Before we start exploring the depths, extensions, and boundaries of DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy, I am going to take you back into history to meet some of the most famous Western Dialectical Philosophers (and one or two Eastern ones too) -- philosophers who worked with 'dualisms' and 'dichotomies' and 'debates' and 'paradoxes' and 'bi-polarities' -- all of which we will encompass under the term 'dialectic'.
We will dedicate a 'room' in Hegel's Hotel to every philosopher who I think has added something to the evolution of dialectic philosophy. Come to think of it, this includes everyone in one way or another, either directly by bringing the ideas of 'dualism', and 'dialectic' into their philosophy, and/or by contributing more indirectly to the evolution of the dialectic over time -- such as Plato and Aristotle or Freud and Jung or Freud and Adler complementing each other's work, the 'dialectic whole' being greater than the sum of the individual parts.
So too with Spinoza who is the ultimate of all 'unity-wholists'. However, Spinoza's work makes a good complement to Hegel's work such as through the integrative 'romantic' contribution of Schelling who combined Spinoza and Hegel through the idea of 'dialectical unity and wholism' -- two polar opposites coming together to form an integrative whole. (This echoes Plato's much earlier work in The Symposium where Eryximachus claims that love is the rule of harmony which reconciles opposed elements in the body. Aristophanes takes this one step further and claims the body was originally round with four arms and ears, two faces, etc. The gods, to punish us, split them in two and ever since the halves have sought each other to be reunited in love. -- Derek Johnston, A Brief History of Philosophy, 2006, p. 23-24).
Indeed, Spinoza has been a significant influence on my own philosophical system and process -- again, integratively through previously mentioned ideas like 'dialectical unity' and 'dialectical wholism'. This is the reason for Spinoza's inclusion in a work centring on dialectical philosophy. 'Dialectical philosophy', 'dialectics', and 'multi-dialectics' is the main paradigm that we will be working in for this entire philosophical work -- which is what spawned the idea for, and the name -- Hegel's Hotel.
dgb, Jan. 31st, 2007, updated Sept. 28th, 2007.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Introduction To The Birth of Western Dialectic Philosophy
Trying to trace an idea back to its historical source can be like digging in quicksand -- no matter how deep you dig, the quicksand (idea) keeps getting deeper. Indeed, you may get the feeling of all this fresh quicksand piling around you, above your head even, surrounding you, and you start to wonder very strongly -- with increasing anxiety and sense of losing control -- whether you maybe better not climb back to the surface again and forget you even started digging. Either that or go get an excavator!
So it is with the idea of 'the dialectic' -- which exploded into Western philosophy, then Eastern philosophy, most famously through Hegel and then significantly modified even more famously (or infamously) through Marx.
Which is not to say that the idea of the dialectic just magically appeared out of nowhere. All ideas have a history -- a geneology -- and the idea of the dialectic goes back in name as far as Socrates, goes back even significantly further, almost to the beginning of Western philosophy in concept as far as the second oldest known Western philosopher -- Anaxamander -- and his indirect student -- Heraclitus -- the pre-Socratic version of Plato and Aristotle or the later one-two punch of Hegel and Marx).
The historical interpretation and analysis that I am about to conduct here is all part of an attempted massive philosophy re-integration and re-vitalization process with which I aim to give a 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging Prescription Shot' to both Western philosophical history and many aspects of current Western society. Will this prescription shot fall on deaf ears? Possibly or probably. But generally speaking, ideas that are good and strong enough to carry their weight, will not entirely fall on deaf ears. And the largest snowball starts with the first few snowflakes bound together, the largest ocean starts with the first few water drops bound together. Where there is unity in numbers, starting with small numbers and progressing with passion to larger ones, there exists the very real opportunity for serious evolutionary growth. The type of evolutionary philosopohical growth that we are looking for here is in a 'multi-dialectical-democratic-humanistic-existential' direction; extremist philosophy either at the 'narcissistic' end of the spectrum or at the 'self-denial' end of the spectrum is not what we are looking for.
Put another way, we are looking for a type of philosophy that strives for an ideal of optimal self and civil balance. A multi-dialectical-democratic or worded otherwise, a dialectical-gap-bridging-optimal balance philosophy is what we are looking for in DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...and the earliest roots of it can be found in Pre-Socratic philosophy. When most philosophers think back to early Greek and Western philosophy, they generally think of 'The Big Three' as being Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I am here to trumpet the huge but usually underestimated influence of a different big three or maybe four ancient philosophers -- two from the area of Greece and one, two, or more from China. These are, in my opinion, the three or four most important ancient dialectic philosophers (or groups of philosophers) and I will now identify them as such: 1. Anaxamander; 2. Heraclitus; 3. Confucious; and 4. the Han Philosophers. Let us find out more about them.
So it is with the idea of 'the dialectic' -- which exploded into Western philosophy, then Eastern philosophy, most famously through Hegel and then significantly modified even more famously (or infamously) through Marx.
Which is not to say that the idea of the dialectic just magically appeared out of nowhere. All ideas have a history -- a geneology -- and the idea of the dialectic goes back in name as far as Socrates, goes back even significantly further, almost to the beginning of Western philosophy in concept as far as the second oldest known Western philosopher -- Anaxamander -- and his indirect student -- Heraclitus -- the pre-Socratic version of Plato and Aristotle or the later one-two punch of Hegel and Marx).
The historical interpretation and analysis that I am about to conduct here is all part of an attempted massive philosophy re-integration and re-vitalization process with which I aim to give a 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging Prescription Shot' to both Western philosophical history and many aspects of current Western society. Will this prescription shot fall on deaf ears? Possibly or probably. But generally speaking, ideas that are good and strong enough to carry their weight, will not entirely fall on deaf ears. And the largest snowball starts with the first few snowflakes bound together, the largest ocean starts with the first few water drops bound together. Where there is unity in numbers, starting with small numbers and progressing with passion to larger ones, there exists the very real opportunity for serious evolutionary growth. The type of evolutionary philosopohical growth that we are looking for here is in a 'multi-dialectical-democratic-humanistic-existential' direction; extremist philosophy either at the 'narcissistic' end of the spectrum or at the 'self-denial' end of the spectrum is not what we are looking for.
Put another way, we are looking for a type of philosophy that strives for an ideal of optimal self and civil balance. A multi-dialectical-democratic or worded otherwise, a dialectical-gap-bridging-optimal balance philosophy is what we are looking for in DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...and the earliest roots of it can be found in Pre-Socratic philosophy. When most philosophers think back to early Greek and Western philosophy, they generally think of 'The Big Three' as being Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I am here to trumpet the huge but usually underestimated influence of a different big three or maybe four ancient philosophers -- two from the area of Greece and one, two, or more from China. These are, in my opinion, the three or four most important ancient dialectic philosophers (or groups of philosophers) and I will now identify them as such: 1. Anaxamander; 2. Heraclitus; 3. Confucious; and 4. the Han Philosophers. Let us find out more about them.
Anaxamander's Room (Part 1)
Let's start with Anaxamanderian Philosophy. Anaxamamder is an enigma -- his philosophy is both sparse and primitive on the one hand but on the other hand it was very dynamically loaded, laying out the basic foundation dualistically and dialectically for many, many different philosophies to come including Heraclitus, perhaps some of the early Chinese philosophers (Confucious?, the Han Philosophers?...) who probably did not have access to Anaxamander's philosophical ideas but who knows for sure -- and then exploding some 2300 years later in the philosophies, politics, and/or psychologies of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, and Derrida. Let's look at a sample of Anaxamanderian philosophy:
As a fragment from Anaxamander says, “the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.” Coming to be is the separation of opposites and does not involve any change in the natural being of a substance. Anaxamander thought that it was neither water nor any other substance, but it is of entirely different nature than that in which the unlimited exists. He believed that all things existed in some place. Whether they were absent or conspicuous was irrelevant; they still existed. He believed that qualities came into existence, vanished away, only to return again. Anaxamnder took into consideration that “there was a storehouse or reservoir from which the qualities that now confront us have ‘separated off’ and into which, when their contraries come forth in time, they will go back; the process being repeated in reverse, and so on in never-ending cycles.” Anaxamander, unlike most philosophers of this time, assessed that the world was created from air, not water. He assumed that everything was created from nothing. This nothing, however, was actually the unknown. The unknown, as Anaxamander defines it, can best be described as the other half of what is. The undetermined is what is not and cannot be seen. Equally as important are water, land, and fire that were created by the density in the air. Each of these three things, as seen from Anaxamander’s point of view, were the origin of all the rest of what exists. Water, of course, was the origin of life. From this water, first came fish that would evolve into what is now man.
Bibliography
Kirk,G.S. and Raven, J.E. The_Presocratic_Philosophers. London: Cambridge University Press, 1957 Wheelwright, Philip. The Presocratics. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1966 15 Oct. 1999. http://viator.ucs.indiana.edu/~ancmed./foundations.htm 15 Oct. 1999. http://acnet.pratt.edu/~arch5143/help/pre-socratic.html 13 Oct. 1999. http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/instruct/div.sci/sci122/Greek/Greek.html
Editorial Comments From DB
There are several things that stand out for me about Alaxamander's philosophy. Firstly, it is dualistic, and secondly, it is dialectical. And the purpose of this section is to follow the history of the dialectic in Western -- and some early Eastern -- philosophy.
What is the difference between 'dualistic' and 'dialectic'. This is my take on the difference between the two. 'Dualistic' can imply either of two things: it can imply 'opposite polariities -- plain and simple'; and/or it can imply 'opposite polarities doing war with each other -- dualing it out with each other'. I will opt for both interpretations. Now how is a 'dialectic' similar and/or different than a 'dualism'. For me, and for DGB Philosophy, a dialectic implies an 'exchange', usually between dualistic or polar elements -- but not necessarily of the 'war-mongering type'. A dialectic can be of the 'righteous, either/or, 'will-to-power', 'control-freak', war-mongering type'. Or a dialectic can be of a more democratic, egalitarian, creative, reasonable, empathic, humanistic-existential nature.I believe that there is something seriously profound in this essay of which I will take little credit. I am the 'ideological chemist or mediator' if you will or the 'dialectical shaman'. I like nothing better than to weave my way back into time, weave my way through time, and find 'magical potions' in the form of ideas in the deepest recesses and caverns of time. I search out and bring together magical ideas so that they can 'touch' each other -- sometimes for the first time -- make contact with each other in ways which they perhaps never have made contact with each other before, adding to their healing and/or the enlightening powers -- each in it own and respective right -- by combining these ideas together into a new and perhaps even greater healing and enlightening 'gestalt-formation'. I borrow the concept of the too unknown but brilliant linguist-semanticist-scientist-mathematician-philosopher -- Alfred Koryzybski -- to describe this process (or my rendition of it); he called it 'time-binding'. Indeed, time-binding is perhaps man's greatest evolutionary asset -- the ability to learn, to remember, to write down or otherwise pass down using language as the 'time-binding' agent that allows us to pass down our individual and collective wisdoms through the ages so that the generations that follow us can build from our shoulders.
'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.'
-- Isaac Newton
My idea -- my ideological ideal -- is to bring as many of these great ideas, these great thinkers, and these great people under one ideological roof -- call it the 'dialectical roof' -- to share in the glories of their great ideas, and to mix these ideas together -- philosophically 'dance' with them, integrate them, 'cross-fertilize' them. The name that I give to this dialectical roof and all of the great ideas, the great thinkers, and the great people that I plan to bring together under this roof is -- 'Hegel's Hotel'.
The first piece of ideological gold that I found in the history-philosophy books that I want to share with you -- it actually took me a good two or three decades to find it -- is a piece of philosophy that has a very poetic, mystical, msterious profound ring to it . Many philosophical experts and students alike have looked at it, interpreted it, torn it and reduced it to even smaller pieces than it is -- and then tried to put it back together again (like Humpty Dumpty). The philosophical piece by the man who is generally considered to be our second oldest Western (ancient Greek) philosopher is called -- Anaxamander's Fragment (Anaxamander, 610-546 B.C)
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
Now it is easy to over-interpret something like this, to perhaps put more wisdom into it than properly belongs. In the process, turn a philosopher into a saint -- or even a God.
But I cannot leave this passage alone. I am transfixed by it -- as Nietzsche would say -- intoxicated by it. It grabs me, it shakes me, it will not leave me alone. I have to keep coming back to it.
Call me hallucinatory if you will, but I look at this passage and I see the beginning of Western Dialectic Philosophy. I see the first -- and one of the most important -- entries into Hegel's Hotel. I see the begiining -- the roots -- of Hegel. These roots would have a long way to travel before they got to Hegel -- through Heraclitus (The Riddler and the second Dialectic (Polarity) Philosopher, through the Sophists (the first set of formal, relativist, Deconstructionists -- today you would call them 'lawyers'), Socrates (the second major Deconstructionist -- more ethical and more idealistic than the more pragmatic, cynical Sophists), through Plato, through Aristotle, gradually spreading and spiralling its philosophical roots through the Scholasitic (religous, philosophical) Period, through the Enlightenment -- finally getting to Fichte, and then to Hegel. Then exploding outward through Hegel to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Derrida -- and coutless political, legal, business, economic, scientific, medical, relgious, and artistic expressions -- 'Good' against 'Evil', 'Black 'against 'White', 'Religous' against 'Scientific', 'Left' against 'Right', 'Masculine' against 'Feminism', 'East' agaisnt 'West', 'Orthodox' against 'Unorthodox', 'Dominant' vs. 'Suppressed', 'Heterosexual' vs. 'Homosexual'...'Either/Or', 'Tit for tat'... I could go on and on.
The passage by Anaxamander, in my opinion, could have easily been written by someone living in Lebanon or Israel. The very human cost of human destructionsism and self-destructionism -- man's 'Will To Power' at its worst.
I don't know much about the history of Ancient Greek but I do know enough to know that the people lived in what have been called 'city-states' with the politics of each city-state being different. 'Different' is the crucial, operative word here -- it always has been thoughout human history. Intolerance of difference. People not letting other people be different. Intolerance leads to hate -- racism and discrimination -- and hate through these passages leads to war. Sparta invading Athens. Athens turning around and invading Sparta. Each city-state upping the ante. The weak coming back stronger and the strong coming back weaker. The victim becoming the victimizer and the victimizer becoming the victim. Trading sides in the continual battle for war supremacy. Losing but learning from one's mistakes and coming back better prepared when the victor least expects it -- to overthrow the victor. It is easier to 'conquer' a land than it is to try to 'keep' it. The loser coming back stronger than before -- better prepared to win a war that they previously lost -- from submission to dominance and then back to submission again as the pendulum of 'cosmic justice' keeps swinging back and forth from victor to loser and back again 'in conformity with the ordinance of Time'.
Anaxamander's pasage -- perhaps cynically written, in my humble opinion -- is a statement of fatalistic, deterministic, dialectical, often violent, cosmic, and particularly human, justice. An eye for an eye. For every extreme action -- for every evil action -- there is going to be an equal and opposite, often escalated, reaction. If you live in a world of frontier justice -- which war definitely is (where police and courts and democracy and rights are no longer relevant; only soldiers, war strategy, and firepower) -- and you kill someone who is 'different' than you, on the 'other' side -- you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a very good chance that someone who loved the person you killed is going to come back and try to even the score. The more you kill -- assuming you can morally live with your actions -- the more you have to worry about the friends, the family, and the descendents of the people you killed. Live by the sword; die by the sword. What goes around comes around.
'Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy.'
I read about the politician who said he 'didn't care about civilian deaths' -- and I feel sick to my stomach. I think of Bob Dylan's song, 'The Masters of War'.
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul...
Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
There are two ways the dialectic can play itself out -- through 'the will to power' which if it is not attached to the thill of competing in a sporting or game challenge, and/or not attached to the 'will to excellence in human achievement (partnered with human compassion), then it is probably a 'negative' will to power that is played out through the worst of human nature -- narcissism (selfishness) and greed and 'territorialness' and coercion, and manipulation, and hate, and force, and violence.
I think Anaxamander saw all this in human nature -- he saw how 'what goes around comes around'. He saw how 'black' and 'white' originated from the same 'Universal Souce' -- he called it 'The Boundless'. He saw how 'The Boundless Universe' differentiated into 'polar differences', 'polar opposites', 'polar extremes'... They would separate from each other, then collide with each other, each striving for total, universal dominance, and perhaps partly getting there, feeling the thrill of temporary victory, only to be eventually thwarted, brought back into line again, held back in check again, by the inevitable, rising polar strength of the opposite characteristic coming back into play again, toppling the victor off its pedestal, to take its place, but again, only temporarily again, as the cosmic pendulum of justice swings back and forth again 'in conformity with the ordinace of Time'.
Hegel -- to what extent he may or may not have been familiar with Anaxamander I don't know -- bought into Anaxamander's logic completely giving the dialectic a 'deterministic, fatalistic, inevitable clout to it' -- regardless if the dialectic is playing itself out in peace or war. And furthermore, Hegel assumed that the inevitable end to the 'determinsitic, forceful dialectic' -- regardless of how violent it is -- will be a solution that inevitablly takes man to 'The Absolute' -- and to God.
I am not nearly this optimistic in terms of the inevitable outcome of the 'forceful, violent' acting out of the dialectic in human affairs. Indeed, I am much more cynical in terms of the capability of man for ultimate destruction and self-destruction -- before he gets to any kind of ultimate 'Awareness', 'Consciousness', and 'God-like Knowledge'.
Freud viewed the ultimate acting out of man's 'positive' dialectical characteristics (debate, democracy, diplomacy, humanistic negotiation) with man's 'negative' dialectical features ('will to power', war, force, manipulation, violence, destruction and self-destruction) as the conflict between man's 'life' and 'death' instinct.
I don't look at this conflict as being one between two different sets of 'instincts'. I view it -- existentially -- as being one between two different sets of choices: 'life' choices vs. 'death' choices -- narcissistic, will to power, ignorance of human compassion, choices vs. humanistic-existential choices that build from a healthy 'homeostatic balance' between human compassion and human accountabllity.
Without a balanced leger of human compassion and human accounatability, we may indeed get to God sooner than we want to -- but it may be through a nuclear holocaust or through polluting the world we live in until it can no longer support us.
We would/will have nobody to blame but ourselves (assuming that there is someone still around to take the self-blame). Indeed, it would seem that the eerie poetry of our second oldest Western philosopher, Anaxamander -- a man who seemed to know much too much about the worst side of human nature -- would/will come back to haunt us like a voodoo spell.
The Condemnation for the Crime,
In Conformity With The Ordinance of Time
db, August 21st, 2006, updated Jan. 31st, 2007.
As a fragment from Anaxamander says, “the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.” Coming to be is the separation of opposites and does not involve any change in the natural being of a substance. Anaxamander thought that it was neither water nor any other substance, but it is of entirely different nature than that in which the unlimited exists. He believed that all things existed in some place. Whether they were absent or conspicuous was irrelevant; they still existed. He believed that qualities came into existence, vanished away, only to return again. Anaxamnder took into consideration that “there was a storehouse or reservoir from which the qualities that now confront us have ‘separated off’ and into which, when their contraries come forth in time, they will go back; the process being repeated in reverse, and so on in never-ending cycles.” Anaxamander, unlike most philosophers of this time, assessed that the world was created from air, not water. He assumed that everything was created from nothing. This nothing, however, was actually the unknown. The unknown, as Anaxamander defines it, can best be described as the other half of what is. The undetermined is what is not and cannot be seen. Equally as important are water, land, and fire that were created by the density in the air. Each of these three things, as seen from Anaxamander’s point of view, were the origin of all the rest of what exists. Water, of course, was the origin of life. From this water, first came fish that would evolve into what is now man.
Bibliography
Kirk,G.S. and Raven, J.E. The_Presocratic_Philosophers. London: Cambridge University Press, 1957 Wheelwright, Philip. The Presocratics. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1966 15 Oct. 1999. http://viator.ucs.indiana.edu/~ancmed./foundations.htm 15 Oct. 1999. http://acnet.pratt.edu/~arch5143/help/pre-socratic.html 13 Oct. 1999. http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/instruct/div.sci/sci122/Greek/Greek.html
Editorial Comments From DB
There are several things that stand out for me about Alaxamander's philosophy. Firstly, it is dualistic, and secondly, it is dialectical. And the purpose of this section is to follow the history of the dialectic in Western -- and some early Eastern -- philosophy.
What is the difference between 'dualistic' and 'dialectic'. This is my take on the difference between the two. 'Dualistic' can imply either of two things: it can imply 'opposite polariities -- plain and simple'; and/or it can imply 'opposite polarities doing war with each other -- dualing it out with each other'. I will opt for both interpretations. Now how is a 'dialectic' similar and/or different than a 'dualism'. For me, and for DGB Philosophy, a dialectic implies an 'exchange', usually between dualistic or polar elements -- but not necessarily of the 'war-mongering type'. A dialectic can be of the 'righteous, either/or, 'will-to-power', 'control-freak', war-mongering type'. Or a dialectic can be of a more democratic, egalitarian, creative, reasonable, empathic, humanistic-existential nature.I believe that there is something seriously profound in this essay of which I will take little credit. I am the 'ideological chemist or mediator' if you will or the 'dialectical shaman'. I like nothing better than to weave my way back into time, weave my way through time, and find 'magical potions' in the form of ideas in the deepest recesses and caverns of time. I search out and bring together magical ideas so that they can 'touch' each other -- sometimes for the first time -- make contact with each other in ways which they perhaps never have made contact with each other before, adding to their healing and/or the enlightening powers -- each in it own and respective right -- by combining these ideas together into a new and perhaps even greater healing and enlightening 'gestalt-formation'. I borrow the concept of the too unknown but brilliant linguist-semanticist-scientist-mathematician-philosopher -- Alfred Koryzybski -- to describe this process (or my rendition of it); he called it 'time-binding'. Indeed, time-binding is perhaps man's greatest evolutionary asset -- the ability to learn, to remember, to write down or otherwise pass down using language as the 'time-binding' agent that allows us to pass down our individual and collective wisdoms through the ages so that the generations that follow us can build from our shoulders.
'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.'
-- Isaac Newton
My idea -- my ideological ideal -- is to bring as many of these great ideas, these great thinkers, and these great people under one ideological roof -- call it the 'dialectical roof' -- to share in the glories of their great ideas, and to mix these ideas together -- philosophically 'dance' with them, integrate them, 'cross-fertilize' them. The name that I give to this dialectical roof and all of the great ideas, the great thinkers, and the great people that I plan to bring together under this roof is -- 'Hegel's Hotel'.
The first piece of ideological gold that I found in the history-philosophy books that I want to share with you -- it actually took me a good two or three decades to find it -- is a piece of philosophy that has a very poetic, mystical, msterious profound ring to it . Many philosophical experts and students alike have looked at it, interpreted it, torn it and reduced it to even smaller pieces than it is -- and then tried to put it back together again (like Humpty Dumpty). The philosophical piece by the man who is generally considered to be our second oldest Western (ancient Greek) philosopher is called -- Anaxamander's Fragment (Anaxamander, 610-546 B.C)
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
Now it is easy to over-interpret something like this, to perhaps put more wisdom into it than properly belongs. In the process, turn a philosopher into a saint -- or even a God.
But I cannot leave this passage alone. I am transfixed by it -- as Nietzsche would say -- intoxicated by it. It grabs me, it shakes me, it will not leave me alone. I have to keep coming back to it.
Call me hallucinatory if you will, but I look at this passage and I see the beginning of Western Dialectic Philosophy. I see the first -- and one of the most important -- entries into Hegel's Hotel. I see the begiining -- the roots -- of Hegel. These roots would have a long way to travel before they got to Hegel -- through Heraclitus (The Riddler and the second Dialectic (Polarity) Philosopher, through the Sophists (the first set of formal, relativist, Deconstructionists -- today you would call them 'lawyers'), Socrates (the second major Deconstructionist -- more ethical and more idealistic than the more pragmatic, cynical Sophists), through Plato, through Aristotle, gradually spreading and spiralling its philosophical roots through the Scholasitic (religous, philosophical) Period, through the Enlightenment -- finally getting to Fichte, and then to Hegel. Then exploding outward through Hegel to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Derrida -- and coutless political, legal, business, economic, scientific, medical, relgious, and artistic expressions -- 'Good' against 'Evil', 'Black 'against 'White', 'Religous' against 'Scientific', 'Left' against 'Right', 'Masculine' against 'Feminism', 'East' agaisnt 'West', 'Orthodox' against 'Unorthodox', 'Dominant' vs. 'Suppressed', 'Heterosexual' vs. 'Homosexual'...'Either/Or', 'Tit for tat'... I could go on and on.
The passage by Anaxamander, in my opinion, could have easily been written by someone living in Lebanon or Israel. The very human cost of human destructionsism and self-destructionism -- man's 'Will To Power' at its worst.
I don't know much about the history of Ancient Greek but I do know enough to know that the people lived in what have been called 'city-states' with the politics of each city-state being different. 'Different' is the crucial, operative word here -- it always has been thoughout human history. Intolerance of difference. People not letting other people be different. Intolerance leads to hate -- racism and discrimination -- and hate through these passages leads to war. Sparta invading Athens. Athens turning around and invading Sparta. Each city-state upping the ante. The weak coming back stronger and the strong coming back weaker. The victim becoming the victimizer and the victimizer becoming the victim. Trading sides in the continual battle for war supremacy. Losing but learning from one's mistakes and coming back better prepared when the victor least expects it -- to overthrow the victor. It is easier to 'conquer' a land than it is to try to 'keep' it. The loser coming back stronger than before -- better prepared to win a war that they previously lost -- from submission to dominance and then back to submission again as the pendulum of 'cosmic justice' keeps swinging back and forth from victor to loser and back again 'in conformity with the ordinance of Time'.
Anaxamander's pasage -- perhaps cynically written, in my humble opinion -- is a statement of fatalistic, deterministic, dialectical, often violent, cosmic, and particularly human, justice. An eye for an eye. For every extreme action -- for every evil action -- there is going to be an equal and opposite, often escalated, reaction. If you live in a world of frontier justice -- which war definitely is (where police and courts and democracy and rights are no longer relevant; only soldiers, war strategy, and firepower) -- and you kill someone who is 'different' than you, on the 'other' side -- you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a very good chance that someone who loved the person you killed is going to come back and try to even the score. The more you kill -- assuming you can morally live with your actions -- the more you have to worry about the friends, the family, and the descendents of the people you killed. Live by the sword; die by the sword. What goes around comes around.
'Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy.'
I read about the politician who said he 'didn't care about civilian deaths' -- and I feel sick to my stomach. I think of Bob Dylan's song, 'The Masters of War'.
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul...
Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
There are two ways the dialectic can play itself out -- through 'the will to power' which if it is not attached to the thill of competing in a sporting or game challenge, and/or not attached to the 'will to excellence in human achievement (partnered with human compassion), then it is probably a 'negative' will to power that is played out through the worst of human nature -- narcissism (selfishness) and greed and 'territorialness' and coercion, and manipulation, and hate, and force, and violence.
I think Anaxamander saw all this in human nature -- he saw how 'what goes around comes around'. He saw how 'black' and 'white' originated from the same 'Universal Souce' -- he called it 'The Boundless'. He saw how 'The Boundless Universe' differentiated into 'polar differences', 'polar opposites', 'polar extremes'... They would separate from each other, then collide with each other, each striving for total, universal dominance, and perhaps partly getting there, feeling the thrill of temporary victory, only to be eventually thwarted, brought back into line again, held back in check again, by the inevitable, rising polar strength of the opposite characteristic coming back into play again, toppling the victor off its pedestal, to take its place, but again, only temporarily again, as the cosmic pendulum of justice swings back and forth again 'in conformity with the ordinace of Time'.
Hegel -- to what extent he may or may not have been familiar with Anaxamander I don't know -- bought into Anaxamander's logic completely giving the dialectic a 'deterministic, fatalistic, inevitable clout to it' -- regardless if the dialectic is playing itself out in peace or war. And furthermore, Hegel assumed that the inevitable end to the 'determinsitic, forceful dialectic' -- regardless of how violent it is -- will be a solution that inevitablly takes man to 'The Absolute' -- and to God.
I am not nearly this optimistic in terms of the inevitable outcome of the 'forceful, violent' acting out of the dialectic in human affairs. Indeed, I am much more cynical in terms of the capability of man for ultimate destruction and self-destruction -- before he gets to any kind of ultimate 'Awareness', 'Consciousness', and 'God-like Knowledge'.
Freud viewed the ultimate acting out of man's 'positive' dialectical characteristics (debate, democracy, diplomacy, humanistic negotiation) with man's 'negative' dialectical features ('will to power', war, force, manipulation, violence, destruction and self-destruction) as the conflict between man's 'life' and 'death' instinct.
I don't look at this conflict as being one between two different sets of 'instincts'. I view it -- existentially -- as being one between two different sets of choices: 'life' choices vs. 'death' choices -- narcissistic, will to power, ignorance of human compassion, choices vs. humanistic-existential choices that build from a healthy 'homeostatic balance' between human compassion and human accountabllity.
Without a balanced leger of human compassion and human accounatability, we may indeed get to God sooner than we want to -- but it may be through a nuclear holocaust or through polluting the world we live in until it can no longer support us.
We would/will have nobody to blame but ourselves (assuming that there is someone still around to take the self-blame). Indeed, it would seem that the eerie poetry of our second oldest Western philosopher, Anaxamander -- a man who seemed to know much too much about the worst side of human nature -- would/will come back to haunt us like a voodoo spell.
The Condemnation for the Crime,
In Conformity With The Ordinance of Time
db, August 21st, 2006, updated Jan. 31st, 2007.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Anaxamander's Room (Part 2)
Anaxamander (611BC-547BC) was an amazing man, my favorite early Greek philosopher (with only Heraclitus rivaling him in my esteem). He is usually referred to as the second oldest Western philosopher behind only Thales (624BC to 546BC).
Anaxamanader's philosophy is partly primitive -- what we have left of it in what are called 'fragments' -- but it was partly many, many years ahead of its time. Anaxamsner offered us the first philosophy of 'opposites', the first philosophy of 'dualism', the first 'dialectical philosophy', the first philosophy of 'yin' and 'yang', the first philosophy of 'dialectical evolution', the first philosophy of 'deconstruction' -- all of these without the fancy nametags that would be added on by later philosophers. But Anaxamander had the essence of some of the most important concepts in the history of both Western and Eastern philosophy that would be developed by other philosophers, such as a few hundred years down the line in China (the Han philosophers in China, 207 BC to 9AD, with their remarkable 'Han Synthesis' and the developments of the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' which would become so central to the future of Chinese philosophy.)
Is Anaxamander's early Greek philosophy and the synthesis of the Han Philosophers in China hundreds of years later comparable? I definitely think so. Is there any evidence to suggest that the Chinese may have been influenced in their thinking by the communication of early Greek philosophy to them from the west? This I cannot say but my guess is that yes, there was communication between the Greeks and Chinese -- with Miletus, the home of Anaxamander being at the hub of all trade and communication from West to East, North to South.
Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was not, but Anaxamander's philosophy had a definitely strong Chinese ring to it -- or rather, the significantly later Han Synthesis had a definitely strong Anaxamander ring to it.
Anaxamander talked about the 'Boundless' or the 'Unlimited'; the Han philosophers talked about the 'Tao' or 'the Great Ultimate'. Anaxamander talked about the division of the world into opposites, black and white, hot and cold, etc. The two polar opposite phenomena would not always be visible at the same time; oftentimes, one would dominate while the other receded into the background, but it would only be a matter of time before the two would reverse roles as the other would come to dominate while the first receded into the background. As a critical fragment of Anaxamander stated,
As“the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.”
Thus, opposites differentiate themselves from the great unlimited with one opposite returning to the unlimited when it is being dominated by its other half. It will not stay in the unlimited forever but just long enough to replenish its energy and come back into the world stronger than every and 'making reparation for its earlier injustice at the hands of its stronger opposite' with now the tides being reversed and the previously dominant opposite receding back into the great Unlimited presumably for a recharge of new energy to take back into the world with it again, in order to do battle with its opposite again. In China, these opposites would become 'sexualized' with 'yin' representing a basic 'feminine energy' and 'yang' representing a 'masculine energy'. In evolving Chinese philosophy 'yin' and 'yang' needed to be in balance with each other in order to be healthy; when one opposite or the other was dominating then this would indicate a type of sickness (too much weakness and passivity in the body or too much fire in the body). Thus, for the Han philosophers, both opposites needed to be in the world working together in harmony and balance with each other; not one side dominating the other and sending the other to the sidelines for more reinforcements and energy. This was an aspect of Anaxamander's philosophy that would be modified and developed by Heraclitus -- the idea of the 'unification and harmony of opposites' -- an idea that would reverberate throughout the history of both Eastern and Western philosophy for thousands of years to come. Good ideas don't fade away. They just keep coming back, recyled again and again with new names.
db, May 10th, 2007.
Anaxamanader's philosophy is partly primitive -- what we have left of it in what are called 'fragments' -- but it was partly many, many years ahead of its time. Anaxamsner offered us the first philosophy of 'opposites', the first philosophy of 'dualism', the first 'dialectical philosophy', the first philosophy of 'yin' and 'yang', the first philosophy of 'dialectical evolution', the first philosophy of 'deconstruction' -- all of these without the fancy nametags that would be added on by later philosophers. But Anaxamander had the essence of some of the most important concepts in the history of both Western and Eastern philosophy that would be developed by other philosophers, such as a few hundred years down the line in China (the Han philosophers in China, 207 BC to 9AD, with their remarkable 'Han Synthesis' and the developments of the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' which would become so central to the future of Chinese philosophy.)
Is Anaxamander's early Greek philosophy and the synthesis of the Han Philosophers in China hundreds of years later comparable? I definitely think so. Is there any evidence to suggest that the Chinese may have been influenced in their thinking by the communication of early Greek philosophy to them from the west? This I cannot say but my guess is that yes, there was communication between the Greeks and Chinese -- with Miletus, the home of Anaxamander being at the hub of all trade and communication from West to East, North to South.
Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was not, but Anaxamander's philosophy had a definitely strong Chinese ring to it -- or rather, the significantly later Han Synthesis had a definitely strong Anaxamander ring to it.
Anaxamander talked about the 'Boundless' or the 'Unlimited'; the Han philosophers talked about the 'Tao' or 'the Great Ultimate'. Anaxamander talked about the division of the world into opposites, black and white, hot and cold, etc. The two polar opposite phenomena would not always be visible at the same time; oftentimes, one would dominate while the other receded into the background, but it would only be a matter of time before the two would reverse roles as the other would come to dominate while the first receded into the background. As a critical fragment of Anaxamander stated,
As“the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.”
Thus, opposites differentiate themselves from the great unlimited with one opposite returning to the unlimited when it is being dominated by its other half. It will not stay in the unlimited forever but just long enough to replenish its energy and come back into the world stronger than every and 'making reparation for its earlier injustice at the hands of its stronger opposite' with now the tides being reversed and the previously dominant opposite receding back into the great Unlimited presumably for a recharge of new energy to take back into the world with it again, in order to do battle with its opposite again. In China, these opposites would become 'sexualized' with 'yin' representing a basic 'feminine energy' and 'yang' representing a 'masculine energy'. In evolving Chinese philosophy 'yin' and 'yang' needed to be in balance with each other in order to be healthy; when one opposite or the other was dominating then this would indicate a type of sickness (too much weakness and passivity in the body or too much fire in the body). Thus, for the Han philosophers, both opposites needed to be in the world working together in harmony and balance with each other; not one side dominating the other and sending the other to the sidelines for more reinforcements and energy. This was an aspect of Anaxamander's philosophy that would be modified and developed by Heraclitus -- the idea of the 'unification and harmony of opposites' -- an idea that would reverberate throughout the history of both Eastern and Western philosophy for thousands of years to come. Good ideas don't fade away. They just keep coming back, recyled again and again with new names.
db, May 10th, 2007.
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