I grew up, as you may have, convinced that the authority figures in my world were telling the truth, at least a certain degree of truth. Although I sensed a core of truth in what they so dogmatically proclaimed, I knew in my gut that they were wrong at points. But I recognized that, while maybe they were basically right, there was more to it than they let on.
That “more to it” was the part that often mattered most. I also knew that some of the people and views that they continually condemned were not as bad as they were made out to be. Moreover, a lot of the wrongs they attacked were not always necessarily, absolutely, totally wrong. Although I could not have articulated it at the time, a fundamental scepticism was developing.
But I was well socialized, so not for a moment did I ever consider challenging any of this. They were bigger, older, smarter, richer, and they held the power to either punish or reward. There was no future in challenging their positions.
On the other hand, I certainly knew better than to trust my own mind. In school my classmates made better grades, were better athletes, better looking, and more popular. I was not a leader; no one ever followed or looked up to me. I was painfully aware of my own inadequacies. Still, although I was not fully conscious of it, I was also vaguely aware of the limitations of those in authority, as well as those of my more popular and more gifted classmates.
I was nearly fifty-years-old before I realized the full implications of those childhood perceptions. Gradually I came to see that my tacit disagreement with society somehow comprised the elements of a more honest and complete approach to truth and life, the seeds of the dialectic–our subject for a few days--had been planted.
But after long years of floundering through life, I have learned that it is easy to become a good thinker--a human resource sorely needed but always in short supply. Good thinking is in short supply because many people are mentally lazy. Another reason for this short supply of good thinking is that it requires more than more, and yet less than critical thinking, keen intellect, and formal education.
What it does take to become a good thinker is to make, “On the Other Hand,” your habitual response to ideas, whether your own or those of others, spoken or written, in formal or in informal settings. No matter what is presented, always consider what might be “on the other hand.” Other hands can always be found, because no human statement is, by itself, ever complete, something is always left out, there is always more to be said, and it is always possible that what has been presented might be wrong.
Develop a deep sense and appreciation of human limitations, determine to make “on the other hand” thinking second nature, and you are on the road to becoming a good thinker. Results will appear almost immediately. You will become a voice to be reckoned with.
Is that all there is to it? No, but if “on the other hand” thinking becomes a regular practice you will quickly become a good thinker. On the other hand, I remember from my youth a popular mail-order catalog that routinely offered a choice of merchandise at varying levels of quality: good, better, and best.
You already have read enough to reach the genuinely good level of thought. When you come to understand the larger dimensions of the dialectic--the proper name for “on the other hand thinking”--and when you add to that an elementary understanding of how logical thinking works, you will become a better thinker.
And if you are still here when we come to the last post of this blog, we will consider how to become the best thinker that can be made out of your unique personality and place in the world.
________________________
Daddy was a workaholic and always gone, Mother was an old-fashioned housewife, a good one, busy doing all the work that entails. Therefore, I was pretty well left alone and by default became a lonely, lazy dreamer. I roamed the rivers, creeks, and hills, knowing I had been born fifty years too late to be the cowboy or mountain man that I read and dreamed of. I drifted mindlessly through the years until one day I found myself a highschool graduate.
I remember three graduation gifts, one of them in particular. Neither the nice creamy-yellow sport jacket nor the fancy, corduroy shirt of many colors ever looked right on me, but somehow I have remembered them. More to the point was Mother’s gift of a book of inspirational poetry and prose, Quests and Conquests. I enjoyed reading the book for years but was never inspired to actually do anything. The book didn’t change me, but Mother’s inscription written in the front of the book, “Be ye not mentally lazy,” haunted me.
I have no doubt that Mother’s admonition was based on an accurately observed need. I don’t remember having ever thought much about anything for most of the first two decades of my life, but every time I read her inscription I knew immediately that I needed whatever it was that she was calling for. However, I didn’t know what to do about it or how.
The problem was that I had no thinking equipment, skills, or coaching, and had no prior encouragement to think. It would be long years before I made any progress in that direction, but Mother’s words were never far from my consciousness; continually I felt their challenge.
About seven years later, in response to an unexpected encounter with God, I found myself in a theological seminary studying to become a prepared Christian minister. Sometime in the first month of my studies, Gordon Clinard, in his class on the preparation of sermons, declared that the greatest weakness of Southern Baptist preaching was shallowness. Immediately I vowed to be innocent of that fault.
Therefore, during seminary years, I worked, without adequate tools for thinking, at exploring the depths of God’s word and of human experience. I was still depending on others, teachers and books, to do my thinking for me. I still trusted them. Yet, I knew they were missing it somewhere.
Then I encountered Carlyle Marney, that unique, thinking Southern Baptist preacher and writer, and for the first time realized that I did not have to think like all the other Baptists I knew, heard, and read. For long years I had been convinced that if the Baptist emperor was not indeed naked, he certainly was poorly clad in ill-fitting clothing. Marney pointed to a way of thinking that sounded like it actually would fit the gospel message that was at the heart of what Baptists are about. I learned that it was possible to think differently, and express the Christian faith more adequately. I found a sense of freedom that I had never dreamed possible. Now I copied Marney--with a little uneasiness.
In the process of completing three advanced degrees in theology and philosophy I met the existentialist philosophers, the linguistic analysts, and the process philosophers. Thrilled throughout, I entered a new world of living thought. For the first time in my life I began to do a fairly good job of thinking for myself.
When I was given my first teaching position and found that I had to teach--and thus learn--logic, I discovered, finally, a method of systematic thinking. Logic, I came to realize, should be required of all highschool graduates, not symbolic logic, but traditional, elementary logic.
More yet to come.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Describing the Dialectic 2
We need to be aware that the dialectic goes beyond the simple schema: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It comprises many complexities. Any given thesis might have many antitheses, giving rise to triads within triads, each complicating the whole.. The tension may be weak or strong, and may exist for a brief time or last for centuries before a synthesis is worked out.
The Soviet Union unexpectedly broke apart after almost eighty years of internal and external dialectical tensions illustrating the fact that the dialectic is at work, even when nothing seems to be happening for a long time. As long as the tension is there, process is active.
Another variable in the Hegelian pattern is that the stair step development of repeated thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is not necessarily an upward progression. It could work in a retrogressive manner or in a lateral fashion.
In the broad sense, conversation is an aspect of the dialectic, although some would distinguish the two.
The Socratic dialogues, although conversational in appearance, are more focused than an ordinary conversation. Whereas normal conversations make many shifts of subject matter and operate on varying levels of intensity, the Socratic dialogue sticks to the subject, pursues an objective, and excludes discussion of trivia. In this sense, the dialectic and conversation can be distinguished.
Nonetheless there is value in recognizing the dialectical character of free conversation. In a conversation, varying points of view emerge, and are sometimes challenged by someone of another persuasion. Even the common free associational shifts of topics make the important contribution of bringing up topics and perspectives that have never before been considered by some of the participants. The dialectic is involved wherever differing positions are recognized and dealt with.
The dialectic takes on a more specialized form: Bipolarity. Bipolarity, like dialectic, is a widely used term, with several distinct usages. I use dialectic in a broader, and more inclusive sense than many others, but I use bipolarity in narrower, more particular sense.
The most simple approach to understanding bipolarity is to picture the horseshoe shaped magnet. We know that each pole of the magnet is charged, one is positive, the other negative. Neither of the poles is the more important, neither the more necessary. If both poles were to be made positive, the magnetism would be lost. So if both were negative. The opposite poles set up a magnetic tension between. The magnetism depends on the tension rooted in this opposition of the poles.
Many of the most basic features of our world exist in bipolar tension with each other. Take, for instance, the ideas of the sovereignty of God and human freedom. These seem to be complete opposites, incompatible with each other.
In its strongest statement, if God is the sovereign ruler of the universe, then everything that happens is as he directly ordains. Everything is done precisely as God desires, with no options for variation. The human is left with no freedom of choice. On the other hand, if human beings are genuinely free, they may contradict God’s desires and may do so on a regular basis, in which case, God is not sovereign in the strongest sense.
Similar bipolarities characterize most of the basic realities of life and our understandings of it.
Quite commonly, these contradictions are accepted as paradoxical. The reference to paradox is intended to make contradictories acceptable while leaving them inexplicable. We need to note that the idea of contradiction, in the strict logical sense, means that one element--pole--must be true and the other must be be false. When two things contradict, they cannot both be true. In a paradox we have that which seems to be contradictory, but in which both elements seem to be true.
An understanding of bipolarity enables us to make sense and present a reasoned resolution of these difficulties. In contrast to many understandings of bipolarity, the concept I present here affirms, not that, while they are contradictory, both poles seem to be true. Rather, I affirm that in a bipolarity, neither pole is true--not by itself. Just as a magnet’s positive or negative pole is magnetically useless if it exists by itself, so in bipolarity either pole is untrue, if taken alone. Both poles are true, but only in tension with the other pole.
Notice, for instance, that the Bible doesn’t merely state that God is sovereign. It also emphasizes human freedom. It doesn’t simply emphasize human choice and responsibility, it also claims God’s control. We want to affirm that both are true, independently of the other--objectively true. But we live in a world where everything exists relation to other things. Nothing exists independently of anything else, thus truth always exists in some relational context. Bipolar kinds of truth are true only in relation to each other. I reiterate, neither is true by itself.
Our common response to bipolarities is to either accept the copout idea that they are a paradox, or else we polarize. We agree they are contradictory, that the truth of one implies the falsity of the other and vice versa, so we feel compelled to defend one and attack the other.
This is the root of many of our problems: we cannot accept the tensions inherent in bipolarity. If we affirm the truth of one and reject the other, the tension is eliminated. But we fail to consider the necessity of tension in the real world.
Everything exists and is held together in tensions of all sorts. If all tension--muscular, cellular, and other--were eliminated from our bodies, they would collapse into a protoplasmic heap. Reality includes tension as a necessary component. Only inappropriate tension causes problems.
The following relationships seem bipolar in character: freedom and determinism; objectivity and subjectivity; personal and social; fact and value; singular and universal; feeling and thinking; theoretical and practical; being and becoming; ideal and actual; material and spiritual. These are some of the most general bipolarities of life.
The Soviet Union unexpectedly broke apart after almost eighty years of internal and external dialectical tensions illustrating the fact that the dialectic is at work, even when nothing seems to be happening for a long time. As long as the tension is there, process is active.
Another variable in the Hegelian pattern is that the stair step development of repeated thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is not necessarily an upward progression. It could work in a retrogressive manner or in a lateral fashion.
In the broad sense, conversation is an aspect of the dialectic, although some would distinguish the two.
The Socratic dialogues, although conversational in appearance, are more focused than an ordinary conversation. Whereas normal conversations make many shifts of subject matter and operate on varying levels of intensity, the Socratic dialogue sticks to the subject, pursues an objective, and excludes discussion of trivia. In this sense, the dialectic and conversation can be distinguished.
Nonetheless there is value in recognizing the dialectical character of free conversation. In a conversation, varying points of view emerge, and are sometimes challenged by someone of another persuasion. Even the common free associational shifts of topics make the important contribution of bringing up topics and perspectives that have never before been considered by some of the participants. The dialectic is involved wherever differing positions are recognized and dealt with.
The dialectic takes on a more specialized form: Bipolarity. Bipolarity, like dialectic, is a widely used term, with several distinct usages. I use dialectic in a broader, and more inclusive sense than many others, but I use bipolarity in narrower, more particular sense.
The most simple approach to understanding bipolarity is to picture the horseshoe shaped magnet. We know that each pole of the magnet is charged, one is positive, the other negative. Neither of the poles is the more important, neither the more necessary. If both poles were to be made positive, the magnetism would be lost. So if both were negative. The opposite poles set up a magnetic tension between. The magnetism depends on the tension rooted in this opposition of the poles.
Many of the most basic features of our world exist in bipolar tension with each other. Take, for instance, the ideas of the sovereignty of God and human freedom. These seem to be complete opposites, incompatible with each other.
In its strongest statement, if God is the sovereign ruler of the universe, then everything that happens is as he directly ordains. Everything is done precisely as God desires, with no options for variation. The human is left with no freedom of choice. On the other hand, if human beings are genuinely free, they may contradict God’s desires and may do so on a regular basis, in which case, God is not sovereign in the strongest sense.
Similar bipolarities characterize most of the basic realities of life and our understandings of it.
Quite commonly, these contradictions are accepted as paradoxical. The reference to paradox is intended to make contradictories acceptable while leaving them inexplicable. We need to note that the idea of contradiction, in the strict logical sense, means that one element--pole--must be true and the other must be be false. When two things contradict, they cannot both be true. In a paradox we have that which seems to be contradictory, but in which both elements seem to be true.
An understanding of bipolarity enables us to make sense and present a reasoned resolution of these difficulties. In contrast to many understandings of bipolarity, the concept I present here affirms, not that, while they are contradictory, both poles seem to be true. Rather, I affirm that in a bipolarity, neither pole is true--not by itself. Just as a magnet’s positive or negative pole is magnetically useless if it exists by itself, so in bipolarity either pole is untrue, if taken alone. Both poles are true, but only in tension with the other pole.
Notice, for instance, that the Bible doesn’t merely state that God is sovereign. It also emphasizes human freedom. It doesn’t simply emphasize human choice and responsibility, it also claims God’s control. We want to affirm that both are true, independently of the other--objectively true. But we live in a world where everything exists relation to other things. Nothing exists independently of anything else, thus truth always exists in some relational context. Bipolar kinds of truth are true only in relation to each other. I reiterate, neither is true by itself.
Our common response to bipolarities is to either accept the copout idea that they are a paradox, or else we polarize. We agree they are contradictory, that the truth of one implies the falsity of the other and vice versa, so we feel compelled to defend one and attack the other.
This is the root of many of our problems: we cannot accept the tensions inherent in bipolarity. If we affirm the truth of one and reject the other, the tension is eliminated. But we fail to consider the necessity of tension in the real world.
Everything exists and is held together in tensions of all sorts. If all tension--muscular, cellular, and other--were eliminated from our bodies, they would collapse into a protoplasmic heap. Reality includes tension as a necessary component. Only inappropriate tension causes problems.
The following relationships seem bipolar in character: freedom and determinism; objectivity and subjectivity; personal and social; fact and value; singular and universal; feeling and thinking; theoretical and practical; being and becoming; ideal and actual; material and spiritual. These are some of the most general bipolarities of life.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Describing the Dialectic: 1
First a brief review of some things said earlier about the dialectic (expect review and repetition on and between my blogs).
The word dialectic is rooted in the word dialogue, which is best understood in contrast to monologue. In a monologue one person is speaking, on a chosen topic, with no response from anyone else. In a dialogue more than one person is speaking, and they speak in response to each other. What they say is influenced by what each other says. They may have intended to say something specific, but change because what the other person has said requires them to modify what they will say next.
Just because two people are in a conversation with each other doesn’t necessarily mean they are having a dialogue. Often our interchanges are merely reciprocal monologues. We pay little attention to what the other person is saying, waiting only for a break in their monologue so we can resume our own monologue.
The core idea of the dialectic is that other positions are always taken into account.
The dialectic seems to be rooted in a principle that can be expressed in three differing ways. First, that no human statement is ever complete by itself. By statement we should understand not just a single sentence. Sometimes a paragraph makes a single statement. A speech sometimes makes one clear statement, as may a book, a law, or a television program. Whether a statement is simple or elaborate, it remains true that no human statement is ever complete by itself, therefore is never the whole truth.
A second way of understanding the core of the dialectic is that there is always something else that can be said. There is always more to it, no matter what we are talking about. Some aspects have been left out. The world, and our life in it, is too complex to be included in one statement.
A third way of expressing the foundational principle of the dialect is the recognition that it is always possible that we might be wrong. In whatever I think or say, I could be wrong. To believe otherwise is to claim infallibility, and humans are not infallible.
So the dialectic grows out of the realization that there is always another side, another perspective that must be taken into consideration if we are to arrive at truth. To think dialectically is to always consider the possibility of our own error and then to examine our thought to see where the flaw in our thought might be.
We can never take it for granted that what we think, is the truth, and certainly not that it is the whole truth. It is to automatically search for other ways of looking at the same thing. In its most active form, the dialectical thinker seeks out those who hold different views and asks for their response to his own ideas, with the expectation that these voices from another side will lead to the modification of his own thought.
Mortimer Adler has said that the Greek words, men and de, are the greatest contribution the Greeks made to civilization. These words are commonly translated, “on the one hand,” “on the other hand.” In a Greek text, the little particle, men, may show up in an unexpected place. It is not always necessary that it be literally translated, but it is always indicative that only one aspect of something is being presented. When, somewhere later in the text, de, shows up, it simply indicates that we are looking at the same thing from a different perspective. Whatever is being presented, the dialectical thinker’s characteristic response is, “On the other hand.” The dialectic warns us to never forget there are other perspectives; it reminds us to remain constantly aware of the other side.
Dialectic is the language of relationship. It keeps us from forgetting others and our relationship to them. It strikes out against monism, individualism, isolationism, absolutism, and all self-centeredness. The dialectical ear is always listening, the dialectical eye is searching constantly, the dialectical voice always considering the listener.
Dialectical thought is always in process, never complete. “What have I left out, what have I not considered?” These questions become routine. “What if my presuppositions are wrong?” Part of the processive character of the dialectic is that it is always developing, alternately expanding and focusing. It grows and is enriched; it sharpens and clarifies.
Historically, three major philosophers--Heraclitus, Socrates, and Hegel--developed the dialectic, each somewhat differently. Heraclitus stressed the unity of opposites, the idea that contradiction was the source of all. Only as both sides struggled with and against each other is development possible. Thus opposites effect a unity. They become parts of a new order that has resulted from their conflict. In traditional logic, contradictories cannot both be true, but in actuality the tension between them is the driving force of life, expanding and enriching even as they are constantly changing.
The Socratic dialectic takes the form of an intense, purposive conversation. Socrates never allows the dialogue to degenerate into a mere conversation, but keeps it directed toward the clarification of the problem at hand. It is a more analytic than synthetic dialectic. The resolution of the issue at hand always depends on the interaction between the two conversants. Repeatedly the inadequacies of statements are exposed, then revised in the process of seeking a reliable conclusion.
Hegel developed a systematized logic of the dialectic. People who are familiar with the term, dialectic, tend to identify it with the Hegelian dialectic. I do not tie the dialectic to the Hegelian pattern, but it is tremendously useful. I realize that it is far more complex than popular understanding takes it to be. Nonetheless, the common, simple form that I present will be helpful in understanding how the dialectic process typically develops.
Whatever is the starting point under consideration is called the thesis, the place you first take your stand. Always there is something more to be considered, something left out, or ignored. This is called the antithesis. The antithesis is popularly understood as the opposite of the thesis: black and white; male and, female; day and night; or being and non-being. Often this is the case, but more often it is just another significant consideration. If paper is the thesis, what might we understand as its opposite? Canvas, pencil, fire? Depending on the context, many things might be understood as the antithesis of paper, but are they really its opposite?
Tension exists and persists between the thesis and antithesis. Each makes its own claim and resists change. This is the tension so important to Heraclitus. As long as we hold our thesis and are aware of its antithesis, tension is inescapable. B ut tension makes us uncomfortable. How much of our life is given to seek relief from varied tensions? As tension builds, sooner or later something gives, something changes, and a new, revised stance is adopted, a synthesis of the thesis and antithesis.
The synthesis may be only a slight modification of the original thesis, it may be the mid-point between thesis and antithesis, or anywhere between. It might even be much closer to the original antithesis than to the original thesis. Because the synthesis is a more satisfactory position than either of the earlier options, it becomes the new thesis.
Since any thesis has an antithesis, the new thesis is soon accompanied by a new antithesis and the process continues. Thesis calls forth antithesis, the ensuing tension creates a synthesis which becomes the new thesis. The process is ongoing. Man marries woman, they have a child. The child grows up, marries, has a child, and the process moves along. One nation wars with another until some resolution is accomplished, then after a period of time, the resolution is challenged.
This, Hegel believed, is the pattern of all reality. He claimed that the dialectic is “historical, logical, and ontological.” By this he meant that the dialectic is the way history has developed, it is the way all logical thinking operates, and that it is the way reality itself is.
The word dialectic is rooted in the word dialogue, which is best understood in contrast to monologue. In a monologue one person is speaking, on a chosen topic, with no response from anyone else. In a dialogue more than one person is speaking, and they speak in response to each other. What they say is influenced by what each other says. They may have intended to say something specific, but change because what the other person has said requires them to modify what they will say next.
Just because two people are in a conversation with each other doesn’t necessarily mean they are having a dialogue. Often our interchanges are merely reciprocal monologues. We pay little attention to what the other person is saying, waiting only for a break in their monologue so we can resume our own monologue.
The core idea of the dialectic is that other positions are always taken into account.
The dialectic seems to be rooted in a principle that can be expressed in three differing ways. First, that no human statement is ever complete by itself. By statement we should understand not just a single sentence. Sometimes a paragraph makes a single statement. A speech sometimes makes one clear statement, as may a book, a law, or a television program. Whether a statement is simple or elaborate, it remains true that no human statement is ever complete by itself, therefore is never the whole truth.
A second way of understanding the core of the dialectic is that there is always something else that can be said. There is always more to it, no matter what we are talking about. Some aspects have been left out. The world, and our life in it, is too complex to be included in one statement.
A third way of expressing the foundational principle of the dialect is the recognition that it is always possible that we might be wrong. In whatever I think or say, I could be wrong. To believe otherwise is to claim infallibility, and humans are not infallible.
So the dialectic grows out of the realization that there is always another side, another perspective that must be taken into consideration if we are to arrive at truth. To think dialectically is to always consider the possibility of our own error and then to examine our thought to see where the flaw in our thought might be.
We can never take it for granted that what we think, is the truth, and certainly not that it is the whole truth. It is to automatically search for other ways of looking at the same thing. In its most active form, the dialectical thinker seeks out those who hold different views and asks for their response to his own ideas, with the expectation that these voices from another side will lead to the modification of his own thought.
Mortimer Adler has said that the Greek words, men and de, are the greatest contribution the Greeks made to civilization. These words are commonly translated, “on the one hand,” “on the other hand.” In a Greek text, the little particle, men, may show up in an unexpected place. It is not always necessary that it be literally translated, but it is always indicative that only one aspect of something is being presented. When, somewhere later in the text, de, shows up, it simply indicates that we are looking at the same thing from a different perspective. Whatever is being presented, the dialectical thinker’s characteristic response is, “On the other hand.” The dialectic warns us to never forget there are other perspectives; it reminds us to remain constantly aware of the other side.
Dialectic is the language of relationship. It keeps us from forgetting others and our relationship to them. It strikes out against monism, individualism, isolationism, absolutism, and all self-centeredness. The dialectical ear is always listening, the dialectical eye is searching constantly, the dialectical voice always considering the listener.
Dialectical thought is always in process, never complete. “What have I left out, what have I not considered?” These questions become routine. “What if my presuppositions are wrong?” Part of the processive character of the dialectic is that it is always developing, alternately expanding and focusing. It grows and is enriched; it sharpens and clarifies.
Historically, three major philosophers--Heraclitus, Socrates, and Hegel--developed the dialectic, each somewhat differently. Heraclitus stressed the unity of opposites, the idea that contradiction was the source of all. Only as both sides struggled with and against each other is development possible. Thus opposites effect a unity. They become parts of a new order that has resulted from their conflict. In traditional logic, contradictories cannot both be true, but in actuality the tension between them is the driving force of life, expanding and enriching even as they are constantly changing.
The Socratic dialectic takes the form of an intense, purposive conversation. Socrates never allows the dialogue to degenerate into a mere conversation, but keeps it directed toward the clarification of the problem at hand. It is a more analytic than synthetic dialectic. The resolution of the issue at hand always depends on the interaction between the two conversants. Repeatedly the inadequacies of statements are exposed, then revised in the process of seeking a reliable conclusion.
Hegel developed a systematized logic of the dialectic. People who are familiar with the term, dialectic, tend to identify it with the Hegelian dialectic. I do not tie the dialectic to the Hegelian pattern, but it is tremendously useful. I realize that it is far more complex than popular understanding takes it to be. Nonetheless, the common, simple form that I present will be helpful in understanding how the dialectic process typically develops.
Whatever is the starting point under consideration is called the thesis, the place you first take your stand. Always there is something more to be considered, something left out, or ignored. This is called the antithesis. The antithesis is popularly understood as the opposite of the thesis: black and white; male and, female; day and night; or being and non-being. Often this is the case, but more often it is just another significant consideration. If paper is the thesis, what might we understand as its opposite? Canvas, pencil, fire? Depending on the context, many things might be understood as the antithesis of paper, but are they really its opposite?
Tension exists and persists between the thesis and antithesis. Each makes its own claim and resists change. This is the tension so important to Heraclitus. As long as we hold our thesis and are aware of its antithesis, tension is inescapable. B ut tension makes us uncomfortable. How much of our life is given to seek relief from varied tensions? As tension builds, sooner or later something gives, something changes, and a new, revised stance is adopted, a synthesis of the thesis and antithesis.
The synthesis may be only a slight modification of the original thesis, it may be the mid-point between thesis and antithesis, or anywhere between. It might even be much closer to the original antithesis than to the original thesis. Because the synthesis is a more satisfactory position than either of the earlier options, it becomes the new thesis.
Since any thesis has an antithesis, the new thesis is soon accompanied by a new antithesis and the process continues. Thesis calls forth antithesis, the ensuing tension creates a synthesis which becomes the new thesis. The process is ongoing. Man marries woman, they have a child. The child grows up, marries, has a child, and the process moves along. One nation wars with another until some resolution is accomplished, then after a period of time, the resolution is challenged.
This, Hegel believed, is the pattern of all reality. He claimed that the dialectic is “historical, logical, and ontological.” By this he meant that the dialectic is the way history has developed, it is the way all logical thinking operates, and that it is the way reality itself is.
Some Benefits of Dialectical Thinking
If you think dialectically:
• You will become more considerate, moderate, appreciative, aware, diplomatic, honest, respectful.
•
• You will be less apt to be blind-sided, because you will already have looked at that side.
• You will not need to make as many apologies.
• You will make fewer mistakes.
• You will be less apt to go off half-cocked.
• You will eradicate personal arrogance.
• You will understand others–including your opposition--better.
• You will ask more questions.
• You will read more.
• You will come to have more patience, humility, wonder, openness, sympathy, integrity, appreciation, community, tolerance, honesty.
• Others will come to respect you more.
• You will become more considerate, moderate, appreciative, aware, diplomatic, honest, respectful.
•
• You will be less apt to be blind-sided, because you will already have looked at that side.
• You will not need to make as many apologies.
• You will make fewer mistakes.
• You will be less apt to go off half-cocked.
• You will eradicate personal arrogance.
• You will understand others–including your opposition--better.
• You will ask more questions.
• You will read more.
• You will come to have more patience, humility, wonder, openness, sympathy, integrity, appreciation, community, tolerance, honesty.
• Others will come to respect you more.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
The Dialectical Foundation
No human statement is complete by itself.
A statement may be a single sentence. A well-written paragraph makes a single statement. Often a long speech can be seen as making one statement, just as can an entire book. Not even in the Bible is any one statement complete by itself. It is only a "portion of God's word," and thus incomplete--which means:
There is always more to be said.
As in, say, the rest of that Bible. Nonetheless we need to remember that since no human statement is complete in itself, there is always something else to be said, something else that needs to be heard, read, learned, sought out, and considered.
We are now into the second century since the death of Abraham Lincoln, but even with the innumerable books written on his life, his administration, and his character, more continues to be said that helps to fill out the picture: witness the tremendous popularity, just two or three years ago, of LINCOLN'S VIRTUES.
It is always possible that you/I/we could be wrong.
Since there is always more to be said because no human statement is complete by itself, then it is always possible that we just might be wrong. None of us, Lincoln included, is infallible. Often we are unaware that we are wrong. We are convinced that we are right, only to learn later that we were wrong. Those who are convinced they are never wrong are the ones to be most mistrusted.
Because of the three principles above, we should always be considerate of others. We could be wrong, so we do well to listen to others: a family member, experts in the field, a person who holds opposing views. We just might learn that they are right and we are wrong. We might see that we are right, as far as we go, but other viewpoints may shed light of different facets of the issue, facets we were unaware of, and, who knows, theirs might be a brighter light.
So be at least a little bit slow in attacking the view of anyone else. Be considerate. Be considerate of them, and reconsider your own position. I believe it was Emerson who said something like, "Everyone knows something that we are ignorant of." Let’s learn from each other.
There is a lot to consider. A whole lot.
A statement may be a single sentence. A well-written paragraph makes a single statement. Often a long speech can be seen as making one statement, just as can an entire book. Not even in the Bible is any one statement complete by itself. It is only a "portion of God's word," and thus incomplete--which means:
There is always more to be said.
As in, say, the rest of that Bible. Nonetheless we need to remember that since no human statement is complete in itself, there is always something else to be said, something else that needs to be heard, read, learned, sought out, and considered.
We are now into the second century since the death of Abraham Lincoln, but even with the innumerable books written on his life, his administration, and his character, more continues to be said that helps to fill out the picture: witness the tremendous popularity, just two or three years ago, of LINCOLN'S VIRTUES.
It is always possible that you/I/we could be wrong.
Since there is always more to be said because no human statement is complete by itself, then it is always possible that we just might be wrong. None of us, Lincoln included, is infallible. Often we are unaware that we are wrong. We are convinced that we are right, only to learn later that we were wrong. Those who are convinced they are never wrong are the ones to be most mistrusted.
Because of the three principles above, we should always be considerate of others. We could be wrong, so we do well to listen to others: a family member, experts in the field, a person who holds opposing views. We just might learn that they are right and we are wrong. We might see that we are right, as far as we go, but other viewpoints may shed light of different facets of the issue, facets we were unaware of, and, who knows, theirs might be a brighter light.
So be at least a little bit slow in attacking the view of anyone else. Be considerate. Be considerate of them, and reconsider your own position. I believe it was Emerson who said something like, "Everyone knows something that we are ignorant of." Let’s learn from each other.
There is a lot to consider. A whole lot.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Three Rules of Chess
Thirty-some years ago, when I began to teach at Howard Payne University, one of my students offered to teach me to play chess. For several months, on most Friday afternoons, we played chess. I’ve played little since Bill and I quit playing, but I do remember the three rules he told me I should play by: 1) Protect the Queen; 2) Control the center; 3) Remain flexible.
My wife, daughter, and I were playing a game of Five Crowns this afternoon when a book on a nearby shelf caught my wandering attention. It was the book by Covey, et al, First Things First. When I glanced at the Table of Contents, one chapter stood out immediately, “The Main Thing Is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing.”
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you,” is Jesus’ reminder of the need to keep the main thing the main thing. Stating the same thing differently, he also said that the main thing is to love God with all we’ve got, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
One of the major sources of our problems is our failing to know or acknowledge the main thing, and even more the tendency to forget the main thing as we follow tangential, but promising looking trails and never look back. Much like the common experience of doing internet searches. We begin by looking for one thing, but one helpful site has interesting links that we follow to other interesting links. An hour later we have learned much. We have learned things useful and trivial, things we had always wanted to know, and things we had never before heard of. But the main reason for our search was long forgotten, and thus never found and acted on.
My chess-playing student told me to focus on the three main things necessary to win: protect the queen, control the center, and remain flexible. I am married. We had our first date in the summer of 1950, and have been married for fifty-two-years. We are moving into life’s homestretch. I believe that to seek first the Kingdom of God and to love with a godly love, my first responsibility, since I am married, is to protect the “queen” of our home. That is the main thing that I try never to forget is the main thing. Under God everything else is secondary, is as dispensable as pawns. Protecting the queen is at the heart of marriage.
In my blogging, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and in this internet relationship, the main thing is to focus on the center: The eternal love of the triune God. Serious Christian theology and ordinary cultural Christianity make a host of other things–some of them good things–central to their practice and proclamation of a Christian religion. Above all else, in my blogging I need to claim the center, renew the center, and control it against all challengers.
In a world where everything is relative, changing, connected to everything else, and where surprising novelty is a constant, without flexibility the queen can neither be protected, nor can the center be gained, much less controlled. Not the kind of flexibility that has no central core, not like nailing Jello to the wall, not like being so open-minded that our brains fall out on both sides. Rather the flexibility of bamboo, one of the strongest yet most flexible things to be found in the natural world. Rather the flexibility of the eagle or vulture, constantly adjusting to the ever-changing air with its highs and lows, its stiff winds, and its dead air. Rather the flexibility of the sailor who must constantly adjust his sails and tack with the wind in order to stay on course, in order to keep the main thing the main thing.
On an earlier occasion I have indicated that in this last phase of my life –“The last of life for which the first was made”–I have only three commitments: love my wife, write, and take care of the quotidian. Protect the queen, write to claim and control the center, and be flexible enough to maintain an ever-changing balance as life, wife, and writing make their appropriate demands.
We live in a culture that tries to sucker us off into a jillion tangential tasks and trails. Make sure you know what the main thing is, then make sure that you keep the main thing the main thing.
My wife, daughter, and I were playing a game of Five Crowns this afternoon when a book on a nearby shelf caught my wandering attention. It was the book by Covey, et al, First Things First. When I glanced at the Table of Contents, one chapter stood out immediately, “The Main Thing Is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing.”
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you,” is Jesus’ reminder of the need to keep the main thing the main thing. Stating the same thing differently, he also said that the main thing is to love God with all we’ve got, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
One of the major sources of our problems is our failing to know or acknowledge the main thing, and even more the tendency to forget the main thing as we follow tangential, but promising looking trails and never look back. Much like the common experience of doing internet searches. We begin by looking for one thing, but one helpful site has interesting links that we follow to other interesting links. An hour later we have learned much. We have learned things useful and trivial, things we had always wanted to know, and things we had never before heard of. But the main reason for our search was long forgotten, and thus never found and acted on.
My chess-playing student told me to focus on the three main things necessary to win: protect the queen, control the center, and remain flexible. I am married. We had our first date in the summer of 1950, and have been married for fifty-two-years. We are moving into life’s homestretch. I believe that to seek first the Kingdom of God and to love with a godly love, my first responsibility, since I am married, is to protect the “queen” of our home. That is the main thing that I try never to forget is the main thing. Under God everything else is secondary, is as dispensable as pawns. Protecting the queen is at the heart of marriage.
In my blogging, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and in this internet relationship, the main thing is to focus on the center: The eternal love of the triune God. Serious Christian theology and ordinary cultural Christianity make a host of other things–some of them good things–central to their practice and proclamation of a Christian religion. Above all else, in my blogging I need to claim the center, renew the center, and control it against all challengers.
In a world where everything is relative, changing, connected to everything else, and where surprising novelty is a constant, without flexibility the queen can neither be protected, nor can the center be gained, much less controlled. Not the kind of flexibility that has no central core, not like nailing Jello to the wall, not like being so open-minded that our brains fall out on both sides. Rather the flexibility of bamboo, one of the strongest yet most flexible things to be found in the natural world. Rather the flexibility of the eagle or vulture, constantly adjusting to the ever-changing air with its highs and lows, its stiff winds, and its dead air. Rather the flexibility of the sailor who must constantly adjust his sails and tack with the wind in order to stay on course, in order to keep the main thing the main thing.
On an earlier occasion I have indicated that in this last phase of my life –“The last of life for which the first was made”–I have only three commitments: love my wife, write, and take care of the quotidian. Protect the queen, write to claim and control the center, and be flexible enough to maintain an ever-changing balance as life, wife, and writing make their appropriate demands.
We live in a culture that tries to sucker us off into a jillion tangential tasks and trails. Make sure you know what the main thing is, then make sure that you keep the main thing the main thing.
Considerate Thinking Concisely Stated
Become a Good Thinker
A Concise Presentation
If you want to become a good thinker, do three things: 1) consider other perspectives, 2) consider foreseeable results, and 3) remember who you are and what you are about. Make these three steps a habitual part of your character and you are on your way. Let them become your most valued intellectual virtues. When these three traits characterize your normal response to life you will be a good thinker.
Any one of these steps will help but all three are necessary if you are to think at your best. Nothing will improve your thinking ability so quickly as the practice of considering other perspectives, what others think or might think. Try to identify any elements of your idea that you might have overlooked or failed to regard. Realize the possibility that another viewpoint might reveal some error in your thought. Considering other perspectives is important no matter what you are thinking about, but it is not enough to produce your best thought.
The second step in good thinking, consideration of foreseeable results, leads to the study of how logic operates. Historically, logic has been defined as the study of argument, the study of reasoning, the study of proof, the study of inference, and perhaps others that don’t come to mind immediately. Review those definitions, looking for links between them.
Before I continue, let me acquaint you with Occam’s (Ockham’s) Razor, or as it is sometimes called, The Principle of Parsimony. So far as we know it originated with William of Occam. He said something like this: “That which can be explained with fewer principles is not well served by explaining it in more.” Shave off everything superfluous, remove repetitions. In the words of Einstein, “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.” One of my habits of thought is to shave most everything with Ockham’s Razor. I try to get to the core of things as quickly as possible.
Now, to continue. After teaching logic and using the above definitions for years, I came to a more comprehensive definition: Logic is the study of “what follows.” Logic helps us to know what can follow, what can’t, what might follow, what probably won’t, and sometimes reveals that, based on our present, limited knowledge, we can have no idea at all of what might follow.
The second step of good thinking is logical analysis. This enables us to have a better idea of the foreseeable results of our ideas. This, in turn, helps us prepare ahead of time, thus coping with life more effectively.
The first step makes us good critical and creative thinkers. The second makes us good critical thinkers (and it is popular in recent decades to identify “critical thinking” with good thinking, but that is not so). We need to be critical and constructive thinkers, analytical and synthetic, conservative and creative, using both the right and left brain.
These first two steps will train us in thinking skills, just as a good knowledge of arithmetic gives us good mathematical skills. But arithmetic has no idea or interest in what we are counting; we may be bank auditor, or the banker who is embezzling. Arithmetic works just as well with one as the other. So it is with skill as a critical or creative thinker. We may be a terrorist creatively constructing a bomb or a musician bringing joy to generations.
Ideally, the third step in becoming a good thinker is to be a good person. Whatever our values, character, beliefs, commitments, good thinking must always be consistent with those personal traits, whether they are individual traits, or traits of the group. We cannot be good thinkers until we know who we are and why, not until we can clearly and concisely state our starting position. If we don’t realize where we’re coming from, there is no telling what will follow.
Realize that no human statement is ever complete; remember there is always more to be said; reckon that it is always possible you could be wrong
A Concise Presentation
If you want to become a good thinker, do three things: 1) consider other perspectives, 2) consider foreseeable results, and 3) remember who you are and what you are about. Make these three steps a habitual part of your character and you are on your way. Let them become your most valued intellectual virtues. When these three traits characterize your normal response to life you will be a good thinker.
Any one of these steps will help but all three are necessary if you are to think at your best. Nothing will improve your thinking ability so quickly as the practice of considering other perspectives, what others think or might think. Try to identify any elements of your idea that you might have overlooked or failed to regard. Realize the possibility that another viewpoint might reveal some error in your thought. Considering other perspectives is important no matter what you are thinking about, but it is not enough to produce your best thought.
The second step in good thinking, consideration of foreseeable results, leads to the study of how logic operates. Historically, logic has been defined as the study of argument, the study of reasoning, the study of proof, the study of inference, and perhaps others that don’t come to mind immediately. Review those definitions, looking for links between them.
Before I continue, let me acquaint you with Occam’s (Ockham’s) Razor, or as it is sometimes called, The Principle of Parsimony. So far as we know it originated with William of Occam. He said something like this: “That which can be explained with fewer principles is not well served by explaining it in more.” Shave off everything superfluous, remove repetitions. In the words of Einstein, “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.” One of my habits of thought is to shave most everything with Ockham’s Razor. I try to get to the core of things as quickly as possible.
Now, to continue. After teaching logic and using the above definitions for years, I came to a more comprehensive definition: Logic is the study of “what follows.” Logic helps us to know what can follow, what can’t, what might follow, what probably won’t, and sometimes reveals that, based on our present, limited knowledge, we can have no idea at all of what might follow.
The second step of good thinking is logical analysis. This enables us to have a better idea of the foreseeable results of our ideas. This, in turn, helps us prepare ahead of time, thus coping with life more effectively.
The first step makes us good critical and creative thinkers. The second makes us good critical thinkers (and it is popular in recent decades to identify “critical thinking” with good thinking, but that is not so). We need to be critical and constructive thinkers, analytical and synthetic, conservative and creative, using both the right and left brain.
These first two steps will train us in thinking skills, just as a good knowledge of arithmetic gives us good mathematical skills. But arithmetic has no idea or interest in what we are counting; we may be bank auditor, or the banker who is embezzling. Arithmetic works just as well with one as the other. So it is with skill as a critical or creative thinker. We may be a terrorist creatively constructing a bomb or a musician bringing joy to generations.
Ideally, the third step in becoming a good thinker is to be a good person. Whatever our values, character, beliefs, commitments, good thinking must always be consistent with those personal traits, whether they are individual traits, or traits of the group. We cannot be good thinkers until we know who we are and why, not until we can clearly and concisely state our starting position. If we don’t realize where we’re coming from, there is no telling what will follow.
Realize that no human statement is ever complete; remember there is always more to be said; reckon that it is always possible you could be wrong
Notice of Recovery
This blog was begun in December 2006, but evaporated into the electronic ether sometime in April 2007. I have searched, but it seems, mysteriously, to have simply disappeared in the dark of the night, sometime after January 31, 2007. Some seventeen posts were lost from the internet, but had been saved to my hard drive, so I will re-post them and then pick up where I left off.
This blog presents a quick and easy way to become a good thinker. It is an invitation to dialogical living. It will explore the value and nuances of considerate thinking and living.
This blog presents a quick and easy way to become a good thinker. It is an invitation to dialogical living. It will explore the value and nuances of considerate thinking and living.
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