'Sublation' is a technical Hegelian term. I will quote the meaning of sublation from Lloyd Spencer's book, 'Introducing Hegel' (1996).
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Aristotle's logic is concerned with separate, discrete (self-) identities in a deductive pattern. Hegel dissolves this classical static view of logic in a dynamic movement towards the whole. The whole is an overcoming which preserves what it overcomes.
Nothing is lost or destroyed but raised up and preserved as in a spiral. Think of the opening of a fern or a shell.
This is an organic rather than mechanical logic. Hegel's special term for this 'contradiction' of overcoming and at the same time preserving is Aufhebung, sometimes translated as 'sublation'. (1996, Lloyd Spencer, illustrations by Andrzej Krauze, Introducing Hegel, p. 80-81)
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We discussed this distinction between Aristotelean (Either/Or, Non-Identity) Logic and Hegelian (Dialectic, Organic, Evolving) Logic in the last essay, as well as a number of earlier ones.
Firstly, it is probably simpler to use the concept of 'synthesis' or 'integration' rather than 'sublation'. The technical name of sublation seems to have never really caught on whereas the less technical names of 'synthesis' and/or 'integration', we use every day in our day-to-day language.
Secondly, Hegel was wrong in believing that 'nothing is lost' in the process of sublation or synthesis.
For example, if I have a carton of orange juice on my kitchen counter and an empty glass, and then I pour orange juice into the glass until it is full with orange juice. Then, I take a second glass of the exact same dimensions and I pour it half full of orange juice. Then I take a carton of pineapple juice out of my fridge and fill the last half of the glass with pineapple juice, we can't say that nothing is lost relative to what we put into the first glass. For there is only half as much orange juice in the second glass as there is in the first glass.
And so it is with 'integrated' or 'synthesized' theories. If I integrate Freudian Theory (both before and after 1897 meaning Traumacy-Seduction Theory with Fantasy-Oedipal Theory), including also much later Death Instinct Theory, and Object Relations Theory, and then I mix it also with parts of Jungian Theory, and Adlerian Theory, and Gestalt Theory, and Transactional Analysis, and Cognitive Theory -- we certainly cannot say that 'nothing is lost along the way' because there will likely be 'many ideas lost along the way', screened out of this editorial synthesizing process, just as other ideas are 'screened in'. That is part of the evolving 'abstraction process' of modifying ideas and theories...as well as genetic mutations and cross-fertilizations between the same and different species of animal, and different races and families of men and women...Indeed, no genetic mutation -- or theoretical mutation -- is ever going to be exactly the same.
So sometimes we may need to go back and check this abstraction process, this screening in and out process, to make sure that what we have lost is not more important than what we have gained by any particular brand of 'theoretical and/or technical and/or practical, applied mutation'. A mutated and integrated or multi-integrated theory is only a 'good thing' if it is better than any and/or all of the theories that it evolved from.
In this regard, there is every right -- depending on how we want to define 'evolution' -- to either say that evolution is not always a good thing, or conversely to say that evolution also has its polar concept of 'dis-evolution', de-evolution' or 'regression' or 'devilution' (sorry, had to add that last one...).
I am not quite as highly idealistic and optimistic as Hegel when he says (to paraphrase) that 'dialectic evolution' (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, and start all over again at a 'higher' place of evolution that will eventually take us to 'God's Absolute Knowledge') is always a good thing and will always -- even through temporary steps backward -- eventually take us to a better place. For example, 'God's Knowledge' is never static because 'God's World' is never static and 'God's Knowledge' is a perfect reflection of 'God's Always Evolving World'.
In this respect, I am inclined to say that 'man's knowledge' will always be an imperfect reflection of 'God's Knowledge' no matter how hard we try, and how long we stay on this Earth...Yes, we can always get 'closer' but we can also get 'further apart' and who are we going to set up as the 'Ultimate Judge of Human Perfection or Imperfection'? God? (He or She or It is not talking...at least to me...and if there are others out there who believe strongly enough that they are blessed and gifted in this regard, I am likely to remain skeptical and pessimistic and cynical....I call this 'SPC Syndrome' -- I have a lot of it...that is, 'Skeptical-Pessimistic-Cynical Syndrome'...
Gee, how'd we get there?
In contrast to sublation or synthesis, 'conflation' is a pathological concept and phenomenon based on the principle of 'cognitive distortion' or 'false association' -- i.e., combining two things together (or trying to) that are not the same.
Conflation falsely associates two or more concepts or phenomenon....
There are a whole range of different Freudian terms that can be viewed as different types of 'conflation' such as:
1. distorted transference;
2. distorted projection;
3. displacement.
Some form of 'dialectic and/or cognitive psychotherapy' may be required to help a person through his or her 'false and/or pathological cognitive-emotional-behavior patterns. Of course, there are Kantian and Nietzschean epistemological problems here such as 'Who's to be the ultimate human judge -- the psychotherapist and/or psychiatrist? -- on what should and shouldn't be cognitively connected?' ('paranoia' can turn out to be 'truth' or at least 'partial truth'; and we must not forget that every person has there own 'private frame of reference and subjective self-interest'...
Hegel anticipated the eventual phenomenon of 'dialectic psychotherapy' about 80 or 85 years before Charcot, Bernheim, Janet, Breuer and Freud began their respective and/or collective activities in this area. Some of the mediating figures between Hegel and Freud included Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, (The Birth of Tragedy). The evolution of 'hypnotism' seems to have stimulated such ideas as 'dual consciousness' and 'competing egos (ego and alter-ego)', and 'dissociation' and 'subconscious' and 'unconscious'....all of which became a part of the idea of 'dialectic psychotherapy' -- i.e., 'reuniting and harmonizing dissociated parts of the personality or different ego-states'.
To be alive is to be 'dialectically alive' (or dead, or anywhere in between).
We are always going to be confronted with 'competing internal ego-states' and 'opposing self-talk' in different degrees of internal 'harmony' and/or 'disharmony'. And our 'external dialectic engagement' is likely to be even greater as we all pursue our own unique form of 'will to power' and/or 'will to self-empowerment'.
Even to be 'disengaged' is to usually be making some sort of 'dialectic statement'...such as... 'I have other priorities'...or 'I do not have the time or energy or motivation to dialectically engage with you...'...or 'I feel dialectically dead right now'...
In contradistinction to one of my philosophical adversaries (hi Niki),
I say that it is impossible to 'live outside the dialectic'...
Unless we are dead.
The genius of Hegel was not in his brand of 'State Philosophy' or in his conception of 'Absolute Knowledge' but rather in his conception of 'organic, dynamic, dialectic evolution and logic'.
In this latter regard, Hegel has arguably had the greatest impact on the evolution of Western -- and Eastern -- Philosophy, Politics, and Culture of any of the greatest of all Western and/or Eastern philosophers. For good, bad, or worse, Kierkegaard, Marx, Mao tse Tung, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...were all directly or indirectly influenced by his work. Unfortunately his 'State Philosophy' and his influence from Fichte in this regard (relative to the submission of the individual to the State regardless of where the State goes politically) did much more harm to the evolution (dis-evolution, devilution...) of Germany than good. But that wasn't mainly Hegel's fault as Hegel always fought for 'freedom' although his political philosophy at a quick glance seems to be an odd contradiction in this regard.
Something to be explored on another date...
-- dgb, May 12th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
