My dad has been both an 'idealistic visionary' and a 'down-to-earth go-getter' all his life -- in both business and in politics, and now, when he gets a chance, as both and he and my mom battle both health and money issues, in romantic 21st century Canadian poetry. My dad's part of the family background is Scottish, I believe going back to 'Aberdeen, Scotland' -- 'Bain' is our family name from my dad's side -- and one of my favorite periods of Western history is 'The Scottish Enlightenment'. The Scottish Enlightenment produced a great proportion of innovative, inventive, creative, brilliant thinkers -- and it could all be tied back to a decision some politician and/or set of politicians made in Scotland to 'upgrade the education level' in Scotland by offering either free or very cheap education -- even advanced, University education -- to all the people in Scotland. No 'class' and/or 'economic' distinctions, preferentialisms, and/or discriminations...Over the space of a generation or two, Scotland jumped to the forefront of the Industrial Revolution from a time of famine, poverty, and starvation on their Scottish farms...I have two books in my library here on The Scottish Revolution and Enlightenment period, and this is the general gist of what I have read from these two books so far. At some point in my writing, I would like to probe deeper into the essence of this time period in Scottish history.
My mom's family background is German -- 'Connard' -- and my mom's idealistic vision, and her day to day activities, have always reflected a propensity for an emphasis on stability and nurturing in the marriage, the family, and the community. Neither my mom or my dad have ever been 'pushy' about their religious beliefs but both share a strong Protestant, religious faith. And it shows in their combined efforts towards helping to build both stable families and communities, stable family and community values.
There is a part of my dad's idealistic vision that includes a significant part of 'The German Spirit, Mentality, and Lifestyle' -- he strongly values punctuality, order, and organization -- the hallmarks of what Freud would call 'the anal-retentive personality'. However, this is only one polarity in my dad's personality because there has always been a strong element of 'spontaneity' and 'impulsiveness' in our Bain family as well which has been both good and bad. The good part is that spontaneity and impulsiveness help to break people away from the bleakness and blandness of an 'overly regimented' and/or 'routine' life; the bad part is that 'schedules get broken' and/or 'start to run late', and/or 'details' get missed in schedules and/or in communication transactions that can lead to communication breakdowns -- all of which often made the 'anal-retentive-Apollonian' side of my dad's personality often go 'ballistic' as he strove to live up to a standard of Apollonian perfection that neither he nor any part of our family could ever fully achieve...Indeed, my dad's life, in my eyes, ran very much like what I would project to be the life of an imaginary protagonist in Nietzsche's first little book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- as my dad strove often unsuccessfully to 'integrate' the Apollonian and Dionysian elements in his personality into a type of 'internal monism' where often there was a 'raging dualism' that could never be 'properly and/or fully tamed'. My dad seemed to have a hard time fully accepting the 'very active Dionysian side' of his personality....and continually seemed to either try to deny its existence (this side of existence) and/or push this part of his personality back into 'The Shadows' -- The 'Dionysian Shadows' ...a type of scenario that is very much reflected in Nietzsche's amazing little book, 'The Birth of Tragedy', so very 'Hegelian' in its structure, presentation, and idealistic vision (so much so that Nietzsche would come to 'disown' what I think was one of his strongest creations). The Birth of Tragedy, would in essence, like Hegel's masterpiece before it, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit', foreshadow the birth of Psychoanalysis and Freud's famous internal triad: 'The Id', 'The Superego', and 'The Ego' reflecting both Hegel's famous triad of: thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis, as well as Nietzsche's follow up to Hegel's masterpiece with his own idealistic vision of 'finding a working balance between the Apollonian and Dionysian sides of our personality. Unfortunately -- at least from a 'psychological health' point of view -- Nietzsche would over time, eventually and essentially abandon his own internal 'Apollo' and become a more or less strictly 'Dionysian' philosopher. Nietzsche would still go on to write many brilliant philosophical works and pieces -- but the essential idea of 'balance in the personality between our Apollonian and Dionysian post-Hegelian bi-polarities' was essentially gone after Nietzsche, himself, started to disown what in my opinion was a brilliant first piece of work -- the often overlooked 'post-Hegelian wonder piece that served as a bridge between philosophy and clinical psychology -- between Hegel, Schopenhauer, Freud and Jung.
I see 'The Birth of Tragedy' reflected and projected in my dad's life -- and concurrently -- very much in my own life -- and in my 'creative projection' here -- 'Hegel's Hotel'.
The trick is -- and always will be -- finding that point of 'optimal homeostatic-multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, balance, not only between Apollo and Dionysus but also between numerous other potentially tragic and/or healthy, mythological or non-mythological bi-polarities such as: Humanistic-Existential (compassion vs. accountability), Gaia (Goddess of Earth or Land)-Hera (Goddess of Marriage)-and Aphrodite (Goddess of Romance, Beauty, Fertility) balance'
Balance -- whatever it is you/we are trying either rationally and/or emotionally and/or desperately to balance -- is generally very, very fleeting -- kind of like eating or breathing or sex -- our 'satiation point' is always fleeting and cyclical, no matter how good we are at going out and getting what we want, our 'satiation point' is always only temporary before we have to go out and aim to get what we want all over again, and what we 'want' can either be healthy or pathological depending on what it is exactly that we are constantly chasing...
Usually, we either have to become better at getting whatever it is we are chasing, and/or we need to stop chasing that which is destructive and/or self-destructive....Two different forms of the same overall dialectical, multi-bi-polar, homeostatic balance, psychotherapy...at least this idealized version of DGB Philosophy-Psychology-and Philo-Psychotherapy...
Enough for this morning,
-- dgb, Nov. 7th, 2009
-- David Gordon Bain
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
To Leap or Not To Leap...Into The Nietzschean Void...Aiming to Bridge Both The Kantian and The Nietzschean Divide...That is The Question...
Some people require more security, stability, and routine than others do. This is not totally a bad thing. I long for that right now as I thrash around in economic and financial border-line panic. A bad recession might not be the right time to plunge into a new job or career. Unless you are forced to by a recent job loss. It is always nice to have a back-up plan, a life-boat, or life-preserver if, all of a sudden, you are thrown overboard.
Self-confidence and good self-marketing skills may be the difference between turning lemon into lemonade -- or not. Personally, I haven't quite got to the lemonade yet as I am engorged by 'bitter lemons'. Don't misread that. I am not bitter. I just haven't got to the point where I can say that my life has turned into something 'sweet' yet -- or stated otherwise -- evolved into something better than what I had four months ago. Stability. Security. The flipside of taking a Nietzschean risk. I have taken a few Nietzschean risks lately but in the wrong place (a gambling casino). Although, overall, I have been very lucky over the last two or three months, a gambling casino is the wrong place to look for financial security. That is like looking for a polar bear at the equator.
I will get back to you when I can say I have found security and stability again. Until then, I have to be very careful about what kind of Nietzschean risks I decide to take here. There is not much room for error. At the same time, the ship I am on feels like the Titanic. Any new ships in the vicinity? I feel like I am pacing back and forth on the Titanic as I see an approaching iceberg... The water looks awfully cold to swim in at this time of year...There aren't enough lifeboats for everyone and even the life preservers are going fast....This doesn't seem to be the time to write other than to satisfy some grossly inappropriate, morbid, twisted sense of humor and self-deprecation...
Rome is burning...and i am writing...
I criticise Plato, Spinoza, Fichte, and even Hegel for having their heads too high in the sky...
And how am I any different?
Hegel watching out his window as Napoleon is storming into Jena...
And Hegel is trying furiously to finish the final few pages of his manuscript for what was to become perhaps the finest Western philosophical treatise of all all time -- 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'.
Unbelievable...But at least he had something to show for what might otherwise be viewed as his 'pragmatic stupidity'...
Hegel's Hotel has a very, very long way to go to approach anywhere near that type of standard...
Hegel had many criticizers -- Marx, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche...to name a few -- mainly for the 'high falutin' extent of his 'Grandest of all Grand Narratives'...
I have no problems with 'Grand Narratives' (like Nietzsche and the rest of the Post-Modernists do...).
I just want my Grand Narrative to be grounded on earth; not hanging from 'Never Never Land'.
I fully concur with most of Hegel's critics...
I abhor the full extent of his abstractness, his vaguery, and his concept of 'Absolute Knowledge'...
Still I rank Hegel as the finest of all Western philosophers...Because he revolutionized philosophy and foreshadowed most of Western Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy...not to mention Existentialism...and the philosophy of 'Deconstruction' and 'Marginalization'...
Everyone after Hegel loved to pick Hegel apart...bit by bit...grand abstraction by grand abstraction...
And yet Hegel's 'Phememonology of Spirit' became the focal point by which all 19th and 20th and 21st century philosophy took off...as well as aptly summarizing much of what came before it...
And like Hegel told us all to do -- indirectly, at least -- I seek to 'sublate' (subsume, include) elements of Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Kant, Sartre, Foucualt, Derrida, Locke, Bacon, Diderot, Voltaire, Jefferson, Tom Paine, Ocaam, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Lao tse, Freud, Jung, Adler, Ferenczi, Rank, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Fromm, Perls, Rand, Branden, Korzybski, Hayakawa...and others...into my own work here...
Into the centrepiece -- the North Star, the shining light, the sun and the moon -- that was Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'...
And which I am seeking to retain here in Hegel's Hotel...
His Phenomenology of Spirit...
Has been translated -- or sublated or subsumed or included -- into my own phenomenology of spirit...
However far that may take me...
Inside 'Hegel's Hotel'....
In the meantime,
As therapeutic as this little piece may have been for me,
I need to go out and find either a new job, or another job,
Something that will stabilize my life again,
I partly like what I have here,
It is just that the transportation business,
Just like the hotel business, the entertainment business,
Many, many businesses these days,
Is hurting,
Leaving less business, cutbacks, less revenue,
For both businesses and many employees in these businesses
I simply need something more stable,
So that I will quit howling at the moon...
And to you, my most appreciated readers....
-- dgb, Nov. 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are still in process...
-- dgb
Nov. 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
Self-confidence and good self-marketing skills may be the difference between turning lemon into lemonade -- or not. Personally, I haven't quite got to the lemonade yet as I am engorged by 'bitter lemons'. Don't misread that. I am not bitter. I just haven't got to the point where I can say that my life has turned into something 'sweet' yet -- or stated otherwise -- evolved into something better than what I had four months ago. Stability. Security. The flipside of taking a Nietzschean risk. I have taken a few Nietzschean risks lately but in the wrong place (a gambling casino). Although, overall, I have been very lucky over the last two or three months, a gambling casino is the wrong place to look for financial security. That is like looking for a polar bear at the equator.
I will get back to you when I can say I have found security and stability again. Until then, I have to be very careful about what kind of Nietzschean risks I decide to take here. There is not much room for error. At the same time, the ship I am on feels like the Titanic. Any new ships in the vicinity? I feel like I am pacing back and forth on the Titanic as I see an approaching iceberg... The water looks awfully cold to swim in at this time of year...There aren't enough lifeboats for everyone and even the life preservers are going fast....This doesn't seem to be the time to write other than to satisfy some grossly inappropriate, morbid, twisted sense of humor and self-deprecation...
Rome is burning...and i am writing...
I criticise Plato, Spinoza, Fichte, and even Hegel for having their heads too high in the sky...
And how am I any different?
Hegel watching out his window as Napoleon is storming into Jena...
And Hegel is trying furiously to finish the final few pages of his manuscript for what was to become perhaps the finest Western philosophical treatise of all all time -- 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'.
Unbelievable...But at least he had something to show for what might otherwise be viewed as his 'pragmatic stupidity'...
Hegel's Hotel has a very, very long way to go to approach anywhere near that type of standard...
Hegel had many criticizers -- Marx, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche...to name a few -- mainly for the 'high falutin' extent of his 'Grandest of all Grand Narratives'...
I have no problems with 'Grand Narratives' (like Nietzsche and the rest of the Post-Modernists do...).
I just want my Grand Narrative to be grounded on earth; not hanging from 'Never Never Land'.
I fully concur with most of Hegel's critics...
I abhor the full extent of his abstractness, his vaguery, and his concept of 'Absolute Knowledge'...
Still I rank Hegel as the finest of all Western philosophers...Because he revolutionized philosophy and foreshadowed most of Western Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy...not to mention Existentialism...and the philosophy of 'Deconstruction' and 'Marginalization'...
Everyone after Hegel loved to pick Hegel apart...bit by bit...grand abstraction by grand abstraction...
And yet Hegel's 'Phememonology of Spirit' became the focal point by which all 19th and 20th and 21st century philosophy took off...as well as aptly summarizing much of what came before it...
And like Hegel told us all to do -- indirectly, at least -- I seek to 'sublate' (subsume, include) elements of Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Kant, Sartre, Foucualt, Derrida, Locke, Bacon, Diderot, Voltaire, Jefferson, Tom Paine, Ocaam, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Lao tse, Freud, Jung, Adler, Ferenczi, Rank, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Fromm, Perls, Rand, Branden, Korzybski, Hayakawa...and others...into my own work here...
Into the centrepiece -- the North Star, the shining light, the sun and the moon -- that was Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'...
And which I am seeking to retain here in Hegel's Hotel...
His Phenomenology of Spirit...
Has been translated -- or sublated or subsumed or included -- into my own phenomenology of spirit...
However far that may take me...
Inside 'Hegel's Hotel'....
In the meantime,
As therapeutic as this little piece may have been for me,
I need to go out and find either a new job, or another job,
Something that will stabilize my life again,
I partly like what I have here,
It is just that the transportation business,
Just like the hotel business, the entertainment business,
Many, many businesses these days,
Is hurting,
Leaving less business, cutbacks, less revenue,
For both businesses and many employees in these businesses
I simply need something more stable,
So that I will quit howling at the moon...
And to you, my most appreciated readers....
-- dgb, Nov. 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are still in process...
-- dgb
Nov. 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
On Dreaming, Creating, and The Courage To Take The Niezschean Leap...
Dreaming is the gap -- and the bridge -- between being and becoming...
Creativity and a willingness to step out onto a Nietzschean cliff...with the confidence that you can climb or jump to the other side...over the Nietzschean Abyss...to not look down but to keep climbing or jumping...your eyes and hands and legs all stretching and reaching for your goal...the other side...to make contact with the other side of the cliff...the existential cliff of life...and your unactualized potential Self... the blueprint of the person you were meant to be....dare I say it...the person God meant you to be...
-- dgb, Nov. 3rd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
Creativity and a willingness to step out onto a Nietzschean cliff...with the confidence that you can climb or jump to the other side...over the Nietzschean Abyss...to not look down but to keep climbing or jumping...your eyes and hands and legs all stretching and reaching for your goal...the other side...to make contact with the other side of the cliff...the existential cliff of life...and your unactualized potential Self... the blueprint of the person you were meant to be....dare I say it...the person God meant you to be...
-- dgb, Nov. 3rd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
A General, Evolving Table of Contents For Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology...
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology...
Table of Contents
Blog (Floor) Number:
Part 1: General IntroductionsFloor 01: First Introductions
Floor 02: More on The Dialectic Perspective
Part 2: The History, Evolution, and Integration of Western Philosophy
Floor 03: The Pre-Socratics (Anaxamander and Heraclitus)
Floor 04: Comparisons To Ancient Chinese Philosophy
Floor 05: Parmenides, The Sophists, and Socrates
Floor 06: Plato and Aristotle
Floor 07: Post-Aristotlean Roman Philosophy
Floor 08: Scholastic (Early Religious) Philosophy
Floor 09: Early Scientific Philosophy
Floor 10: Rationalism: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz
Floor 11: British Empiricism: Locke, Berkeley, and Hume
Floor 12: Enlightenment Philosophy, Part 1: Adam Smith: Free Market Capitalism
Floor 14: Enlightenment Philosophy, Part 2: Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, Paine, Jefferson...
Floor 15: German Idealism: Kant, Fichte, Schelling
Floor 16: German Idealism: Hegel
Floor 17: 19th Century Romanticism: Rousseau, Goethe...
Floor 18: Marx: Dialectic-Materialism, Socialism, Communism
Floor 19: Schopenhauer: Irrationalism
Floor 20: Existentialism: Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre
Floor 21: American Pragmatism: James, Dewey
Floor 22: Russell, Wittgenstein,
Floor 23: Korzybski, Hayakawa, and General Semantics
Floor 24: Hegel, Darwin, and The Evolution of Evolution Theory
Floor 25: The Philosophy of Science: Kuhn vs. Popper
Floor 26: The Philosophy of Power and Deconstruction: Foucault and Derrida
Floor 27: Ayn Rand: From Rational-Empiricism to Objectivism
Part 3: The History, Evolution, and Integration of Western Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
Floor 28: Hypnosis to Clinical Psychology: Charcot, Janet, Freud
Floor 29: Freud and Breuer: Early Unconscious Traumacy Theory
Floor 30: Freud: The Seduction Theory
Floor 31: Freud: Fantasy Theory and Screen Memories
Floor 32: Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams
Floor 33: Freud: The Childhood Sexual Stages of Development and The Oedipal Theory
Floor 34: Freud: Sexual Instincts and Objects
Floor 35: Freud: The Evolution of Transference Theory
Floor 36: Freud: On Narcissism
Floor 37: Freud: The Repetition Compulsion, Mastery Compulsion, and Life-Death Instinct Theory
Floor 38: Freud: The Id, Superego, and Ego
Floor 39: Freud: Ego-Splitting and Object Relations
Floor 40: Ferenczi, Rank, and Wilhelm Reich
Floor 41: Adler
Floor 42: Jung
Floor 43: Object Relations: Klein, Fairbairn, Guntrip
Floor 44: Narcissistic Transferences and Self-Psychology: Kohut
Floor 45: Berne: Transactional Analysis and Games People Play
Floor 46: Erich Fromm: Humanism and Neo-Freudianism
Floor 47: Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy
Floor 48: Integrating Humanism and Existentialism
Floor 49: Psycho-Cybernetics
Floor 50: Nathaniel Branden and The Psychology of Self-Esteem
Floor 51: Cognitive Therapy: Ellis, Kelley, Beck...
Floor 52: Jeffrey Masson: Countering Freud's 'Abandonment' of The Seduction Theory
Part 4: Current DGB Philosophy-Psychology
Floor 53: DGB Learning and Lifestyle-Transference-Mastery Compulsion Theory
Floor 54: Traumacy, Narcissistic Fixation, Ego-Splitting, Ego-Positions, and Ego-States
Floor 55: The Nurturing Superego, The Narcissistic Superego, and The Righteous-Rejecting Superego
Floor 56: The Approval-Seeking UnderEgo, The Narcissistic Underego, and The Rebellious-Rejecting Underego
Floor 57: The Central (Mediating and Executive) EgoFloor 58: DGB Language Theory and Epistemology
Floor 59: DGB Narcissistic and Altruistic Theory
Floor 60: DGB Ethics
Floor 61: The Psycho-Dynamics of Multi-Dialectic (Multi-Bi-Polar) Personality Theory
Floor 62: A DGB Theory of One-Dimensional Functioning, Extremism, 'Neurosis' and Psychopathology
Floor 63: DGB Multi-Dialectic, Wholistic, Integrative, Humanistic-Existential Psychotherapy
Part 5: DGB Business, Economics, Politics and Law
Floor 64: Towards A More Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential Approach to Better Business Ethics and 'Win-Win Strategies'
Floor 65: Canadian Politics/Economics
Floor 66: American Politics/Economics
Floor 67: Equal Rights/Equal Responsibilities
Floor 68: The Battle of The Sexes: Egalitarian Masculinism and Feminism vs. Narcissistic Masculinism and Feminism
Floor 69: Canadian Family Law
Floor 70: Domestic Assault and Canadian Law
Floor 71: Sexual Assault and Canadian Law
Floor 72: Unequal Lobbyism and The Process of Government Law-Making
Floor 73: Towards Better (More Egalitarian) Government Laws -- and Their Enforcement -- Between The Sexes
Floor 74: Gods, Myths, Religion, Philosophers, and Psychologists
Floor 75: Gods, Myths, Spirituality, Pantheism, Humanism
Floor 76: 21st Century Romantic Philosophy, Poetry, Literature, and The Arts
Floor 77: Family and Community Work
Floor 78: Concluding Essays
Floor 79: Contact, Awarenesses, Aphorisms, Short Opinions...
Floor 80: Most Recent Essays...
It has taken me about 3 and a half years to write the number of papers that can now be found on the various blogsites of Hegel's Hotel. I am predicting that it will take me another 3 full years of writing ahead of me to finish Hegel's Hotel to my decently high standards.
To be sure, the style and technicality of my writing is far from perfect -- both in its grammatical aspects and in its degree of subjectivity and sharing of my own personal experiences as examples, both good and bad, positive and negative, constructive and self-destructive.
However, first and foremost, mainly I am trying to get my ideas out on the internet for people to read -- academics, professionals and laypersons alike. There may or may not be time to organize and professionalize some of my essays later once Hegel's Hotel is more or less fully constructed.
I don't want to run out of time, energy and/or health before it is finished.
Also, I wish to bridge the dialectic gap between an academic standard of proficiency and historical accuracy on the one side of things vs. a more 'subjective blogsite approach' with -- as I said above --my own personal experiences scattered through many or most of my essays.
Most of my essays are aimed to be 'therapeutic' at least on one level or another as I weave my way through my own myriad of life experiencs and how I react to them, again, both good and bad.
I hope that my readers can find some value in what I write, even when you disagree with some of my arguments and opinions. Again, 'feedback' and 'freedom of speech' is always welcome here as long as it is done tastefully and respectfully, and doesn't amount to 'trash-talking'. The more concrete the feedback, the better. Even essays not written by me will be published if they are deemed to be good enough to add to the overall realism, idealism, and 'multi-dialectic' vision of Hegel's Hotel. Writers don't need to agree with me -- just put together a clear and well-stated argument on what you believe and value.
I do not really value Hegel's concept of 'Absolute Knowledge'. However, I certainly do value the concept of 'Multi-Dialectic and Integrative Knowledge Aimed Towards a More Unified and Well-Balanced Whole'.
This is the vision -- and the reason for the construction -- of Hegel's Hotel.
-- DGB, updated, Nov. 3rd, Contents updated Dec. 28th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
Table of Contents
Blog (Floor) Number:
Part 1: General IntroductionsFloor 01: First Introductions
Floor 02: More on The Dialectic Perspective
Part 2: The History, Evolution, and Integration of Western Philosophy
Floor 03: The Pre-Socratics (Anaxamander and Heraclitus)
Floor 04: Comparisons To Ancient Chinese Philosophy
Floor 05: Parmenides, The Sophists, and Socrates
Floor 06: Plato and Aristotle
Floor 07: Post-Aristotlean Roman Philosophy
Floor 08: Scholastic (Early Religious) Philosophy
Floor 09: Early Scientific Philosophy
Floor 10: Rationalism: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz
Floor 11: British Empiricism: Locke, Berkeley, and Hume
Floor 12: Enlightenment Philosophy, Part 1: Adam Smith: Free Market Capitalism
Floor 14: Enlightenment Philosophy, Part 2: Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, Paine, Jefferson...
Floor 15: German Idealism: Kant, Fichte, Schelling
Floor 16: German Idealism: Hegel
Floor 17: 19th Century Romanticism: Rousseau, Goethe...
Floor 18: Marx: Dialectic-Materialism, Socialism, Communism
Floor 19: Schopenhauer: Irrationalism
Floor 20: Existentialism: Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre
Floor 21: American Pragmatism: James, Dewey
Floor 22: Russell, Wittgenstein,
Floor 23: Korzybski, Hayakawa, and General Semantics
Floor 24: Hegel, Darwin, and The Evolution of Evolution Theory
Floor 25: The Philosophy of Science: Kuhn vs. Popper
Floor 26: The Philosophy of Power and Deconstruction: Foucault and Derrida
Floor 27: Ayn Rand: From Rational-Empiricism to Objectivism
Part 3: The History, Evolution, and Integration of Western Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
Floor 28: Hypnosis to Clinical Psychology: Charcot, Janet, Freud
Floor 29: Freud and Breuer: Early Unconscious Traumacy Theory
Floor 30: Freud: The Seduction Theory
Floor 31: Freud: Fantasy Theory and Screen Memories
Floor 32: Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams
Floor 33: Freud: The Childhood Sexual Stages of Development and The Oedipal Theory
Floor 34: Freud: Sexual Instincts and Objects
Floor 35: Freud: The Evolution of Transference Theory
Floor 36: Freud: On Narcissism
Floor 37: Freud: The Repetition Compulsion, Mastery Compulsion, and Life-Death Instinct Theory
Floor 38: Freud: The Id, Superego, and Ego
Floor 39: Freud: Ego-Splitting and Object Relations
Floor 40: Ferenczi, Rank, and Wilhelm Reich
Floor 41: Adler
Floor 42: Jung
Floor 43: Object Relations: Klein, Fairbairn, Guntrip
Floor 44: Narcissistic Transferences and Self-Psychology: Kohut
Floor 45: Berne: Transactional Analysis and Games People Play
Floor 46: Erich Fromm: Humanism and Neo-Freudianism
Floor 47: Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy
Floor 48: Integrating Humanism and Existentialism
Floor 49: Psycho-Cybernetics
Floor 50: Nathaniel Branden and The Psychology of Self-Esteem
Floor 51: Cognitive Therapy: Ellis, Kelley, Beck...
Floor 52: Jeffrey Masson: Countering Freud's 'Abandonment' of The Seduction Theory
Part 4: Current DGB Philosophy-Psychology
Floor 53: DGB Learning and Lifestyle-Transference-Mastery Compulsion Theory
Floor 54: Traumacy, Narcissistic Fixation, Ego-Splitting, Ego-Positions, and Ego-States
Floor 55: The Nurturing Superego, The Narcissistic Superego, and The Righteous-Rejecting Superego
Floor 56: The Approval-Seeking UnderEgo, The Narcissistic Underego, and The Rebellious-Rejecting Underego
Floor 57: The Central (Mediating and Executive) EgoFloor 58: DGB Language Theory and Epistemology
Floor 59: DGB Narcissistic and Altruistic Theory
Floor 60: DGB Ethics
Floor 61: The Psycho-Dynamics of Multi-Dialectic (Multi-Bi-Polar) Personality Theory
Floor 62: A DGB Theory of One-Dimensional Functioning, Extremism, 'Neurosis' and Psychopathology
Floor 63: DGB Multi-Dialectic, Wholistic, Integrative, Humanistic-Existential Psychotherapy
Part 5: DGB Business, Economics, Politics and Law
Floor 64: Towards A More Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential Approach to Better Business Ethics and 'Win-Win Strategies'
Floor 65: Canadian Politics/Economics
Floor 66: American Politics/Economics
Floor 67: Equal Rights/Equal Responsibilities
Floor 68: The Battle of The Sexes: Egalitarian Masculinism and Feminism vs. Narcissistic Masculinism and Feminism
Floor 69: Canadian Family Law
Floor 70: Domestic Assault and Canadian Law
Floor 71: Sexual Assault and Canadian Law
Floor 72: Unequal Lobbyism and The Process of Government Law-Making
Floor 73: Towards Better (More Egalitarian) Government Laws -- and Their Enforcement -- Between The Sexes
Floor 74: Gods, Myths, Religion, Philosophers, and Psychologists
Floor 75: Gods, Myths, Spirituality, Pantheism, Humanism
Floor 76: 21st Century Romantic Philosophy, Poetry, Literature, and The Arts
Floor 77: Family and Community Work
Floor 78: Concluding Essays
Floor 79: Contact, Awarenesses, Aphorisms, Short Opinions...
Floor 80: Most Recent Essays...
It has taken me about 3 and a half years to write the number of papers that can now be found on the various blogsites of Hegel's Hotel. I am predicting that it will take me another 3 full years of writing ahead of me to finish Hegel's Hotel to my decently high standards.
To be sure, the style and technicality of my writing is far from perfect -- both in its grammatical aspects and in its degree of subjectivity and sharing of my own personal experiences as examples, both good and bad, positive and negative, constructive and self-destructive.
However, first and foremost, mainly I am trying to get my ideas out on the internet for people to read -- academics, professionals and laypersons alike. There may or may not be time to organize and professionalize some of my essays later once Hegel's Hotel is more or less fully constructed.
I don't want to run out of time, energy and/or health before it is finished.
Also, I wish to bridge the dialectic gap between an academic standard of proficiency and historical accuracy on the one side of things vs. a more 'subjective blogsite approach' with -- as I said above --my own personal experiences scattered through many or most of my essays.
Most of my essays are aimed to be 'therapeutic' at least on one level or another as I weave my way through my own myriad of life experiencs and how I react to them, again, both good and bad.
I hope that my readers can find some value in what I write, even when you disagree with some of my arguments and opinions. Again, 'feedback' and 'freedom of speech' is always welcome here as long as it is done tastefully and respectfully, and doesn't amount to 'trash-talking'. The more concrete the feedback, the better. Even essays not written by me will be published if they are deemed to be good enough to add to the overall realism, idealism, and 'multi-dialectic' vision of Hegel's Hotel. Writers don't need to agree with me -- just put together a clear and well-stated argument on what you believe and value.
I do not really value Hegel's concept of 'Absolute Knowledge'. However, I certainly do value the concept of 'Multi-Dialectic and Integrative Knowledge Aimed Towards a More Unified and Well-Balanced Whole'.
This is the vision -- and the reason for the construction -- of Hegel's Hotel.
-- DGB, updated, Nov. 3rd, Contents updated Dec. 28th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
On Properly Functioning Democracies vs. Pseudo-Democracies, Pathological Ideology -- and 'Snake Oil'
When the people at the top of the Corporate, Business World cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't, or won't -- then the Government has to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize 'white collar crime' -- particularly, 'corporate plundering' of 'corporate business coffers' at the top.
When the people in different Government Sectors who have control over their own spending and paycheques and who specifically they give government contracts to without a democratic bidding, cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't or won't -- then, people above them in more powerful Government Positions have to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize this type of Government exploitation of taxpayers' money -- and 'white collar plundering of public coffers'.
When the people at even the highest levels of Government Positions and Trust cannot or will not police the people in charge of significant amounts of government funds below them -- and exploitation results -- then it is the duty of journalists and philosopher-writers and film makers (Michael Moore) to hammer certain 'unpleasant, unethical government and corporate truths (or even 'half-truths') home until the proper government people are 'impeached', 'resign', are 'fired', and/or arefinally voted out of office.
Failing this, we as individual citizens in a properly functioning democracy, need to continue to apply pressure on the particular guilty parties, or at the very least, vote them out of office when their time for potential re-election comes due.
Anything less than this is a 'pseudo-democracy' -- a 'fascade' of a democracy. It is 'Ideology' in the Marxian pathological sense of the word where 'Ideology' means 'hiding what is really happening underneath the superficial rhetoric and campaign promises and white-washing and pretenses of what transgressing politicians and/or corporate bigwigs and/or marketing people are trying to sell you.
'Ideology' in this pathological sense of the word is nothing more than -- as Senator Barney Frank has aptly put it -- 'snake oil'.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- david gordon bain
-- democracy goes beyond narcissism
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
When the people in different Government Sectors who have control over their own spending and paycheques and who specifically they give government contracts to without a democratic bidding, cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't or won't -- then, people above them in more powerful Government Positions have to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize this type of Government exploitation of taxpayers' money -- and 'white collar plundering of public coffers'.
When the people at even the highest levels of Government Positions and Trust cannot or will not police the people in charge of significant amounts of government funds below them -- and exploitation results -- then it is the duty of journalists and philosopher-writers and film makers (Michael Moore) to hammer certain 'unpleasant, unethical government and corporate truths (or even 'half-truths') home until the proper government people are 'impeached', 'resign', are 'fired', and/or arefinally voted out of office.
Failing this, we as individual citizens in a properly functioning democracy, need to continue to apply pressure on the particular guilty parties, or at the very least, vote them out of office when their time for potential re-election comes due.
Anything less than this is a 'pseudo-democracy' -- a 'fascade' of a democracy. It is 'Ideology' in the Marxian pathological sense of the word where 'Ideology' means 'hiding what is really happening underneath the superficial rhetoric and campaign promises and white-washing and pretenses of what transgressing politicians and/or corporate bigwigs and/or marketing people are trying to sell you.
'Ideology' in this pathological sense of the word is nothing more than -- as Senator Barney Frank has aptly put it -- 'snake oil'.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- david gordon bain
-- democracy goes beyond narcissism
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
On The Positive and Negative Side of Narcissism (Hedonism, Egotism, Individualism)
I heard a commercial this morning on tv that sparked this brief DGB commentary.
The ad said something like this:
'When a man does something special -- something one of a kind -- he is proud to put his name to it.'
This beckons back to my dad's Ideal Capitalism influence and his introducing me to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand when I was in my late teens.
Succinctly put, narcissism - and egotism -- and pleasure-seeking -- and searching for the self-fulfillment or self-actualization of one's own Self, one's own Soul -- is not all bad. It is only bad when it gets twisted out of control, and you start moving down a path of one-sidedness, self-absorption to the point of everyone else's needs becoming inferior to your own, down a path of self-destructiveness and/or towards the destructiveness and/or tearing down of others around you. It is only narcissism out of control, narcissism gone wild, narcissism that excludes all others, that eliminates any and/or all feeling of compassion and sensitivity and humanism towards those around you, either close to you or far away -- that is the point where narcissism, hedonism, and egotism all become 'pathological' -- 'psycho-pathological' and 'socio-pathological'.
As for the healthy type of narcissism that I am talking about here, it is well described in this internet (Wikipedia) summary of Ayn Rand's famous book, The Fountainhead (1943).
....................................................................................................................................................
The ad said something like this:
'When a man does something special -- something one of a kind -- he is proud to put his name to it.'
This beckons back to my dad's Ideal Capitalism influence and his introducing me to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand when I was in my late teens.
Succinctly put, narcissism - and egotism -- and pleasure-seeking -- and searching for the self-fulfillment or self-actualization of one's own Self, one's own Soul -- is not all bad. It is only bad when it gets twisted out of control, and you start moving down a path of one-sidedness, self-absorption to the point of everyone else's needs becoming inferior to your own, down a path of self-destructiveness and/or towards the destructiveness and/or tearing down of others around you. It is only narcissism out of control, narcissism gone wild, narcissism that excludes all others, that eliminates any and/or all feeling of compassion and sensitivity and humanism towards those around you, either close to you or far away -- that is the point where narcissism, hedonism, and egotism all become 'pathological' -- 'psycho-pathological' and 'socio-pathological'.
As for the healthy type of narcissism that I am talking about here, it is well described in this internet (Wikipedia) summary of Ayn Rand's famous book, The Fountainhead (1943).
....................................................................................................................................................
The Fountainhead is a bestselling 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. More than 5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide and the work has been translated in several languages. [1]
The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allows the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. By Rand's own admission, Roark is the embodiment of the human spirit and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.
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Howard Roark -- and my dad's own real-life vision and self-enactment of him -- became one of my own earliest idealistic role models.
However, without character, integrity, fairness, compassion, accountability, humanism, and the ideal of a 'fair deal' -- a 'win-win business deal for both and/or all sides' -- Ethical, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism becomes Unbridled, Narcissistic Corrupt Capitalism where collusion and exploitation and kickbacks and bribery and 'Golden Parachute Contracts and Bonuses' rule the day. Employers exploit employees. And/or unions exploit businesses. Lobbyists exploit Governments. Governments exploit Lobbyists. Sellers exploit buyers. Governments and businesses exploit taxpayers.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
Capitalism has stopped playing by ethical rules. Businesses have stopped looking for 'win-win solutions'.
Everybody who has significant monetary power at the top is looking for their own narcissistic Golden Parachute, their Golden Retirement Package. Plunder the corporation. Plunder the taxpayer.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
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Sunday, November 1, 2009
A DGB Critique of Hegel's Epistemology and Theory of 'Absolute Knowledge'
Just finished...Nov. 1st, modified Nov. 3rd, 2009.
I have said this before and I will say it again in different words: I do not follow Hegel every place he goes -- nor do I want to. There is a point at which Hegel 'loses contact' with solid epistemological philosophy, numerous other philosophers and philosophies have critiqued him on this matter before me-- particularly relative to his theory of 'Absolute Knowledge' which has far too much of a Platonic/Spinozian influence attached to it -- and I want to add my own significantly unique epistemological critique to this subject matter, which should give a much more solid 'rational-empirical base' to my particular brand of DGB Post-Hegelian Humanistic-Existentialism.
For starters, I follow a long line of rational-empirical Pre-Enlightenment, Enlightenment, and Post-Enlightenment philosophers including: Heraclitus, Aristotle, Occam (see 'Occam's Razor'), Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, parts of David Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, parts of Kant, parts of Nietzsche, parts of Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa, Erich Fromm, Ayn Rand and Bertrand Russell, and important parts of Foucault and Derrida...
Notably not included on this list are: Parmenides, Plato, Spinoza (I like Spinoza's spiritualism, romanticism, pantheism, wholism -- just not his rational-empirical epistemology or lack thereof because like his two predecessors listed above, his philosophy is all 'rationalism' and 'rational idealism'; not rational-empiricism with an emphasis on the solidly grounded sensory empirical base) -- and the post-Kantian German Idealists, most notably Hegel.
You see, Kant epistemologically did what philosophically needed to be done -- he clearly separated the 'subjective' from the 'objective', and he clearly separated the 'physical' (or sensory empirical) from the 'metaphysical'.
What Kant said is still true to this day -- or at least significantly so -- specifically, we cannot 'perfectly know' our so-called 'objective world' around us, and inside of us, because our senses are not perfect, they are continually subject to the possibility of error and distortion -- even more so, when we rise above the level of 'sensory observation' and get into the domain of 'individual perception, interpretation, inferences, theories, generalizations, associations, assumptions'...which are all before we get to the even more clouded issue of 'evaluation, judgment, narcissism and ethics'.
Now it seems that none of the Post-Kantian German Idealists -- most specifically, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and the one main 'counter-idealist', Arthur Schopenhauer -- wanted to hear or at least accept what Kant was trying to tell them. It is like they all went into a state of 'epistemological denial'. Each, in their own way went into what might be called a massive, post-Kantian 'white washing' (or in Schopenhauer's case a 'black washing'), a 'Compensatory Grand Narration of 'Cosmic Subjective-Objectivism' -- and Denial of the Epistemological Propensity for Human Fallibility, (Accidental or Purposeful) Distortion -- and Error.
No one seemed to want to admit that as human we all make epistemological -- and ontological -- errors. And we make a lot of them, each and every day of our existence, both individually and collectively.
The epistemological answer for philosophers like Aristotle and Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke and David Hume (who went to skeptical excess) and later philosophers like Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Erich Fromm, Foucault and Derrida, Ayn Rand and Nataniel Branden, was how to teach epistemology in such a way as to reduce the probability of human error. None of these philosophers would ever argue that human civilization -- and/or some ideal individual 'philosopher-king' -- would ever get to a point in their personal and/or collective evolution where 'error and distortion' (and particularly narcissistic bias) would cease to happen. Furthermore, none of these philosophers would ever argue that you could ever get to this fantasized state of 'idealistic cosmic, epistemological and/or ontological bliss' by essentially 'closing your eyes to the world of sensory things and processes (Plato) or even through 'the dialectic' (Hegel).
In effect, 'epistemological and ontological idealism' robbed Hegel of his ability to see that 'the dialectic' -- a process of people engaging in, and negotiating, their differences, and their different perspectives and theories -- would never, ever get any one ideal philosopher or human civilization as a whole to a state of 'Absolute Knowledge' (Epistemology) and/or 'Absolute Being' (Ontology).
I feel like I have to repeat Kant's essential message all over again -- I feel like the little kid who has to tell everyone that the Emperor has no clothes on: There is, or never will be, any state of 'Absolute Knowledge or Being'. Not through Rational Idealism. Not through Empiricism alone. Not through the Dialectic. Not through anything. The closest we will ever get -- epistemologically speaking -- is through learning to the best of our ability, individually and collectively, the art and science of 'Rational-Empiricism'. (Think Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Sir Francis Bacon, and in the field of fictional crime think famous detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Herculet Poirot -- the latter being Agatha Christie's famous private detective...)
We cannot escape Kant's essential message.
We cannot escape the famous Kantian Split, the Kantian Gap, The Kantian Schism, The Kantian Great Divide...Wishing it weren't so doesn't make the Subject-Object, Mind-Body, Man-World, Physical-Metaphysical Schisms go away. They are still there. They are still here. All we can do is become 'good Rational Empiricists' to minimize the epistemological damage often caused by the Subjective-Objective, Physics-Metaphysics, and Observation-Inference-Value Judgments Splits...that the following German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) and the one 'counter-idealist (Schopenhauer) essentially aimed to 'deny'.
Try as each of them certainly did, each in their own unique way, aiming to arrive at some 'Post-Spinozian-Post-Kantian Cosmic Unity', when all was said and done, the Kantian Splits were still staring them in the face, undisturbed by each of their efforts. Abstract metaphysics didn't make them go away. Nor did confusing the Self with the rest of the Cosmic Universe -- good, bad, indifferent or all three together -- make them go away.
As listed above, there are at least two Kantian Splits that we can identify and distinguish from each other, as well as a host of other such 'dualistic' splits both before and after Kant's famous subjective-objective and physical-metaphisical split, most of which the German Idealists mentioned above (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) tried their hardest to either bridge or deny. Below I have listed my top 25 'dualistic splits'.
The 'dialectic' is a point or process of engagement, ideally designed to negotiate and achieve a more 'wholistic, integrative, harmonious union' between any bi-polar, dualistic, and/or differential splits. But in no way should any result of dialectic engagement ever be construed as being 'Absolute Knowledge' because the point of homeostatic balance and imbalance will always change and with it will come a new necessity for a return to the dualistic and dialectic bargaining table. The best that we might call any such 'conflict resolution' is 'integrative sensory and interpretive knowledge' resulting in an 'integrative value judgment', a 'decision' or 'set of decisions', in effect a 'game plan', perhaps a 'rule' or 'law', and a 'course of action' -- all of which may be 'right' or 'wrong', or anywhere in between. Indeed, 'dialectic evolution' can often result in 'regression', 'suppression', 'repression', and/or 'oppression' that will take man back to a 'worse state of affairs' either individually and/or collectively. Nothing is written in stone. Self-correction is never guaranteed. Self-destruction may occur before self-correction. And 'Absolute Knowledge' may become further away rather than closer to us with any and/or every dialectic, evolutionary step. Again, life is existentially unpredictable and indeterminate; not historically or teleologically determined. Here is where Hegel and I seem to most disagree. This is perhaps the most important difference between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and DGB Post-Hegelian, Enlightenment-Romantic, Humanistic-Existential, Constructive-Deconstructive Philosophy.
Nothing is written in stone. And as I learned from Heraclitus, General Semantics, and Gestalt Therapy -- 'Everything is subject to change.' Everything is subject to both progressive and/or regressive evolution.
Here are 25 -- no, make that 30 -- of the top 'dualistic or bi-polar splits' that have just freshly come to the top of my consciousness:
01. The Subjective-Objective (or 'Phenomenal-Noumenal' in Kant's terminology) Split;
02. The Physics-Metaphysics Split;
03. The Religion-Science (Faith-Reason) Split;
04. The Enlightenment-Romantic Split;
05. The Humanistic-Existential (Liberal-Conservative; Compassion-Accountability) Split
06. The Capitalist-Socialist (Adam Smith-Karl Marx) Split;
07. The Mind-Body (Mind-Brain) Split;
08. The Genetics-Social Learning Split;
09. The Apollonian-Dionysian Split (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy);
10. The Male-Female (Husband-Wife, Boyfriend-Girlfriend) Split;
11. Racial and Ethnic Splits;
12. Religious Splits;
13. Political Splits;
14. Territory/Boundary Splits;
15. Class and Economic Splits;
16. Employer-Employee Splits;
17. The Superego-Id Split (Freud);
18. The Personna-Shadow (Public-Private, Wall-Essence) Split (Jung, DGB Psychology);
19. The Topdog-Underdog Split (Perls, Gestalt Therapy);
20. The Exciting Object-Rejecting Object Split (Fairbairn);
21. The Parent-Child Split -- Both Externally and Internally (Transactional Analysis);
22. The Nurturing Parent-Critical Parent Split -- Both Externally and Internally (Transactional Analysis);
23. The Approval-Seeking Child-Rebellious Child -- Both Externally and Internally (Transactional Analysis);
24. The Observation-Inference-Value Judgment Split (Korzybski, Hayakawa, General Semantics);
25. The Man-World (Environment, Nature) Split;
26. The Prescription Medication-Natural Health Split;
27. Geographical Splits;
28. The Government-Citizen Split;
29. The Government-Business Split;
30. The Essence-Wall Split (DGB Psychology).
Going back to epistemology (the study of knowledge), the best epistemological school of thought that has ever followed this path -- in my humble opinion -- is General Semantics (See Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity; and/or S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action).
Indeed, my nomination for the best epistemologist in the history of Western Philosophy is the largely unheralded Alfred Korzybski in his masterpiece, 'Science and Sanity'. S.I. Hayakawa simplied Korzybski's ideas in Hayakawa's classic General Semantic book, 'Language in Thought and Action', that has been republished numerous times over about a 50 year period from the 1940s to the 1990s (with his son Alan involved in the last one).
My 1979 Honours Thesis in Psychology leaned heavily on Korzybski and Hayakawa in a paper that created and developed a model that in Freudian terminology would probably be labeled as 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning'.
We will come back to that model very shortly and see how it fits into the larger model being constructe here under the name of 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...'
This is where I will leave my little rant on epistemology today.
As disoriented as things seem to have been lately, I finally see Hegel's Hotel starting to come together again as one 'wholistic, multi-dialectic, humanistic-existential, enlightenment-romantic, deconstructive-constructive Post-Hegelian treatise'.
-- dgbn, Nov. 1st, Nov. 3rd., 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations
-- Are Still In Process...
.............................................................................................................................
I have said this before and I will say it again in different words: I do not follow Hegel every place he goes -- nor do I want to. There is a point at which Hegel 'loses contact' with solid epistemological philosophy, numerous other philosophers and philosophies have critiqued him on this matter before me-- particularly relative to his theory of 'Absolute Knowledge' which has far too much of a Platonic/Spinozian influence attached to it -- and I want to add my own significantly unique epistemological critique to this subject matter, which should give a much more solid 'rational-empirical base' to my particular brand of DGB Post-Hegelian Humanistic-Existentialism.
For starters, I follow a long line of rational-empirical Pre-Enlightenment, Enlightenment, and Post-Enlightenment philosophers including: Heraclitus, Aristotle, Occam (see 'Occam's Razor'), Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, parts of David Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, parts of Kant, parts of Nietzsche, parts of Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa, Erich Fromm, Ayn Rand and Bertrand Russell, and important parts of Foucault and Derrida...
Notably not included on this list are: Parmenides, Plato, Spinoza (I like Spinoza's spiritualism, romanticism, pantheism, wholism -- just not his rational-empirical epistemology or lack thereof because like his two predecessors listed above, his philosophy is all 'rationalism' and 'rational idealism'; not rational-empiricism with an emphasis on the solidly grounded sensory empirical base) -- and the post-Kantian German Idealists, most notably Hegel.
You see, Kant epistemologically did what philosophically needed to be done -- he clearly separated the 'subjective' from the 'objective', and he clearly separated the 'physical' (or sensory empirical) from the 'metaphysical'.
What Kant said is still true to this day -- or at least significantly so -- specifically, we cannot 'perfectly know' our so-called 'objective world' around us, and inside of us, because our senses are not perfect, they are continually subject to the possibility of error and distortion -- even more so, when we rise above the level of 'sensory observation' and get into the domain of 'individual perception, interpretation, inferences, theories, generalizations, associations, assumptions'...which are all before we get to the even more clouded issue of 'evaluation, judgment, narcissism and ethics'.
Now it seems that none of the Post-Kantian German Idealists -- most specifically, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and the one main 'counter-idealist', Arthur Schopenhauer -- wanted to hear or at least accept what Kant was trying to tell them. It is like they all went into a state of 'epistemological denial'. Each, in their own way went into what might be called a massive, post-Kantian 'white washing' (or in Schopenhauer's case a 'black washing'), a 'Compensatory Grand Narration of 'Cosmic Subjective-Objectivism' -- and Denial of the Epistemological Propensity for Human Fallibility, (Accidental or Purposeful) Distortion -- and Error.
No one seemed to want to admit that as human we all make epistemological -- and ontological -- errors. And we make a lot of them, each and every day of our existence, both individually and collectively.
The epistemological answer for philosophers like Aristotle and Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke and David Hume (who went to skeptical excess) and later philosophers like Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Erich Fromm, Foucault and Derrida, Ayn Rand and Nataniel Branden, was how to teach epistemology in such a way as to reduce the probability of human error. None of these philosophers would ever argue that human civilization -- and/or some ideal individual 'philosopher-king' -- would ever get to a point in their personal and/or collective evolution where 'error and distortion' (and particularly narcissistic bias) would cease to happen. Furthermore, none of these philosophers would ever argue that you could ever get to this fantasized state of 'idealistic cosmic, epistemological and/or ontological bliss' by essentially 'closing your eyes to the world of sensory things and processes (Plato) or even through 'the dialectic' (Hegel).
In effect, 'epistemological and ontological idealism' robbed Hegel of his ability to see that 'the dialectic' -- a process of people engaging in, and negotiating, their differences, and their different perspectives and theories -- would never, ever get any one ideal philosopher or human civilization as a whole to a state of 'Absolute Knowledge' (Epistemology) and/or 'Absolute Being' (Ontology).
I feel like I have to repeat Kant's essential message all over again -- I feel like the little kid who has to tell everyone that the Emperor has no clothes on: There is, or never will be, any state of 'Absolute Knowledge or Being'. Not through Rational Idealism. Not through Empiricism alone. Not through the Dialectic. Not through anything. The closest we will ever get -- epistemologically speaking -- is through learning to the best of our ability, individually and collectively, the art and science of 'Rational-Empiricism'. (Think Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Sir Francis Bacon, and in the field of fictional crime think famous detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Herculet Poirot -- the latter being Agatha Christie's famous private detective...)
We cannot escape Kant's essential message.
We cannot escape the famous Kantian Split, the Kantian Gap, The Kantian Schism, The Kantian Great Divide...Wishing it weren't so doesn't make the Subject-Object, Mind-Body, Man-World, Physical-Metaphysical Schisms go away. They are still there. They are still here. All we can do is become 'good Rational Empiricists' to minimize the epistemological damage often caused by the Subjective-Objective, Physics-Metaphysics, and Observation-Inference-Value Judgments Splits...that the following German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) and the one 'counter-idealist (Schopenhauer) essentially aimed to 'deny'.
Try as each of them certainly did, each in their own unique way, aiming to arrive at some 'Post-Spinozian-Post-Kantian Cosmic Unity', when all was said and done, the Kantian Splits were still staring them in the face, undisturbed by each of their efforts. Abstract metaphysics didn't make them go away. Nor did confusing the Self with the rest of the Cosmic Universe -- good, bad, indifferent or all three together -- make them go away.
As listed above, there are at least two Kantian Splits that we can identify and distinguish from each other, as well as a host of other such 'dualistic' splits both before and after Kant's famous subjective-objective and physical-metaphisical split, most of which the German Idealists mentioned above (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) tried their hardest to either bridge or deny. Below I have listed my top 25 'dualistic splits'.
The 'dialectic' is a point or process of engagement, ideally designed to negotiate and achieve a more 'wholistic, integrative, harmonious union' between any bi-polar, dualistic, and/or differential splits. But in no way should any result of dialectic engagement ever be construed as being 'Absolute Knowledge' because the point of homeostatic balance and imbalance will always change and with it will come a new necessity for a return to the dualistic and dialectic bargaining table. The best that we might call any such 'conflict resolution' is 'integrative sensory and interpretive knowledge' resulting in an 'integrative value judgment', a 'decision' or 'set of decisions', in effect a 'game plan', perhaps a 'rule' or 'law', and a 'course of action' -- all of which may be 'right' or 'wrong', or anywhere in between. Indeed, 'dialectic evolution' can often result in 'regression', 'suppression', 'repression', and/or 'oppression' that will take man back to a 'worse state of affairs' either individually and/or collectively. Nothing is written in stone. Self-correction is never guaranteed. Self-destruction may occur before self-correction. And 'Absolute Knowledge' may become further away rather than closer to us with any and/or every dialectic, evolutionary step. Again, life is existentially unpredictable and indeterminate; not historically or teleologically determined. Here is where Hegel and I seem to most disagree. This is perhaps the most important difference between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and DGB Post-Hegelian, Enlightenment-Romantic, Humanistic-Existential, Constructive-Deconstructive Philosophy.
Nothing is written in stone. And as I learned from Heraclitus, General Semantics, and Gestalt Therapy -- 'Everything is subject to change.' Everything is subject to both progressive and/or regressive evolution.
Here are 25 -- no, make that 30 -- of the top 'dualistic or bi-polar splits' that have just freshly come to the top of my consciousness:
01. The Subjective-Objective (or 'Phenomenal-Noumenal' in Kant's terminology) Split;
02. The Physics-Metaphysics Split;
03. The Religion-Science (Faith-Reason) Split;
04. The Enlightenment-Romantic Split;
05. The Humanistic-Existential (Liberal-Conservative; Compassion-Accountability) Split
06. The Capitalist-Socialist (Adam Smith-Karl Marx) Split;
07. The Mind-Body (Mind-Brain) Split;
08. The Genetics-Social Learning Split;
09. The Apollonian-Dionysian Split (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy);
10. The Male-Female (Husband-Wife, Boyfriend-Girlfriend) Split;
11. Racial and Ethnic Splits;
12. Religious Splits;
13. Political Splits;
14. Territory/Boundary Splits;
15. Class and Economic Splits;
16. Employer-Employee Splits;
17. The Superego-Id Split (Freud);
18. The Personna-Shadow (Public-Private, Wall-Essence) Split (Jung, DGB Psychology);
19. The Topdog-Underdog Split (Perls, Gestalt Therapy);
20. The Exciting Object-Rejecting Object Split (Fairbairn);
21. The Parent-Child Split -- Both Externally and Internally (Transactional Analysis);
22. The Nurturing Parent-Critical Parent Split -- Both Externally and Internally (Transactional Analysis);
23. The Approval-Seeking Child-Rebellious Child -- Both Externally and Internally (Transactional Analysis);
24. The Observation-Inference-Value Judgment Split (Korzybski, Hayakawa, General Semantics);
25. The Man-World (Environment, Nature) Split;
26. The Prescription Medication-Natural Health Split;
27. Geographical Splits;
28. The Government-Citizen Split;
29. The Government-Business Split;
30. The Essence-Wall Split (DGB Psychology).
Going back to epistemology (the study of knowledge), the best epistemological school of thought that has ever followed this path -- in my humble opinion -- is General Semantics (See Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity; and/or S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action).
Indeed, my nomination for the best epistemologist in the history of Western Philosophy is the largely unheralded Alfred Korzybski in his masterpiece, 'Science and Sanity'. S.I. Hayakawa simplied Korzybski's ideas in Hayakawa's classic General Semantic book, 'Language in Thought and Action', that has been republished numerous times over about a 50 year period from the 1940s to the 1990s (with his son Alan involved in the last one).
My 1979 Honours Thesis in Psychology leaned heavily on Korzybski and Hayakawa in a paper that created and developed a model that in Freudian terminology would probably be labeled as 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning'.
We will come back to that model very shortly and see how it fits into the larger model being constructe here under the name of 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...'
This is where I will leave my little rant on epistemology today.
As disoriented as things seem to have been lately, I finally see Hegel's Hotel starting to come together again as one 'wholistic, multi-dialectic, humanistic-existential, enlightenment-romantic, deconstructive-constructive Post-Hegelian treatise'.
-- dgbn, Nov. 1st, Nov. 3rd., 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations
-- Are Still In Process...
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