pursue these, we would be able to obtain the deepest insights into the natural world and the world of human thought and action which is available to man.
The goal of all science, therefore, is to de-intellectualize or de-conceptualize, and thereby purify, human perceptions.
Theologically, one consequence of Berkeley's views is that they require God to be present as an immediate cause of all our experiences. God is not the distant engineer of Newtonian machinery that in the fullness of time led to the growth of a tree in the university's quadrangle. Rather, my perception of the tree is an idea that God's mind has produced in mine, and the tree continues to exist in the Quad when "nobody" is there simply because God is an infinite mind that perceives all.

...................................................................................

Now according to DGB epistemology, the chair -- even when it is no longer in my field of empirical vision -- still has a subject presence for me, a subjective existence, only now it is an 'assumptive or inferred existence'. We can also say that the chair has an 'objective (noumenal) existence in its own right but this is a metaphyical concept because it is a concept -- and assumed phenomenon -- that lies outside of the realm of my, or anyone else's, empirical senses. 'Objective (noumenal) reality is an assumed or inferred reality that lies beyond the emplirical senses and potential for verification by man'. Thus, it is a metaphysical concept -- lying beyond physics and more importantly beyond the possiblity of human empirical verification.

Now let us imagine the following scenario. Most of you have probably watched 'American Justice' or 'Cold Case Files'.

Let us say that a man was convicted of a sexual crime. He declares that he is innocent and appeals his conviction. The man was convicted before the arrival and usage of DNA. Fifteen years later DNA from the crime scene is linked to another known sex offender who it is now apparent committed the crime. The first man who it is now clear was convicted falsely, is released. We can say that based on better empirical evidence, the courts now could make a better 'truth-assertion' or 'truth-assumption' relative to who committed the murder.

What kind of conclusions can we build from this?

1. The 'truth' is very rarely 'final'.

2. The 'truth' is subjective to 'historical revisionism'.

3. One hopes that the 'truth' is being 'honored' and/or 'improved upon' based on any form of historical revisionism; not distorted, mamipulated, and/or falsified.

4. Empirical, observational, and/or physical evidence remains the strongest basis for asserting, inferring, and/or assuming 'truth'; any other form of 'circumstantial', 'inferential' and/or 'assumptive' evidence is much more amenable to multiple interpretations of 'truth' -- and should never be declared 'final'.

5. Subjective testimony is particularly susceptible to narcissistic bias and distortion of truth.

6. The more courts of law prioritize subjective testimony at the expense of emprical and physcial evidence, the more they become susceptible to 'overconvicting the innocent'. Indeed, even courts of law can become 'tainted' by narcissistic bias based on preferential treatment of some and underprotection of others. These are factors that need to be weeded ot if we are to keep our courts -- which should set the highest standards for 'epistemological truth' -- 'epistemologically clean'. If the epistemology is not clean in a court of law, then neither will be the judgment.
(See my blogsites on civil rights, equal rights, legal narcissistic biases, 'The Gaze', family justice, and sexual justice.)

dgb, dec. 30th-31st, 2007.

15.15. From Kantian Epistemology to DGB 'Dialectical Rational-Empiricism' (via Vaihinger)

2007-12-30T03:20:00.000-08:00

Man is intelligently designed -- just like every other animal that walks on, swims on, and/or flies over top of, the face of the earth. Even plants are intelligently designed.

Now, whether you want to say that 'God' intelligently designed us, or 'Nature' intelligently designed us, or some other species from a different planet intelligently designed us, or none of the above -- that is up to you. I will say I am an 'agnostic' here -- I don't know. However, it might be argued -- and it has been argued (Vaihinger, the philosophy of 'as if', 1911) -- that sometimes man can utilize 'functional fictions' or 'fictional constructs' (my words, not his) in ways that 'work for him' and/or otherwise 'brighten up his day' even though they may not be 'totally epistemologically accurate', but in effect, do him no harm, relative to their amount of epistemological error. Indeed, if you want to push this point furhter, it could be easily argued that every human construct or concept contains a certain elsement of error or 'fictional component'.

...................................................................................

Hans Vaihinger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Philosophie des Als Ob (As If), he (Vaihinger) argued that human beings can never really know the underlying reality of the world, and that as a result we construct systems of thought and then assume that these match reality: we behave "as if" the world matches our models. In particular, he used examples from the physical sciences, such as protons, electrons, and electromagnetic waves. None of these phenomena have been observed directly, but science pretends that they exist, and uses observations made on these assumptions to create new and better constructs.

This philosophy, though, is wider than just science. One can never be sure that the world will still exist tomorrow, but we usually assume that it does. Alfred Adler, the founder of Individual Psychology, was profoundly influenced by Vaihinger's theory of fictions, incorporating the idea of psychological fictions into his personality construct of a fictional final goal.

....................................................................................

I find it most interesting that Vaihinger was a Kantian scholar. Indeed, I like Vaiinger's interpretation and/or modification of Kant's epistemology better than anything else I have come across. It fits fairly closely with my General Semantic (Korzybski, Hayakawa...) background.

It could be argued -- and I will hang onto this argument for the time being -- that 'God' is one of these types of 'fictional or mythological constructs' that can be useful and important to man -- as long as he is not using the name 'God' to terrorize or poision his own life, and/or the life of others.

I will use a 'pantheistic' construct (see my blogsite on religion, spirituality, and pantheism...) here -- specifically 'God/Nature' or 'God-Nature' -- to function in my writing and my philosophy as 'The Creator' behind man's -- and lifes's 'intelligent design'.

Let's go back to Kant and Vaihinger. I don't mind using Kant's concept/construct of 'noumenal world' as long as it is used in a similar fashion to Vaihinger's philosophy of 'As If'. In other words, Kant's construct of 'noumenal world' becomes an idealistic, metaphysical epistemological concept that is more closely aligned to Vaihinger's Philosophy of 'As If' than anything that Plato wrote on 'Ideal Forms'.

This is an important distinction. In other words, according to DGB's (that's me) rendition of Kant, we live in two worlds: 1. our subjective, phenomenal world of 'as if'; and 2. our objective, noumenal world that we will never know perfectly but we can still get to know better and better through a better and better use of our sensory perceptions and our subjective, phenomenal world of 'as if' that is based on partly 'factual' and partly 'fictional' -- constructs. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how 'fictional' our constructs are; at other times it may be a life and death matter.

Based on this DGB rendition of Kantian epistemology, we have something to workd with -- epistemologically speaking -- and do not have to panic and commit 'epistemological suicide'.

Let us leave it here for now.

dgb, Dec. 30th, 2007.

15.14. Kant's Room (Part 2) Laying The Groundwork For A Dialectic Epistemology -- 'Rational-Empiricsm'

2007-12-29T05:17:00.000-08:00

Kant is a good starting point for studying epistemology -- and epistemology being the study of knowledge, we can say also that epistemology is the search for 'truth'.

Starting with Kant, we need to determine what he did wrong in order to go back to doing things 'right' relative to the moving forward of the art and science of epistemology.

Kant created an epistemological dualism but one without solid foundation and without 'moving parts'. Kant did a 'Platonic thing' -- he made the same epistemological mistake that Plato made. He took epistemology into the realm of metaphysics -- into the 'outer stratosphere' -- where it quickly became completely incomprehensible, ungrounded, and had academics shaking their collective heads, and becoming more anxious -- much more anxious, some of them to the point of despair == as it seemed through Kant's view of epistemology that epistemology had no future, no place to go, because it had no foundation.

For me and my presentation of DGB Epistemology, there was, and is, no problem with the dualistic part of his epistemology -- i.e. his distinction between the 'phenomenal world' of our senses vs. the 'noumenal world' of objective reality apart from our senses. This was essentially simply a re-wording of the age-old philosophical 'subjective-objective split'. However, Kant ended up in the same philosophical place -- only perhaps stated things more clearly, succinctly, bluntly than any philosopher before him including David Hume who inspired him to write his masterpiece -- 'The Critique of Pure Reason'.

What Kant said, in effect, is that man could never 'know' his objective-noumenal world because this world was a completely metaphysical world that lay outside the boundaries of his senses.

Now I have no trouble accepting this statement as being 'true' if by 'true' we mean truth in its most perfect, academic, technical, 'anal-retentive' sense. This was the world that Kant was writing from and about.

However, we have to make a distinction between epistemology in its most technical, academic (Kantian) sense and epistemology in the pragmatic, common-sense way that all of us have to go about this business each and every day.

In this latter sense of the word 'epistemology', 'fact', and 'truth, if ten people see a 'chair' in a room and agree that it is indeed there, and nowhere else, has a physical, empirical presence that we can see and touch, and all agree that if they walk out of the room, the chair will still be there when they come back, assuming that no one is there to move it, and all agree that the chair has an 'objective existence' in its own right, apart from human perception -- this is what i would call a 'low level human inference' -- then we can say that our senses at least partly cross the border and dialectically bridge the gap between our subjective and objective worlds.

Now this is not to say that gross mistakes can't be made in terms of the 'probable truth-value' of our subjective perception and/or our interpretation of the evidence before us relative to our objective-noumenal world. It happens all the time. Indeed, sometimes ten or a hundred or even a million people can be wrong on the same perception-interpretation. Often this is either of historical relevance or cultural relevance or economic relevance or narcissistic relevance. For example, people once believed that the world was flat, and theta the sun revolved around the earth. Men also believed at one time that men should have superior rights to women -- in fact, some individuals and cultures still do believe this. Similarly, at one time, some individuals and cultures believed that whites should have more rights than blacks. Similarly too, both judges and juries have often been fooled into believing in a defendant's guilt or innocence, and then been found later to have been grossly wrong.

Yes, mistakes are always being made relative to the objective truth value of some our subjective perceptions and/or interpretations. There is a dialectic that always needs to be going on between our subjective and objective worlds. We need to remain at all times partly skeptical relative to the truth-value of our perceptions and interpretations. However, if we are well trained in the dynamics and probabilities of our subjective, epistemological conclusions relative to the objective world around us, combining good sensory observations with highly credible social reports, good internal logic, and moving up and down the abstraction ladder in the General Semantic sense of this process -- never shutting ourselves off of new arriving information from the world outside us -- then we generally have a right to feel pretty confident relative to these epistemological processes and conclusions.

Some people practice better language and meaning skills, and epistemological skills, much better than others do. We have a right to talk about 'epistemological pathology' and at least the partial connection between epistemological pathology and psychopathology. This is one of the areas where philosophy and psychology overlap and touch each other in the same dialectical way that I have writing about everything else here. Our philosophical foundations influence our psychological foundations and visa versa. There is a process of 'dialectical (two-way) causality'. Actually, there are 'multiple dialectical causalities' at work here as economics, culture, politics, and other factors all have their respective influences on each other.

If we view epistemology in the strictly technical, academic Kantian sense, then epistemology hits a dead-end roadblock. It has no place to go. Worse than that, it destroys the 'observational-empirical-logical' base of epistemology as built up through the philosophical lineage of men like Aristotle, Bacon, Occam, Newton, Hobbes, Locke, and the philosophers of The Enlightenment. These were academic men but they were also men of profoundly wise epistemological pragmatism and common sense.

If I say that 'there is a chair in the room' and ten other people concur with me that there is, indeed, a chair in the room -- it is a far less 'metaphysical-assumptive leap of faith' to therefore conclude that 'the chair exists and it exists and is situated in the room' than it is to try to back up the metaphysical-assumptive claim for example that 'God exists'. Observation, touch, hearing, and empiricism in general have a very big role to play in what we can call the probability of the 'truth value claims' that each of us make each and every day.

In other words, epistemology, in order to have any truth value and pragmatic relevance needs to be 'empirically based' -- it needs to be based on the empirical relevance and 'truth-value' of what our senses tell us is 'true'. Rationalism -- inferences, logic, generalizations, associations, distinctions, and value judgments -- all play a big role in this epistemological process but only when solidly combined with an observational, sensory, empirical base. From the dialectical dualism between 'rationalism' and 'empiricism' is born the creative epistemological integration of 'rational-empiricism'.

Correcting Kant's technical, anal-retentive epistemological problem then where he claims that we cannot 'know' our objective-noumenal world -- is a two fold process: 1. bring common sense and pragmatism back into epistemology; and 2. bring epistemology back down to earth again so that there is both a dialectical process continually going on between our rational and empirical processes, and in so doing this, we also develop a better ongoing dialectical assumptive or inferential connection between our subjective-phenomenal and objective-noumenal worlds.

There will always be a metaphysical component of reality -- that part which is cognitively beyond our grasp. But with inside this 'metaphysical realm of uncertainty' -- which is the foundation for the philosophical grounds of 'epistemological skepticism' -- we have to do the best we can do with the sensory-interpretive tools that God/Nature gave us.

This is where we have to re-ground epistemology and base it on the best sensory-cognitive-interpretive tools that we have available to us. We can do no better because no man or woman amongst us is an epistemological God (i.e., infallible to error).

As Wittgenstein or Korzybski have each said in their own similar but slightly different way, when things start to get too abstract and too metaphysical it is time to start 'pointing at things you can see again' and 'touching things you can feel again'.

Now as Berkley and Hume have shown us, empiricism by itself can be taken too far --into a world of absurdity. In this regard, empiricism -- in its common-sense, pragmatic dimension needs a polar dialectical soul-mate that can balance the groundedness of empiricism with the logical creativity and imagination of man's -- rational mind. What was needed back in Kant's time -- and still is -- is a dialectical epistemology of rational-empiricism.

Let us take a short break -- or until the next leapfrog -- and then move on to a discussion of rational-empiricism.

dgb, Jan. 29th, 2007, updated Jan. 8th, 2008.

15.13. Kant's Room (Part 1): Kant's (Self-Created) Epistemolgical Crisis

2007-12-27T19:32:00.000-08:00

I wrote this paper last night and was not completely happy with the results. So I am going to try to write it again tonight seeking more clarity in what I write. It is easy to get lost in a philosopher's abstract words. The good philosopher seeks clarity in his or her abstract words; not confusion and mysticism. And so it is with my work last night. Tonight I seek more clarity in my work because last night I am sure there was at least one point of significant confusion, if not several more.

Kant's first challenge in his most famous book -- The Critique of Pure Reason -- was to 'epistemology'. (The second challenge was to 'ontology' which we will examine in Part 2 of Kant's Room).

Some might say that Kant, in effect, destroyed epistemology. At least, he seriously deflated the epistemology balloon -- which included the balloon of science, sensory awareness, empiricism, and reason.

Here were some of the responses to Kant's ultimate epistemological skepticism which surpassed even David Hume's 'ultimate decontructionist philosophy' in its devastating effect on the academic world at the time -- which I am sure is not what Kant intended.

...................................................................................
'Kant's intellect was essentially destructive.'

-- Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859).
(Duncan Heath, Introducing Romanticism, 1999, pg. 29, 'Metaphysical
Terror')

It seems that I shall become another of the many
victims of folly whom Kantian philosophy has on its
conscience...I cannot wrest myself from its chains.
The idea that we can know nothing, nothing at all,
about truth in this life...has upset me in the very
sanctity of my soul. My sole and highest aim has
vanished. I no longer have one. Since then, I abhor
books...

-- Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). (IBID, pg. 29)

....................................................................................

What Kant did that drove many a philosopher to the brink of insanity and/or suicide (I am exaggerating partly here) was he created a 'black and white -- no gray area -- epistemological dualistic world' where man's subjective, phenomenal world could not have any direct form of contact with -- and thus 'not know' the objective, noumenal world because the latter was outside the domain and power of man's senses.

Before we go any further we need to clear up what I mean by 'noumenal' world here which I am finding out seems to be quite different perhaps than what Kant had in mind by this concept.

What I was missing when I wrote this paper last night was an awareness of how significantly Kant seemed to have been influenced in his thinking by Plato and the latter's epistemological 'Ideal Forms'. This is quite different than what I thought up until today Kant meant by the term 'noumenal world' which was an 'objective, empirical world' -- i.e., 'the thing in itelf' -- that defied the limitation of man's senses and power of reasoning.

Let us try this distinction again becaue it is an imperative distinction relative to my own particular line of 'dialectic thinking'.

If Kant's meaning of 'noumenal world' is something that is completely idealistic and untouchable in line with Plato's epistemological theory of 'Ideal Forms', then everything else that follows here is irrelevant. I don't want to waste my time arguing against such a 'pie in the sky' theory. Such a theory, whether we are talking about either Plato's 'Ideal Forms' or Kant's more 'modern' rendition (created in the 1700s) of Plato's earlier theory substituting the Kantian name 'noumenal world' -- is completely mystical and mythological. Such a theory is all 'smoke and mirrors' and leaves people/left people more confused than before the theory was devised. It should have been left on the drawing board -- in both cases.

Only if we mean by 'noumenal world' the same as what we usually call today our 'objective world' does the argument that follows make any sense. And since I don't now think that Kant meant the idea of 'noumenal-objective-empirical world' when he used this concept -- most of what follows is a Kantian waste of time. Just like I view Plato's epistemological theory of 'Ideal Forms'. And any Kantian rendition of Plato's earlier mystical theory.

There is only one sense in which Plato's epistemological theory of 'Ideal Forms' makes any kind of normal, understandable, common sense: specifically, if I have an idea in my mind -- say, I want to write a book online called 'Hegel's Hotel' -- and that idea in my mind is perculating in my mind before it ever is committed to paper or a blogsite, then this type of idea might be considered to be an 'Ideal Form' -- a sort of 'internal template' of what eventually is being committed to my blogsite here -- but that perspective and argument has holes in it too. Simply stated, the 'internal template' that we are talking about is far from 'idealistic' and only begins to take a more 'idealistic form' as it 'dialectically interacts' with the world outside me, and in so doing, starts to polish over some of the original internal gliches in my thinking.

Thus, in any 'epistemological theory' developed by man to help explain the relationship between man and his inside and/or outside world, there is great deal of 'dialectical interplay and feedback' that goes on between what I am calling our 'objective-empirical-noumenal world' and our internal 'theory-devising-subjective world'.

Ideas don't come out of nowhere. They come from our past and present experience. They may 'hook up' with 'other ideas and experiences' via: 1. association, (generalization, abstraction, classification, categorization, inference and interpetation, causality); 2. distinction (differentation, boundary-making...), and; 3. memory.

These are the three main 'a priori' mental devices that Nature/God blessed us with relative to helping us in our 'evolution' and our 'will to survive'. They do indeed, help us to 'know' our objective, empirical, noumenal world (in the sense that I have been using it here) by taking us to a 'deeper and more essential level of understanding' than can be derived by most animals with smaller brains to work with than man. Having said this, a bigger brain can mean a bigger danger of 'cognitive-emotional self-abuse'. Our chief evolutionary asset -- our brain -- can turn on us under the duress of bad personal experiences -- and become our worst enemy, our worst nightmare. This is 'self-induced-psycho-pathology'.

What am I trying to achieve here?

1. I wish to marginalize Plato's theory of 'Ideal Forms' and any Kantian 'noumenal' rendtion of it. Both theories are mystical and mythological. As David Hume would say, 'Commit them both to flames';

2. It is worth viewing the world we live in as being 'dualistic' in nature just as long as we appreciate the importance of the 'dialectic interplay between our senses and rational self on the one hand (i.e., our 'subjective, phenomenal world') in conjunction with our 'objective, empirical, noumenal world'. Our first subjective world -- when used right -- 'dialectically bridges the gap' between our subjective and objective worlds.

The better we do this -- i.e., the better we 'know' our objective, empirical, noumenal world -- the better we survive.

No fear of an epistemological breakdown.

dgb, dec. 28th, 2007.

15.12 Words, Ideas, and Things -- And Their Essential Bi-Polar, Dialectic Nature

2007-12-16T06:04:00.000-08:00

Other philosophers and semanticists have been here before me -- Locke, Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski and many others. We will take a closer look at their work at a later date, both in the history of philosophy, and later in this section. But right now, I want to take a shot at this myself -- at trying to figure out at least some aspects of the intricate relationship between words, ideas, and things.

We can start by saying that there is a 'triadic', 'triangular', and/or 'trialectic' relationship between words, ideas, and things. For descriptive purposes, let us imagine an upside down trianglue pointing down towards the 'earth' -- the 'things' and 'processes' on the earth and in the sky -- with the two upper points of the triangle representing 'ideas' and 'words'.

Now let us make another distinction here. Words can be defined. Ideas can be defined. Indeed, words are only sybolic short forms for ideas so both can be 'defined'. In contrast, 'things' and 'processes' or 'phenomena' as I will often refer to them cannot be 'defined'. They can only be 'described' and/or 'named'. Ideas then, are man-made 'mental images'. Words are short forms for these mental images. And anything made by God and/or Nature -- take your pick or split the difference if you are a 'pantheist' -- cannot be defined but only described and named.

Likewise with anything made by man that has some sort of 'phyical presence, substance, and/or process' connected to it. Thus, the idea of a 'telephone' can only be defined whereas the physical presence of a telephone can only be described and/or named. Now that may create problems that I am presently unaware of, but it sounds good right now, so for the present at least, we will go with it.

Some of you might argue that 'words can be described' and 'things can be defined' but I say that this just creates mental confusion rather than mental clarity and we are seeking mental clarity here, not mental confusion. I think the distinction we are making is important.

It should be noted that we can start anywhere on the 'triangular process or cycle' of words, ideas, and things and then move on towards connecting the other two points of the triangle or pieces of the puzzle -- word or name, idea or concept, and 'thing, process, or phenomenal referent'. Tic, tac, toe.

Now, let us back up a bit and analyze part of what I have done here from a different perspective. Anyone can create a new idea and/or make up a new name for the idea. I did that with the word 'trialectic'. To my knowledge, it has not been used before, at least not in anything that I have read. At this point, I realize that you can indeed describe an idea and a word as a short form for the idea. For example, if I wanted to define 'trialectic', I might say something like: A trialectic is the same idea as a dialectic but with three participants rather than two, whether these 'participants' be people, things, processes, characteristics, words, ideas, theories, philosophies...or whatever. Now this definition assumes that you have an idea as to what 'dialectic' means. If not, then more definition and/or description is needed. In this regard, we can define 'definition' as a succinct amount of description aimed at giving the word-idea being defined the most amount of clear meaning possible within the confines of the shortest amount of space possible which is generally one sentence. Any extension of meaning beyond this is usually called a 'description'.

A 'description' of 'trialectic' might move beyond the definition above to give examples and/or to come up with more descriptions of the word/idea that might give it more clarity of meaning to those of you who have not bumped into it before in your reading or thinking -- which probably is most of you in this particular case.

Thus, to correct what was first stated at the beginning of this essay, we need to distinguish between 'word/idea-descriptions' and 'phenomenal descriptions' (the latter representing descriptions of things, processes, animals, people, etc...)

This brings us to one further point. We have talked about the triangular, triadic, and/or trialectic nature of 'words, ideas, and things'. Ideas generally represent -- or are intended to represent -- things, processes, animals, people, encounters, relationships, descriptions, characteristics, etc., all of which we are calling 'phenomena'. This definition is complicated by the existence of 'false phenomena' -- fiction, fantasies, lies, manipulations, errors, dreams, myths, limits in perception, misinterpretations, etc. This we will have to leave for the subject of future essays.

The last point then here that I wish to make is this: words are creations of the human psyche or mind. And if you assume, like I have, based on the work of Anaximander, Heraclitus, the Han philosophers, Hegel, Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy), Freud, Jung, Perls, and many others -- that the human psyche and the human body is basically bi-polar, or rather 'multi-bi-polar' -- then it should not shock us when I say that words as creations of the human mind are also essentially bi-polar. That is, they serve both a selfish and a social function. And similarly, they can be both selfishly (or 'narcissistically' to use the more technical term) and socially defined.

Social definitions require social agreements. Selfish definitions don't. The meanings of words include both selfish and social definitions and descriptions. When we have a 'communication breakdown', this means that we can have any of a significant number of different possible problems that can arise because of the essential bi-polar or dialectical nature of words and their meaning -- such as: a conflict between opposing narcissistic meanings, two different social meanings, a narcissistic meaning and a social meaning, a non-underestood narcissistic or social meaning, and anything else that I might have missed here.

To investigate the ambiguity of the meaning of words and the ideas they represent then, it will usually serve us well to know not only that words have different ranges and focuses of meaning (different levels of abstraction, see Korzybski, Hayakawa, General Semantics...), but also that they have both selfish and social functions, and in this regard, different selfish and social meanings. This is the bi-polar, dialectic nature of words as projections of the human mind and its essential multi-bi-polar, multi-dialectic nature.

dgb, Dec. 16-17th, 2007.

On The Bi-Polar, Narcissistic and Social Nature of Words and Their Meaning

2007-12-15T03:47:00.000-08:00

Words and their meaning can be viewed as 'dialectic, bi-polar projections and extensions of the human psyche.

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...

15.10. The Classification of Words

2007-12-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

The words in the English language -- for the most part -- can be divided and classified into fairly simple groups. Yes, there are all sorts of intricacies that complicate the matter but we will ignore these at the present moment for the sake of simplicity:

1. 'Nouns' -- represent life and/or man-made structures (visibly non-moving to very slow-moving things;

2. Verbs -- represent life and/or man-made processes (visibly faster moving things);

3. 'Adjectives' for the most part describe nouns;

4. 'Adverbs' for the most part describe verbs;

5. 'Pronouns' either describe nouns as well (like 'the' or 'a' -- definite vs. indefinite articles), or replace them (like 'I' or 'it'...)

6. 'Conjunctions' and 'prepositions' are words that indicate a particular type of relationship between different things -- structures and/or processes (such as 'and' -- conjunction -- or 'over' and 'under' -- prepositions);

7. 'Exclamations' like 'Hey!' or 'Ohhhh!'

Let us get out of this short discussion before my rustiness with English grammar exposes itself, and/or all of the hundreds of exceptions to the rules start to kick in. English would be a relatively easy language if there were not so many darn exceptions to the rules!

dgb, Nov. 1st, 2007.

15.9. The Connection Between Phenomena, Ideas, Words...and Ethics

2007-06-10T07:15:00.001-07:00

The study of the connection between words, ideas, and phenomena can be either pretty simple or intricately complex, depending on how deep you want to wade into the subject matter.

For the most part, ideas are internal, mental representations of particular life phenomena, including structures, relationships, encounters, and/or processes -- complications arise when we start to talk about dreams, myths, fantasies, fiction, goals, mistakes, lies, fabrications, cover-ups and ideas that do not reflect something that you can actually physically touch and or see).

Words, in turn, can be viewed as short cuts for ideas.

Putting these two sets of ideas together -- ideas can be viewed as abstractions of phenomena, real and/or not real, and words can be viewed as short cuts for ideas which in turn represent abstractions of phenomena, real or not real, touchable or not touchable, visible or not visible.

Now, for the technical philosophers amongst you, things get profusely more complicated when we start to get into the 'subjective/objective' problem -- a problem that has cursed philosophers for centuries. What is real and what is not real? What is true and what is not true? How do we know? What constitutes 'knowledge'? What is 'reality'? How do we account for 'mistakes' in perception, interpretation, and/or judgment? Much of yesterday's 'knowledge' is today's 'myth'. Culturally, historically, and individually many people believe different things. How do we account for these differences? How do we account for the problem that many, many people may believe something to be 'true' -- but still be wrong?

Epistemology (the study of knowledge) is intimately tied up to ethics, values, and judgments (the study of what is 'good' and 'bad'). How do we deal with the problem of 'bad epistemology' affecting 'bad ethics'. For example, let us say that the ruling government determines that 'vaccinations are good for you'. But a significant body of citizens may believe otherwise. Maybe they believe that 'some vaccinations are bad or dangerous', or that 'the risks of some vaccinations outweigh the possible benefits' or that 'the government is quite possibly being badly influenced by narcissistic drug companies who have no problem distorting the truth of supposedly 'objective scientific investigations' in order to make millions or billions of extra dollars'. In other words, 'knowing' that it is distinctly possible -- and indeed 'realistic' -- to assume that 'power', 'corruption', 'money', 'greed', 'narcissism', and 'conflict of interest' can distort 'truth' and throw all knowledge into serious doubt and disarray, what does this have to say about the problem of 'knowledge' and 'who supposedly knows what'? It is not always the people with the most power and/or credibility that can have the 'most' and/or the 'best' knowledge' but power and credibility can often 'dupe' people into thinking that they do. What do we do about the very credible 'knowledge' or 'evidence towards knowledge' that 'interpretively connects' many particular vaccinations with many very bad health outcomes such as cripplings and other life long serious negative health consequences. If the government says that 'we have to vaccinate our children' and one of our children experiences a very bad health consequence, is the goverment going to take responsiblity for this? Or deny the interpretive connection? What do yu think? The study of knowledge -- epistemology -- is not an easy subject at all when you get into its higher technicalities. However, the amount of potential and real ethical, evaluative damage stemming from people -- particularly people in serious positions of power -- making decisions with very serious consequences to peoples lives based on 'bad knowledge', regardless of whether they are 'honest mistakes' or 'mistakes of 'corruption, narcissism, greed, conflict of interest...' is far more than enough to say to all of us that epistemology -- and the sensory perception and language that gets us to epistemology, i.e, leads us to so-called 'knowledege' -- needs to be taken very seriously and studied very carefully.

This section is an attempt to address many of these problems -- the simpler ones, the more technical ones, and the potentially lethal ones that can and often do lead to huge ethical gaffes and human costs -- the inexcusable ones being the intentional ones based on the narcissism and greed of people in serious positions of power.

dgb, dec. 8th, 2007.

15.8. 'Evaluation and Health' Re-visited

2007-06-10T07:11:00.003-07:00

In 1979, I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology called, 'Evaluation and Health'. The paper was my first major venture into the study of epistemology which is the study of knowldege (although I didn't know it at the tiem) and the effects that language and semantics or meaning have on epistemology, evaluation, emotions, action -- and health.

I now view the essay as a kind of 'virginal' paper. It was written before I had been exposed to many theorists -- philosophers and psychologists -- who I came to either later study or study in signifantly more depth, such as Perls, Adler, Freud in any depth, Jung, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heraclitus, Anaxamander, Kierkegaarde, Foucault, Derrida, and more...Amd subject wise, it was written before I had studied these three topics in any depth: 'narcissism and narcissistic bias', 'transference', and 'dialectics'--meaning 'dualistic and dialectic theory' (as primarily espoused by Hegel -- 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis').

In other words, the paper was written from an 'Apollonian' perspective (see Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy', and/or Greek mythology) before I'd seriously come into contact with the idea of 'Dionysianism' (again see Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy', and/or Greek mythology) and what Dionysianism means relative to human nature and human behavior. It was like I was trying to be an 'Enlightenment philosopher focusing on the domain of 'thinking' and 'reason' in man's life without fully or even partly acknowledging the domain and impact of 'unreason' (or a different type of reason -- specifically, the influence of 'narcissism' and 'romanticism' on human nature and human behavior.

It was a very big 'gap' in the study of human behavior that I was missing. How well can anyone fully understand human behavior without studying at least to some significant introductory extent, Freud, Jung, Perls, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel. I can say that 30 more years of living -- and quite a bit more reading and learning -- has gone a long way towards my more fully understanding, appreciating, and filling in the gap of human narcissism, dionysianism, and dialecticism relative to the understanding of human nature and behavior.

The 1979 paper that you are about to read, was influenced primarily by three sets of theorists: 1. the General Semanticists, Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa, 2. the 'cognitive' philosophers and psychologists of 'reason': Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, Albert Ellis, and Aaron Beck; and 3. Erich Fromm and other humanists.

As important as I think the following paper is -- relative to its epistemological process, structure, and general realm of study -- it can be viewed now, 30 years later, in Psychoanalytic terms as a study of 'The Central Ego (without seriously going into its 'mediating' and 'negotiating' functions which would come more into play as I started to learn about Gestalt Therapy, Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Hegel).

Thus, it more or less represents all of the 'dry' elements of studying central ego function without the 'soap opera stuff' added into this study that comes with studying human narcissism and romanticism.

At least in part, the study of human narcissism and narcissistic bias can be viewed as the study of 'anti-epistemology' at least to the extent that it often influences humans to distort, manipulate, embellish, diminish, screen, cover up, and 'subjectify' the 'objective facts' of a particular situation or investigation in order to serve our own wishes, goals, and other fancies. But that is the subject of later work. We will deal with other factors and 'ego-states' in the study of human epistemology, ethics and anti-ethics, in the 'psychology' blog site that deals more specifically with the study of 'human behavior'.

Right now, let us look at the study of what might be called 'objective epistemology' -- epistemology more or less in a 'vacuum' without the extrusive and intrusive influence of 'narcissistic bias'.

db, March 9th, 2007.

15.7. Nietzsche vs. Ayn Rand: Epistemological Relativism vs. Epistemological Objectivism

2007-04-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. But what is the study of knowledge? Some important clarification is needed here. For our purposes here, our epistemological study does not include the study of values -- this is primarily the domain of morals, ethics, politics, law, religion and the like -- except for one value that I will include here, and that is the value to be real, or worded otherwise, the value of being truthful, of honoring truth. What is the dialectical connection between realism and truthfulness. Realism honors truthfulness and truthfulness honors realism. When I use the phrase 'dialectical connection' I mean that the 'causal connection' and/or the 'nature of influence' works both ways. Realism influences and honors truthfulness. And truthfulness influences and honors realism. When I say that I am a 'dialectical epistemologist' --a term that I have never seen used in philosophy before -- I am showing the combined influence of Hegel and Korzybski (mainly Hegel) in the realm of epistemology which means that I am looking for 'epistemological influences' that work both ways. Interpretation affects evaluation and evaluation affects interpretation. Twenty-eight years ago when I wrote my honors thesis in psychology which was primarily an essay on epistemology, I was not a dialectical epistemologist. I was a 'one way' epistemologist -- I viewed the line of influence from the senses to interpretation to evaluation but it was not until I finished the essay that I started to see that the line of influence could work both ways, i.e., from the top to the bottom as well as from the bottom to the top. I had met Korzybski in my studies (who we will talk about later) but I had not seriously met Perls, Freud, Jung or the prime influencer of all three of these critically important psychologists -- Hegel (with honorable secondary mention to Nietzsche).

What again do I mean by dialectical epistemology? (In fact, you could call me a 'multi-dialectical epistemologist' meaning that I am looking for 'multi-dialectical exchanges and influences everywhere'.) Dialectical epistemology means that as epistemologists, we look not only at the influence of perception and interpretation on values and evaluation, but also we look at the effect or influence of values and evaluation on perception and interpretation. Put another way, we look not only at the influence of epistemology on ethics but also on the influence of ethics (and/or lack of ethics) on epistemology. Or put still another way, you have to look at the dialectical (two-way) interaction between human narcissism and human epistemology. Because human epistemology not only influences human narcissism (and by 'narcissism' we mean a combination of such things as: selfishness, egotism, self-centredness, self-absorption, pleasure-seeking...) but also the line of influence and causality works both ways and thus, human narcissism influences and oftentimes corrupts, poisons, pathologizes...human epistemology.

To emphasize the point I am making here, I like to compare and contrast the philosophical, and in particular, epistemological work of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. There are a lot of similarities between the two philosophers. I like them both but both had their strengths and weaknesses. In a lot of ways, Ayn Rand was the Friedrich Nietzsche of the 20th century. Both were conservative, presumably both were capitalist idealists (we know this in Rand's case, in Nietzsche's case we more or less surmise it from his philosophy). Both believed in pushing to the maximum for human excellence and performance, and not accepting much less. Present day advertsing mottos like 'Just do it' and 'Impossible is nothing' would seem to epitemize much of the core message of both philosophers.

Having said all of this, and pointing out the key similarities in their respective philosophies, it is also important, indeed, critical to note their philosophical, and particularly their epistemological differences. You cannot read Nietzsche without noting the important influence and/or similarity between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer was the ultimate philosophical pessimsist and narcissist. It could be argued that much of Schopenhauer's philosophy came to influence Freud's concept of the 'Id' and 'Freudian Psychoanalytic Instinctual (or 'Idian') philosophy and psychology. Much of this line of influence also went through Nietzsche. 'There are no such things as facts, only interpretations' according to Nietzsche. Ayn Rand would never say anything like this. Indeed, she would be apalled by such a philosophical statement. In this regard, Nietzsche was the ultimate philosophical 'subjectivist' and Ayn Rand was the ultimate philosophical 'objectivist'. Ayn Rand was an ethical idealist and an epistemological idealist -- she was a post-product of the Enlightenment era of philosophy, and indeed, if she had been philosophizing back in the days of the beginning and then the height of science, back in the days of Bacon and Locke and Diderot and Voltaire and Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin back in the early to middle 1700s she would have fit right in and been in her glory. Nietzsche, following partly in the footsteps of Schopenhauer and Rousseau, broke out of this mold of 'human reason, logic, and common sense is everything'. Nietzsche saw a different world and it was not a world run by human reason but rather a world run by human passion, narcissism, dionysianism, selfishness, and irrationality. Partly Nietzsche supported this lifestyle, this philosophy, this line of human behavior. And yet partly, he was hugely skeptical, pessimistic, and cynical about it as well. Rightly so, Nietzsche saw human narcissism, bias, subjectivity and its epistemological and ethical influence leading to distortion, corruption, pathology -- everywhere. Thus, you have Nietzsche the ultimate epistemolgical skeptic, pessimist, and cynic vs. Ayn Rand the ultimate epistemological idealist. And both are important. Once again -- here as everywhere else that I philosophize -- Gap Philosophy or DGB ('Dialectical-Gap-Bridging') Philosophy aims to bridge the gap between Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. I 'work' the dialectic between them and their respective philosophies. I value both and what both had to say. I realize that there is a lot of 'epistemological garbage' out there in the world today, as in every other period of human history, due partly to human ignorance, and partly, more sadly, because of the pathological poisoning and corruption of truth and realism by human selfishness, greed, money, power, narciissism...And in this regard, I walk the bridge epistemologically speaking between Nietzsche's ultimate epistemological pessimism, skepticism and cynism (the Schopenhauer influence), and Ayn Rand's continuation of the 'Enlightenment epistemological ideal' of truth, realism, objectivity, and the American Way (which somehow seems to have gotten lost between Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Bush) ultimately defeating any and all brands of human greed, power, money, manipulation, fraud, hypocrisy, narcissism. Actually, right now I would say that Nietzsche's pessimism, skepticism, relativism, and cynicism is winning the war over Ayn Rand's Enlightenment influenced epistemological idealism. However, as Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Korzybski, and Fritz Perls have all directly or indirectly said, 'Everything is subject to change.'

That seems to me to be a decent introduction to where epistemology stands today in the 21st century -- caught between Nietzsche and Ayn Rand with the 'Nietzschean bad guys largely winning the battle between epistemological bullshit and epistemological truth, realism, and objectivism'. Sad to say, but that is my take on epistemology today. Has it every been much different? Maybe in the height of the Enlightenment somewhere in the middle 1700s.

db, April 11th, 2007.

15.6. DGB Post-Hegelian Epistemology

2007-02-27T06:22:00.003-08:00
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.
.....................................................................................

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].
.....................................................................................
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.

15.5. The Interaction of Words, Ideas, and 'Reality'

2006-10-08T09:34:00.000-07:00
This section focuses on the five areas mentioned in the title: language (words), semantics (meaning), ideas, reality, and epistemology (knowledge) -- and how they all link 'dialectically' and 'wholistically' together.

First up is a short discussion on language. Then we will move quickly into a discussion of semantics -- the relationship of language (or more specifically words) to meaning. From a more complicated brief discussion of meaning, we will then move into a discussion of 'epistemology' -- the study of knowledge. Let's start with the philosophy of language. That is bascially the agenda or menu for this floor of Hegel's Hotel.

First up -- a very brief discussion of language. How many different types of words are there in the English language? Nouns. Verbs. Adjectives. Adverbs. Pronouns. Conjunctions. Prepositions. Introjections. Eight different types of words. Unless I've forgotten one, that is about it.

What are there functions? Nouns. Nouns describe 'structure' in the world -- things that have substance and body, take up space, and don't move very fast -- althouth speed is relative and even things that have 'structure' in the world still move at a /slow, or even a fast pace. A 'cheetah' is the fastest mammal on earth but 'cheetah' is still a noun because a cheetah is considered to have 'structure' and 'substance'. Even 'river' is a noun because it too is considered to have 'structure' and 'substance'. When we start to talk more specifically about 'running' and 'moving' and 'flowing', then we have moved out of the world of 'structure' and now we are talking about the world of 'process' -- verbs describe 'processes' (motion and movement).

Adjectives describe nouns (beautiful girl). Pronouns take the place of nouns (him, her, he, she, it...). Adverbs describe verbs (pretty fast). Conjunctions join nouns or verbs or adjectives or adverbs or clauses together in a sentence (Paul and Sally, fast and slow, faster and faster, He went home and then he went to his bedroom...) You have to excuse me here if I am missing anything. I am going back to my Grade 6 grammar classes and I haven't pulled out a grammar book yet to see if I am missing anything which I'm sure I am because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of exceptions in the English language. So -- I am speaking in generalities here, and I am trying to move fairly quickly here without getting bogged down in exceptions.

Prepositions describe 'relationships' (in, out, of, above, under...). Introjections describe emotions, sounds... (Heh!!, 'Whoosh!!).

So there you have it. That is the English language -- grammatically -- in two or three paragraphs.

Now we come to the subject of 'semantics' or 'meaning'. This gets much, much trickier.

People who believe in the 'one word, one meaning fallacy' are going to get blown away and left behind by the English language. It doesn't matter how many dictionaries you read -- from front to back cover -- you will never completely learn or comprehend the full nature, the intricisies, and the dynamics of the English language if you try to learn the English language from a dictionary. Indeed, this goes for every language -- if you want to learn Parisian French, you have to go to Paris, if you want to learn Quebecois French, you have to go to Quebec. If you want to learn English English, you have to go to England. If you want to learn Canadian English, you have to go to Canada. If you want to learn American English, you have to go to America.

So this brings into focuse the ideas of 'dialect', 'context', and 'function'. Languages for the most part are learned in homes, and on the street, in front of tvs, and in schools, and in places of business. I never learned French properly -- or even adequately -- from a 'French to English translation dictionary'. It just doesn't cut it when someone starts speaking French at you -- and expects you to answer them, no different than trying to learn how to drive a car would work from studying a book and without stepping into a car. You may be able to partly learn a language from studying a dictionary, more so by actually trying to read a book (and maybe flipping back and forth between the book and the dictionary.) But more so, if you want to learn a language, you need to actually 'drop yourself' in the centre of the country or the region where you want to learn the language. And start to pick it up just like any 2 year old kid would (although he or she would have a significant advantage over you in the infinite learning flexibility that kids have at that time of their lives which you or I no longer have. Plus the two year old would not have to 'unlearn' some of the different things that you and I would probably have to 'unlearn' in order to 'learn' a different language).

15.4. What is An Idea?

2006-10-08T09:33:00.001-07:00
An idea is a representation -- a 'map' of a 'territory'. (See Alfred Korzybski, 1933, Science and Sanity, or S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 1941.) Now this territory could/can be real or it could/can be false. We can differentiate between ideas that are supposed to represent real territories or 'existential phenomena' vs. ideas that are meant to be 'fanciful' for any of a variety of reasons, some more honorable than others. There is a significant difference between fanciful literary entertainment and manipulative, narcissistic deceit. Also, ideas may represent real or false processes, real or false relationships between things, real or false descriptions of things. The issue of 'truth' or 'realness' becomes important only when we wish to 'plan an epistemological trip using good knowledge' and therefore need a map that is a 'good representation of the territory it is supposed to existentially represent. (See Korzybski and/or Hayakawaka again.)

Thus, words are short forms for ideas or concepts which in turn are representations of 'pieces of real existential territory' -- assuming the idea is supposed to be 'real' or 'right' or 'truthful' or 'congruent' or 'structurally similar' with the actual existential territory it is supposed to represent'. Otherwise, the map is a bad idea or a fanciful idea or a manipulative, deceitful idea, or something that has no 'truth bearing with existential reality as it really is'.

Our ideas are maps of things or processes that either exist in the real world or do not exist, or bits of both, or may potentially exist in the future if we make them happen by building actual physical replicas of the type of architecture that we have already built in our minds...These types of ideas are called 'plans'.

Kant (Critique of Pure Reason) said that we cannot 'know' our objective world but he was only partly right. What he should have said is that we can nevrr know our 'objective world' perfectly. however, we can know it with different amounts of truth value and/or distortion depedning on how 'good' or 'bad' our 'cogitive or conceptual maps' are and these maps will always be at least somewhat biaseed in favor of our personal interests, wishes, and/or fears, or worded otherwise, our IPPs (individual philosophies and psychologies). That is why science and our legal court systems and news reporters are always looking for 'second, third, and sometimes more sources of independent empirical verification'. The more independent verifications we get of something being true, the more we are likely to give the assertions behind these verifications 'truth value' and/or 'truth credibiltiy'.

Kant, in saying what he did about our not being able to know our objective world -- not being able to know the 'real' world beyond our senses -- set epistemology on its ear, and epistemology has not quite fully recovered yet. The Knatian 'Copernican' revolution in epistemology was partly good for epistemology in that it made people pay more attention to their individual and cultural biases -- and while Kant went through epistemology like a fairly strong wind storm, Nietzshe later took over for where Kant left off, and went back through epistemology like a level 5 hurricane, demolishing everything in his path. Nietzsche was undoubtedly the finest deconstructionist in the history of Western philosophy -- and much of his deconstructionism was epistemologically important as he 'tore down false idols'. But still, epistemology was a wreck by the time he was through. Between Kant and Nietzsche, together they opened the door back up for 'ethical relativists, 'non-ethical narcissists' and/or modern day Sophists' (conceptual mercenaries who will tell you anything you want to hear and make it sound good and credible even if it is not true -- like our modern day lawyers -- for a fee.)

Epistemology needs to be re-established on a solid foundation again, even if it does need to be much more wary of 'sensory error, inferential error, and narcissistic bias' than it was before Kant and Nietzshe. Partly Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein I believed tried to do this...but then along comes Derrida and more deconstructionism...tied in hand in hand with Foucault and his study of the narcissisitc relationship between 'knowledge and power'. Again epistemology takes a nose dive. Since Descartes and Kant turned the study of epistemology inwards, epistemology has had a rather rough ride through much of the 19th, all of the 20th, and now the 21st century. Are we left with anything other than 'epistemological nihilism'?

Personally, I say that we need to learn the lessons of Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault but put back into perspective and the perspective I tend to emphasize is the one built by Alfred Korzybski and his followers -- General Semantics -- with perhaps some modifications -- for example, 'dialectical modifications' -- that I may make along the way. This is what I will call 'DGB Epistemology' -- which has connections to every other section that I write about in DGB Philosophy -- Psychology, Business and Economics, History, Law, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and so on. Let us call this our starting point then, both for DGB Philosophy and, in particular, for DGB Epistemology.

dgb, September 25th, 2006

15.3. How Do We Determine A 'Good' Idea?

2006-10-08T09:31:00.000-07:00
Here's how DGB Philosophy defines a good idea -- borrowing the ideas of 'clear' and 'distinct' from Descartes :

1. It needs to be 'associatively' clear. (the 'associative clarity' criterion. How is hte idea similar and/or related to other ideas?).
2. It needs to be 'distinctively' clear. (the 'distinctive clarity' criterion. How is the idea distinctively clear or clearly different than other ideas?).
3. It needs to be 'empirically' or 'experientially' grounded. (The 'empirical- experiential' and 'ontological' criterion. Does the idea represent a 'phenomenon' -- a person, thing, process, and/or event...that actually exists?)
4. It needs to be 'narcissistically useful'. (The 'narcissistic' criterion -- 'Does the idea help to make my life better).
5. It should be 'altruistically useful'. (The 'altruistic' criterion. Does the idea help to make the world a better place to live in?)