Reconstructing Dialectics

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"Everything should be equal. Everything should be equally distributed. We should strive for equity.

These are wrong, especially if you are conservative. Wrong because what we want are just
hierarchies of competence. Not everyone is a neurosurgeon, If your father has a brain tumor, you
probably want a hierarchy of competence so you can pick the best so that he might not die."

- Jordan Peterson

1.1 Theory of Deconstruction

Deconstruction (A philosophical theory) originated and was heavily in uenced by French


philosopher Jacques Derrida. Derrida, who coined the term deconstruction, argues that people in
Western culture tend to think and express their thoughts in terms of binary oppositions (white/
black, male/female, cause/e ect, conscious/unconscious, presence/absence, speech/writing).
Derrida suggests that these oppositions are hierarchies in miniature, using a term that sees
Western culture as positive or superior and another as negative or inferior, if only slightly. Through
deconstruction, Derrida aims to erase the boundary between the binary oppositions - and in such
a way that the hierarchy implied by the oppositions is called into question.

Although its ultimate goal is to critique Western logic, deconstruction arose as a reaction to
structuralism and formalism. Structuralists believed that all elements of human culture, including
literature, can be understood as parts of a system of signs. Derrida did not believe that
structuralists could explain the laws of human signi cation and thus provide the key to
understanding the form and meaning of everything from an African village to a Greek myth to a
literary text. He also rejected the structuralist belief that texts have identi able "centers" of
meaning - a belief structuralists shared with formalists.

Formalist critics, such as the New Critics, assume that a literary work is a free-standing, self-
contained object whose meaning can be found in the complex network of relationships among its
parts (allusions, images, rhythms, sounds, etc.). Deconstructivists, on the other hand, see works
in terms of their undecidability. They reject the formalist view that a work is demonstrably uni ed
from beginning to end, in one particular way, or that it is organized around a single center that can
ultimately be identi ed. Deconstructivists therefore see texts as radically more heterogeneous
than formalists. Formalists ultimately give meaning to the ambiguities they nd in a given text,
arguing that each ambiguity has a de nite, meaningful and demonstrable literary function.
Undecidability, on the other hand, is never reduced, let alone mastered in deconstruction. While a
deconstructive reading may reveal the incompatible possibilities generated by the text, it is
impossible for the reader to settle on a permanent meaning.

This paragraph argues the fact that there is no permanent interpretation or meaning to any
text, including the utterances we make as human beings. The meaning of alternative
interpretations just lights the veil of our intention, which is formed from secondary
dialectics (We see intention, as a form of skepticism), the third form of logic named in 1.2

1.2 Theory of Dialectic (The Deconstruction of Dialectic)

"Dialectic" is a term used to denote a philosophical method of argumentation in which some kind
of adversarial process takes place between opposing sides. In what is perhaps the most classic
version of "dialectics," the ancient Greek philosopher Plato presented his philosophical
argumentation as a back-and-forth dialogue or debate, usually between the character of
Socrates, on the one hand, and a person or group of people with whom Socrates was speaking
(his interlocutors), on the other. In the course of the dialogues, Socrates' interlocutors propose
de nitions of philosophical concepts or express views that Socrates disputes or opposes. The
back-and-forth debate between opposing sides produces a kind of linear progression or evolution
in philosophical positions: over the course of the dialogues, Socrates' interlocutors change or
re ne their positions in response to Socrates' challenges and adopt more re ned positions. The
back-and-forth dialectic between Socrates and his interlocutors thus becomes Plato's way of
arguing against the earlier, less re ned views or positions and later for the more re ned ones.

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Hegel's "dialectic" refers to the particular dialectical method of argumentation of the 19th century
German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (see section on Hegel), which, like other "dialectical" methods,
relies on an adversarial process between opposing parties. Plato's "opposing parties" were
people (Socrates and his interlocutors), but what the "opposing parties" are in Hegel's work
depends on the subject he is discussing. In his work on logic, for example, the "opposites" are
di erent de nitions of logical concepts that are opposed to each other. In the Phenomenology of
Mind, which presents Hegel's epistemology or philosophy of knowledge, the "opposing sides" are
di erent de nitions of consciousness and of the object of which consciousness is aware or claims
to know. As in Plato's dialogues, a contradictory process between "opposite sides" in Hegel's
dialectic leads to a linear evolution or development from less sophisticated de nitions or
conceptions to more sophisticated later ones. The dialectical process thus constitutes Hegel's
method of arguing against the earlier, less re ned de nitions or conceptions and for the later,
more re ned ones. Hegel regarded this dialectical method or "speculative mode of acquiring
knowledge" as the hallmark of his philosophy and used the same method in the Phenomenology
of Mind , as well as in all the mature works he later published - the entire Encyclopedia of the
Philosophical Sciences (including, as its rst volume, the "Little Logic" or the Encyclopedia of
Logic [EL]), the Science of Logic [SL], and the Philosophy of Law [PR].

Note that although Hegel recognized that his dialectical method was part of a philosophical
tradition going back to Plato, he criticized Plato's version of dialectics. He argued that Plato's
dialectic addresses only limited philosophical claims and does not go beyond skepticism or
nothingness. According to the logic of a traditional reductio ad absurdum argument, if the
premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, we must conclude that the premises are false -
leaving us with no premises or nothingness. We must then wait for new premises to appear
arbitrarily somewhere else, and then see if those new premises return us to nothingness or
emptiness, if they too lead to a contradiction. Since Hegel believed that reason necessarily
produces contradictions, as we shall see, he thought that new premises will indeed produce even
more contradictions. As he formulates the argument,

"the skepticism that ends at the bare abstraction of nothingness or emptiness cannot proceed
there, but must wait and see if something new comes along and what it is, in order to throw that
too into the same empty abyss."

Hegel argues that because Plato's dialectic does not get beyond arbitrariness and skepticism, it
produces only approximate truths, and falls short of being a true science. The following
paragraphs explore Hegel's dialectic and these issues in more detail.

In the paragraph mentioned so far, the connection between the binary nature of
"Deconstruction" (Jaques Derrida) and the binary nature of Dialectics (George Hegel) has
been explained.

The next section discusses the deconstruction of dialectics.

Hegel gives the most comprehensive, general description of his dialectical method in Part I of his
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, often called the Encyclopedia Logic [EL]. The form or
representation of logic, he says, has three sides or moments. These sides are not parts of logic,
but rather moments of "every understanding," as well as "of everything true in general."

The rst moment - the moment of understanding - is the moment of xation, in which concepts or
forms have a seemingly stable de nition or determination.

The second moment - the "dialectical" or "negatively rational" moment - is the moment of
instability. In this moment, a one-sidedness or limitedness in the determination emerges from the
moment of understanding, and the determination that was xed in the rst moment turns into its
opposite. Hegel describes this process as one of "self-sublation." The English verb "to sublate"
translates Hegel's technical use of the German verb aufheben, which is a crucial concept in his
dialectical method. Hegel says that aufheben has a double meaning: it means simultaneously to
cancel (or deny) and to preserve. The moment of understanding sublimates itself because its own
character or nature - (one-sidedness or limitedness) - destabilizes its de nition and causes it to
pass into its opposite. Thus, the dialectical moment involves a process of self-sublimation, or a
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process in which the determination of the moment of understanding sublimates itself, or both self-
sublimates and sustains itself, as it shifts to or passes into its opposite.

The third moment - the "speculative" or "positively rational" moment - reinforces the unity of the
opposition between the rst two determinations, or is the positive result of the dissolution or
transition of those determinations. Here Hegel rejects the traditional reductio ad absurdum
argument, which holds that when the premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, the
premises must be rejected in their entirety, leaving nothing. As Hegel suggests in Phenomenology,
such an argument is simply the skepticism that sees in its result only pure nothingness and
abstracts from the fact that this nothingness is speci cally the nothingness of that from which it
derives.

So also from this totally di erent angle, there comes an argument to self-deception in
belief, there is in fact in the third moment, an equal grounding with belief to intention. (Evil
intention is negatively rational) and therefore will not occur in a negative form either. Since
intention is socially supposed to be positive, this is also the only moment of onset for
creation, and therefore skepticism. This concludes the falsity in an objective sense of the
claims in intention of each person.

1.3 Reconstruction of Dialectics


Because con icting inferences in interpretation of texts causes us to make an exclusion of
intention, the possibility of a nite number of interpretations and intentions exists. (There is thus
no in nite deconstruction of dialectics, which can lead to meta-dialectics).

Herein, we considered a fundamental binary value within social boundaries that is considered
black and white by natural de nition. Some values within our society are Pain and Infatuation,
both of which are binary values with an opposition to nothingness. There is no opposition to pain,
nor is there an opposition to infatuation. Both are opposites to rest, as the word "Emotion"
implies. This is a Greek term meaning "disturbance of the self."

The successive opposites in social behavior have been extensively examined, that is, which
behaviors follow one another. These behaviors were found to be constant people, thus forming
the 3 - layered moments of logic Hegel spoke of. This can be compared to a molecule, whose
properties di er by the number of protons and neutrons, but will always consist of protons and
neutrons. So in humans, there is a binary relationship between a person who is in love, and a
person who is not in love. One represents the neutrons, the other the protons. Synonymously, this
also represents the amount of energy the compound can carry, the stability of the union.

To date, a single moment of the 3 fully indexed, in which the speculative or positively rational is
exposed as dynamic interaction between the choices of someone in love, and someone not in
love. Indeed, in this, the brain follows a nite number of processing paths, which are the same for
each person.

In these processing paths of the cognitive brain, an internal binary translation of behavior is used.
The remaining binary combination of binary phenomena, form the basis of the behavior that is
subconsciously related to the behavior shown.

Take as an example the illusion and euphoria of a person in love. This is rationally related to the
dynamics of irony and frustration that they internally re ect from the world. Indeed, irony is quickly
an accumulation of realizations, which combined with frustration leads to depression.

Conversely, anger is an expression of sel sh interests when a limit has been reached. One really
wants things to be di erent, and thus is also characteristically less in uenced by empathic
insights. That is; the indenti cation with anger, is temporarily above the indenti cation with grief,
to ensure that "tunnel vision" remains in that anger towards desire.

The various processing paths are indicated below:

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Linearly, this is indicated by the parts:

(Mentality of Love) (Crushes)

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