On Western Philosophy's Worst and Best Epistemologists...

Parmenides and Plato were probably the two worst epistemologists in the history of Western philosophy -- and Fichte and Hegel fit in close behind to the extent that Fichte developed a 'subjective fetish' and Hegel was too epistemologically infatuated with Plato 'outer limits idealism'.

Aristole was at least empirically grounded by his senses and by his sense of emphasizing observation before starting the 'abstractive' and 'generalizing' process of 'classifying' different plants and animals into similar and different types...

However, Aristotle fell victim to the 'either/or' syndrome. A is A, and B is B, and A can't be B, nor can B be A. Well that 'either/or' assumption just doe not fit 'evolutionary logic' and what we see everywhere around us in life. Because life is full of 'genetic combinations' and 'mutations'.

This is where Hegelian Dialectic Logic is vastly superior to Aristotelean Logic. Because Hegel introduced a theory of 'dialectic evolution' before Darwin did. The formula of 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3. synthesis for the most part is more 'structurally similar' to both Natural Evolution and Human Evolution than Aristotle's 'either/or logic'.

Indeed, we have to be very wary of any form of 'classifying' because life will always 'break the boundaries' of any human classification system. Once this happens -- if man is using Aristotelean Logic and/or any other form of 'Classification Logic' including any 'theory' or any 'model' of whatever it is that he or she is investigating in nature -- mistakes (and sometimes serious mistakes) are going to be made unless we are all well aware and well educated in the most famous Alfred Korzybski/General Semantic statement: THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY.

Let me point to an example of how this Aristotelean 'either/or' mentality vs. the Hegelian 'integrative dialectic' mentality has worked in the history and evolution of physics.

In attempting to properly understand 'matter' and 'energy', man first created the 'particle' theory (thesis). Then some inherent weaknesses showed up in this theory which were addressed by the newer 'wave' theory (anti-thesis). This too showed some inherent weaknesses until some scientist (Plank?) developed the dialectic model of the 'particle-wave' theory (synthesis) which became the basis for 'quantum physics' and numerous offshoots of quantum physics/mechanics none of which I pretend to understand.

But I do understand the Hegelian and the Korzysbki basis of what happened here. Specifically, the 'best model' that scientists have come up with so far relative to explaining the characteristics of matter and energy (light and sound) seem to come from the 'dialectically integrative model' of particle-wave theory. In this way, dialectical integrative logic has shown itself to be superior to Aristotelean either/or logic.

I could give you a hundred other examples. I will just give you one: Is 'bi-polar disorder' ('manic-depression' by its old name) an illness or an excuse? Most people would probably say it is an 'illness'. However, the notion of 'dialectic logic' allows for the fact that it may be both. We do not need to stretch our imagination very far to realized that 'illness' can often be used as an 'excuse' in order to avoid responsibility, accountability, and blame. And be paid for being 'sick'. How about the 'depressed' woman just recently who was taken off her long term sick benefits because of pictures on Facebook partying up a storm...

November 21, 2009 9:49 PM 

david gordon bain said...

The biggest danger of using -- and potentially abusing -- Aristotelean Logic is the habit of 'neatly filtering life processes and structures into distinctly separate categories or classification systems' and then getting more and more frustrated as you find out that 15, 20, or 2000 different classification systems can be tried out -- and if you are astute enough, you will sooner or later realize that life is not 'co-operative' and/or 'submissive' when it comes to fitting nicely into man-made conceptual categories and won't ever entirely fit into any of them perfectly.

Even Hegel can 'howl to the moon' about his 'dialectic epistemology' eventually ending up in 'Absolute Knowledge' -- and this is where Hegel suffers from 'Parmenides and Plato's Epistemolgical Disease' -- i.e., confusing the ideal with the real. If you want to talk ethics, then Plato has something to say. But if you want to talk epistemology, quickly throw Plato into the garbage. Not enough philosophers did. Kant was okay. He understood the difference between the 'physical' vs. the 'metaphysical' and the 'phenomenal' (subjective) vs. the 'noumenal' (objective).

Unfortunately, Fichte, Hegel, and Schopenhauer all went into 'Platonic Overcompensation' to try to deny what Kant was saying was true. On matters of epistemology, Kant's 'epistemological and metaphysical skepticism' was much closer to the truth than anything 'idealistically' written by either Fichte or Hegel. Hegel's 'dialectic epistemology' has to be 're-grounded' -- reconnected with the epistemology of philosophers like Aristotle, Bacon, Newton, Galileo, Locke, Russell, Wittgenstein, Einstein, Korzybski, Ayn Rand -- these were some of the best epistemologists in Western Philosophical history.

But even Ayn Rand didn't -- to my awareness -- understand some of the limitations of Aristotelean Logic. Hegel and Korzybski both did. But Korzybski was a far greater epistemologist than Hegel. Korzybski was in my opinion the greatest epistemologist in the history of Western Philosophy. And the irony of this is that Korzybski isn't even taught in most philosophy programs, undergraduate or graduate. That I will do my best to change.

November 21, 2009 10:12 PM