The Spirit of The Dialectic in Hegel's Hotel

The Unifying Spirit and Force of The Dialectic Between Opposing Polarities


The main thesis of 'Hegel's Hotel' which is the name for the evolving philosophical treatise that this essay belongs to (in honor of the great dialectic philosopher Georg William Friedrich Hegel, 1770-1831, and his classic book, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit') is simply a re-working of the following adage: The sum of the whole is greater than the individual parts.

Re-stated in 'dialectic' terminology, the main thesis for 'Hegel's Hotel' may be stated as this: The integration of dialectical polarities from opposing perspectives (or 'binary opposites') into a working 'synthesis' is often if not generally superior in the quality of its knowledge and application than either of the opposing perspectives taken strictly by itself.

If you multiply this principle of integrative dialectics a hundred or even a thousand times over, then you have the expanded principle of 'multi-dialectical integrationism'. Thus 'DGB' -- Dialectical Gap-Bridging' Philosophy -- could also be reasonably called 'MDIP' -- Multi-Dialectic-Integrative Philosophy'. The first name represents the 'process' of 'dialectic conflict mediation' and of the overall 'process-teaching goal' in both Hegel's masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' and in my post-Hegelian 21st century extrapolation of it -- 'Hegel's Hotel'; the second name represents the open-ended, integrative dialectic 'results' of the previously mentioned 'dialectic conflict mediatiation and process theory' -- as originally taught in 'The Phenenomenology' and as modified and extrapolated on within my post-Hegelian 'Hegel's Hotel'.

My purpose in Hegel's Hotel is to write about 500 essays in most different areas of philosophy -- history, epistemology, ethics, politics, economics and business, science and medicine, psychology, enlightenment reasoning, romanticism, structuralism, deconstructionism, humanistic-existentialism, ontology and teleology, metaphysics, and more -- in ways that illustrate the theory and application of multi-dialectic-integrationism in many similar and different ways.

In this way of looking at things then, all else being equal, and without trying to paint myself into a philosophical corner that I cannot get out of, a good working balance between socialist and capitalist ideas and applications has the potential to be superior in quality to either Socialism or Capitalism taken by itself. The ideas I am working on in this regard I have already seen partly developed in 'sets of principles like 'Fair Trade' Capitalism and/or the name that I will probably use more often which is 'Humanistic-Existential' Capitalism.

The whole -- including the whole of all knowledge and editorial opinions democratically screened and integrated together -- is potentially superior to any 'righteous either/or, polar extremist' perspective.

The integration of polar perspectives into a 'middle balance' perspective helps to minimize if not eliminate the glaring weaknesses of any polar extremist perspective taken strictly by itself. This is not rocket science. It is partly what we do in politics and law every day. Still however, we can do better. Man -- for whatever reason -- still has an attraction, even an obsession or addiction for -- the righteously and/or narcissistically extreme. It is this quality, perhaps above all else, that continually and repetitively leads man back to the brink of destruction and self-destruction.

'Zero tolerance' generally means 'zero compassion', and zero compassion can cause as many problems in society with people trying to live and integrate together as 'too much compassion and not enough accountability' can cause chaos to run amok. Here too, we need a 'good working balance' in social and political life between accountability and compassion -- without either side 'dominating the other' ('hard-line politics' vs. 'soft-line politics'). We often call this working social and political and legal balance 'fairness' and/or 'justice'. Fairness and justice splits the difference between 'too hard' and 'too soft'.

Almost every essay in this manuscript offers a working example of this thesis in process and motion as it guides itself -- or is guided by me -- towards the negotiation of a 'hopefully better synthesis of opposing perspectives than either of the righteous, unilateral, either/or perspectives that we started with or from.

Now obviously, the case can be reasonably made that any negotiation and integration of opposing ideas that I come up with myself can be construed as a new form of 'unilateralism' as I am only negotiating with myself and no one else. As 'objective' and 'impartial' as I may or may not try to be, I am still full of only partial, limited knowledge and additionally, my own 'subjective, narcissistic biases'. At different times, I play all of the roles of: 'prosecutor', 'council for the defense', and 'judge and jury'. Doesn't this in the end make me just another 'control freak' -- as 'I play both sides towards the middle' -- or at least profess to.

This point is at least partly, if not totally, relevant and well-made (although, once again, it is me making it as I negotiate and integrate my own 'internal dialectic'). However, although this for the most part is a philosophical manuscript written by me, it is open -- or capable of becoming open -- to the alternative contributions of other writers own 'dialectic-democratic' perspectives. As much as I have my own particular point of view -- or am developing it as I move along -- I realize that 'I am not the only fish in the pond', even in the tightly and/or loosely controlled confines of my own manuscript which I would like to see become the starting-point for a new, open, multi-dialectic-democratic forum.

As Hegel wrote, and I am paraphrasing: Every new synthesis becomes the potential and actual starting-point for a new cycle of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis'. This is the continuous cycle of the always evolving dialectic -- of which there are millions of potential and actual 'dialectics' both on the 'biological-existential-phenomenological side of life' and on the more 'man-made conceptual-philosophical side of evolving knowledge and culture'. The genetic offspring of a male and female animal is no less 'dialectical' than the role of a 'liberal-conservative' or a 'socialist-capitalist' negotiating and integrating the opposing polarities of the unilateral liberal vs. the unilateral conservative, or conversely, the unilateral capitalist vs. the unilateral socialist.

This is where Darwin and Hegel meet in 'Hegel's Hotel'. I give priority to Hegel for two reasons: 1. Hegel's 'dialectical theory of evolution' is superior and more all-encompassing than Darwin's in my opinion; and 2. Hegel's theory came first. Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit (or Mind) was published in (1807) whereas Darwin's more restrictive 'The Origin of the Species' was published in 1859. Now, if you really want to dig deep, and I at least partly have, a serious case could be made for rejecting both Hegel and Darwin as the ultimate founder of the theory of 'dialectical evolution' in favor of the ancient Greek philosopher -- Anaxamander (610BC-546BC).

Even another case could be made for the creator of the Chinese dialectical concepts of 'yin' and 'yang'. If that was the Han Philosophers (roughly 207 BC- 9 AD), then creative precedence would have to be given to Anaximander and his idea of 'opposing polarities seeking to dominate each other with neither side ever totally succeeding for more than a certain period of time'). If the remnants of the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' can be traced back even deeper into Chinese history such as back to the 'I Ching' (Book of Changes) which might even pre-date Confucius (551 BC-479 BC), then creative precedence for the beginning of 'dialectical philosophy' -- the idea of opposing polarities 'doing battle' with each other and/or 'compromising in the middle' -- might have to go to China (the beginning of Eastern Philosophy) rather than Greece (the beginning of Western Philosophy). At this point in time, I have to plead ignorant to any possible history of the dialectic in Middle Eastern Philosophy/Religion such as Hinduism, and Arabic or Persian Philosophy. I'm sure a case could probably be made here to.

What I find truly remarkable is that both ancient Eastern and Western man -- with or without communication between each other -- had arrived philosophically at approximately the same place some 2000 years plus before Hegel's classic philosophical work: 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807).

It is this driving philosophical force -- the force of the dialectic from ancient times to now -- that is also the driving force of my essay here and the network of essays that it belongs to in my evolving 'post-Hegelian' dialectical treatise; 'Hegel's Hotel'. (See my profile for the most recent table of contents.)

Welcome to Hegel's Hotel.

dgb, Nov. 1st, 2007, updated Feb. 1st, 2008, April 4th, 2008.

A Short Mission Statement of Hegel's Hotel: The DGB Philosophy Forum

The purpose of Hegel's Hotel: The DGB Philosophy Forum is to promote the healthy use of the dialectic (dialogue, discussion, debate, negotiation, integration) for personal, social, economic, political, legal, and other cultural reasons. The two biggest obstacles that tend to stop or stifle the healthy use of the dialectic are: 1. human narcissism -- an overblown me, me, me attitude; and human righteousness -- an either-or attitude that tends to block out all reasonable discussion. Oftentimes, these two out-of-balance, even pathological human traits combine together -- human righteousness masking an underlying narcissistic agenda. Usually, a healthy use of the dialectic for negotiation, integration, and conflict resolution purposes requires that both people or both parties in the dialectic get in touch with any and all narcissistic agendas on both sides of the negotiation table -- and move towards more central ground. Ignoring or trying to hide these agendas, manipulating facts and issues, putting up smoke screens, trying to coerce and-or intimidate the opponent, aiming for a win-lose as opposed to a win-win resolution -- these are all signs of a narcissistic as opposed to an ethical, humanistic-existential dialectic and tends to leave both parties resentful and non-trusting of the other party which is particularly unhealthy in any desired ongoing, long-term relationship. Ethical simply refers to negotiating with integrity. And humanistic-existential simply refers to negotiating with a balanced perspective of both self-assertiveness and social sensitivity. dgb, Sept. 21st, 2007.

Names, Names, Names...

It seems I've almost had more trouble figuring out a name for my philosophy than I have had figuring out the contents (process and the structure) of the philosophy itself. And yes, I know that in the realms of names, ideas, and theories 'simplest' is usually the best way to go (look up 'Occam's Razor' if you are not familiar with it), but in seeking a 'distinguishing feature' of my philosophy from all the rest, new names keep arising -- some more technical than the simplest of the bunch.

Here are some of the names I've either gone through and/or am still dwelling on, roughly in chronological order from oldest to newest (and simplest to more technical). All of these names are acceptable in my books -- I have used, am using, and/or am about to use, any and all of them at different points in time.

1. Gap Philosophy
2. DGB (Dialectical Gap-Bridging) Philosophy
3. Gap-DGB Philosophy
4. Gap Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existentialism (Gap MDHE Philosophy or GMDHE)
5. DGB Multi-Dialectic, Humanisitic-Existentialism (DGB MDHE Philosophy)

Thus, the two most distinguishing features of my philosophy are: 1. it's 'multi-dialectic' feature (see the 'dialectic' section for more clarification in this area) in combination with its 'humanistic-existential' feature.

The closest academically recognized school of philosophy-psychology to mine is Perls' Gestalt Therapy. It is no coincidence in this regard because I spent more than 12 years off and on studying and/or experiencing Gestalt Therapy (mainly between 1980 and 1991). It was through Perls -- and Jung and Freud -- that I arrived eventually at Hegel. And it is Hegel who is the number 1 star of my 'philosophy show' with all due respect to Nietzsche and Perls who are probably 'my best two supporting actors'. In no particular, Freud, Jung, Klein, Fairbairn, Berne, Spinoza, Fromm, Korzybski, Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Locke, Kant, Diderot, Votaire, Rousseau, Jefferson, Kierkegaard, Marx, Adam Smith, Schopenhauer, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida have all all played -- and are still playing -- significant roles in the ongoing evolution of Gap-DGB Philosophy. For those of you who venture into 'Hegel's Hotel' before it is finished -- which could be another 3 to 5 years -- I welcome you here, and hope you get something significant out of it that you either were or weren't looking for. However, please understand and be tolerant of the fact that the work and all of the essays that will eventually be contained in it are not finished yet -- I'm at about 100 essays now and aiming for something over 500 essays. This is intended to be my signature life work.

Enjoy -- and/or I hope this work will take you to an integrative place of 'higher knowledge' and 'more balanced well-being'.

dgb, Sept. 17th, 2007.

Going Across

Man often finds himself on the plank between the dread of a meaningless existence and the fear of failing or looking foolish. These are the twin abysses of man's existence looming precariously below him on both sides of his bold or petrified, progressive or regressive, 'going-across' of the proverbial Nietzschean tightrope -- the tightrope from being to becoming. Have courage my friend, have courage. Don't look back and don't look down.
- dgb, September 13th, 2007.

Feedback on 'Going Across' From Paul Baioni (New Orleans)

Email from one of my first readers, Paul Baioni,

Good morning Dave,

The struggle within man arises due to his failure to be "in touch" with
his
inner self. He battles the voids, creating a lack of confidence in his
beliefs, questioning his "purpose" resulting in poorly defined
priorities.

Man is a creation of highly complicated reactions. We can not
understand
that of which we have no knowledge. Lacking clearly defined priorities
creates confusion. This confusion is part of the natural evolution of
an IP (Individual Philosophy, my clarification) creating internal anxiety. Anxiety accentuates the voids, immobilizing
action for fear of failure or making a mistake.

Nietzsche was right. Have courage to accept who you are, where you are
in
your life, and the rest will take care of itself. Be true to your inner
self, easing the anxiety, smoothing the voids. Learn from the past,
don't
dwell, and never fear the future, embrace it, for only the future,
never the
past, presents opportunity.

Paul

Wrestling With A Name For My Evolving Philosophy

For years now, I have been wrestling with a name for my evolving philosophy and what I am trying to do here. You may see a multitude of different -- or partly different -- names given to it in different essays. Some technical, others less technical. Acronyms are dangerous because unless you fill your reader in quickly as to what the acronym means, it will have no meaning. I might as well be writing in Latin. I've tried to alleviate this problem by briefly saying what I mean by 'Hegel's Hotel', 'Gap', and 'DGB' in the sub-text just below my title.

'Hegel's Hotel' can be viewed as an online book of philosophy essays divided into about 25-30 different blogsites on different topics, with about 10-20 essays per blogsite. These different blogsites and the contents within each of them are under construction as we speak, some more further advanced than other.

There are certain themes that will return in my work over and over and over again.

One is the danger of 'uncontrolled, rampant narcissism' on a personal level, a family level, a business level, a social and cultural level, and a political level. I do not advocate -- like many religions do -- suppressing and/or repressing all forms and levels of narcissism and hedonism (the two are inter-related: 'narcissism' equals self-centredness or basically selfishness; hedonism equals the pursuit of pleasure on a purely sensual and/or broader level depending on how tightly or loosely we want to define it). Rather, I stress the need to balance narcissistic and hedonistic tendencies and impulses with socially empathetic humanistic-existential values and ethics.

Two is the danger of uncontrolled righteous intolerance both within oneself and within one's family, social, business, political and legal environment. Religious and political intolerance are two important sub-areas of what I am writing about here. Righteous intolerance, unbridled -- like narcissism -- leads to all sorts of nasty things like alienation, discrimination, hate, violence, war, destruction, and self-destruction in all varieties and forms.

There is a place for righteous rage if it is related to civil matters. Some of these philosophy papers are a good place for it. Social activism -- whether in written and/or oral-political format -- is a good place to direct civil rage. Get to the right target; don't take it out on your ex-wife or worse, your kids, who are only taking advantage (even if it is unfairly) of existing laws. Get to the source -- the politiicans and lobbyists who worked hand in hand to create these laws and/or have the power to now change them. Internalized righteous rage can lead to self-destruction and/or misplaced aggression. Either let go of your rage and/or direct it democratically to the right place; then let go of it before it destroys you.

My righteous rage can fly off the charts (even as I try to keep it grounded and under control) when we start getting into matters of 'family justice'. One of my blogs is dedicated to this subject matter -- or at least will be. Righteous (and to be sure, partly narcissistically biased) papers that I wrote years ago are still waiting to be re-written on my family law blogsite. So too are any new essays regarding this issue of Canadian law treating separated fathers as second class citizens -- or 'donkeys' is a metaphor i will also use -- because they are being unfairly financially burdened to the point of borderline collapsing. I will say no more at this time.

The philosophical solution or process I offer is a mixture of integrated post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, and 'post other philosophers and psychologists' philosophy.

I am generally looking to 'dialectically bridge gaps' between opposing perspectives, philosophies, lifestyles. That is, unless I am aiming to philosophically 'deconstruct' political and legal imbalances and injustices (as in the case of Canadian family law).

In short, my philosophy is mainly post-Hegelian dialectical integrationism (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis or 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging' as I call it, shortedned to 'DGB', which narcissistically speaking, also just happens to be the initials of my name -- David Gordon Bain).

There you have it -- 'Hegel's Hotel: The DGB (Dialectical) Philosophy Forum' -- in a nutshell. You are welcome to offer editorial feedback and/or essay contributions if you are so motivated. You can send your essay(s) to: dgbainsky@yahoo.com and I will include your essay in my forum if I think it 'moves the forum forward in a democratic and professional manner'. You do not have to agree with me -- I have already included essays by people who have disagreed with some point or thesis that I have made (such as my father and an email friend I met through these blogsites from New Orleans who has disagreed with me on the 'freedom vs. determinism' issue, and on one of my essays against 'American Unilateralism'). All I expect from you is a certain level of grammatical and logical coherence, as well as clarity, force, and professionalism in your rhetorical perspective (standards that I may or may not always live up to myself).

dgb, September 12th, 2007, updated Oct. 17th, 2007.

On Terminology and The Mission Statement of This Forum

Every philosophy has its own terminology and its own mission statement -- some more clearly and simply stated than others.

For our purposes here, 'Gap' stands for the gaps in all of our lives, the gaps between idealism and realism, the gaps between Hegel and Nietzsche, the gaps between Freud and Jung, Conservatism and Liberalism, Capitalism and Socialism, religion and atheism, process and structure, being and becoming...'DGB' stands for David Gordon Bain -- which is myself, the main author and editor of this philosophical forum and my various attempts within each of these individual essays to start with a philosophical and/or pragmatic 'gap' -- a problem if you will -- and build a 'bridge' over each and every one of these endless 'gaps'. You can't get rid of 'gaps' or 'problems' or 'obstacles' or 'conflicts' in life -- they are always there, they are the challenges of life. However, there is a big difference between alienation, righteous and/or narcissistic intolerance and isolationism on the one hand vs. contact, empathy, tolerance, and integrationism on the other hand. Many people never seem to be able to cross the 'dialectical and/or existential abyss' from one to the other.

I am trying to teach a process here that bridges this gap -- that combines the work and ideas of my two favorite philosophers -- G.W. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-19000 -- integrated with my own work in the form of (academically speaking) 'post-Hegelian, Multi-Dialectical Idealism' and 'Post-Nietzshean Self and Social Humanistic-Existential Activism'.

If you are a newcomer to philosophy, please don't be intimidated by the academic terminology. I will do my best to simplify and clarify. For our purposes here, 'Multi-Dialectical-Idealism' refers to integrating and balancing opposing polarities, perspectives, ideas, theories, lifestyles, etc. into a harmonious, energy-laden, whole. 'Humanism' refers to such qualities as kindness, compassion, empathy, social sensitivity, altruism...and 'existentialism' refers to such qualities as freedom, self-assertiveness, self and social responsibility, accountability, the courage to be and to become...

'DGB', as well as standing for my name, also stands for 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging' -- because that is what I am doing: bridging gaps between opposing perspectives using the 'creative dialectic' as my means of getting there, my means of negotiating and integrative philosophical, lifestyle, and/or humanistic-existential differences.

Two derivative acronyms of DGB are: 'DGBN' -- 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations' and 'DGBA' -- 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging Activities'. Come explore my philosophical forays. In this section, we will look at some of the different introductions I have written over the years to describe just what it is I am trying to do.

It should be noted that in previous days, I have also referred to this forum as 'Hegel's Hotel' emphasis my indebtedness to Hegel and the over-riding or under-riding influence of Hegel's dialectical method and the resulting evolving structure -- Hegel's Hotel' -- that in my opinion has the capability of incorporating all other philosophies into its' 'thesis, counter-thesis, synthesis' process and structure. This process and structure might also be called 'GAP-DGB Multi-Dialectic Negotiation, Integrationism, and Wholism'. Or if you want to bring the secondary but still extremely important influence of Nietzsche on board, then it could also be called' 'GAP-DGB Multi-Dialectical Humanistic-Existentialism'. For me, Nietzsche is all about 'Dionysianism' vs. 'Apollonianism' (which in Freud's terminology later became 'the id' vs. the 'superego'), and also about 'existential abysses', and the courage to build a bridge from 'being' to 'becoming' across the terrifying, self-freezing, anxiety of whatever your/my own personal existential anxiety (abyss) might look and feel like. Rudolph Dreikurs (1897-1972) -- a prominant Adlerian psychologist -- called this type of 'Nietzschean bridge-walking or rope-climbing' -- 'the courage to be imperfect'. As silly as this may seem, man's greatest dread -- short of dying -- is often the fear of failing, being imperfect, and/or looking foolish in front of other people. This is man's existential abyss -- or at least one of them. The other one is the fear of living a meaningless life, of being insignificant, of not living up to one's capabilities -- the dread of 'non-being', of self-alienation, self-isolation, self-denial and betrayal. Man walks the plank between the dread of a meaningless existence and the dread of failing. These are the 'twin existential abysses of man's existence'.

On television these days, there is a program I like to watch called 'Crossing Jordan'. An interesting title. To me, it is a very 'Nietzschean existential' title. We all can use it -- just substitute your own name for Jordan's. 'Crossing David' -- this is very much a good part of what this philosophical forum is about. I offer myself as both a 'guinea pig' and hopefully a role model, a mentor, if I am successful at doing what I want to do. For me, 'Crossing David' means 'bridging the gap' between 'David-the-dispatcher' (what I currently do for a living) and David-the-philosopher-teacher' (what I am doing here as a hobby but what I want to do for a living, leaving my life as a dispatcher behind).

I think that most of you could probably substitute your name for mine and 'what you are now' vs. 'what you want to be, or where you want to get to, in the future'. Courage, action -- and a 'Nietzschean existential bridge' -- is what it will take you to get from one to the other. In contrast, a 'Hegelian dialectical bridge' is what it will take to get you to 'bridge the gap' between your spouse's, or your teenage teenage child's, or your business partner's, or whoever's -- perspective and your own. Thesis, counter-thesis, and synthesis is the dynamic and structure of the 'Hegelian Dialectical Bridge'; in contrast, vision, courage and action is the dynamic and structure of the 'Nietzschean Existential Bridge'. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, the two together provide the main driving force behind 'GAP-DGB Multi-Dialectical, Humanistic-Existentialism', or as named here, 'The GAP-DGB Philosophy Forum'. Please, if I have triggered any motivation, interest, and/or excitement on your part, join me in my philosophical forays.

DGB, August 6th, 2007.

The Philosophy and Psychology of Opposites

We have all often heard the expression, 'Opposites attract.' Of course, we also know that opposites can repel. Thus, opposites can either attract and/or repel. Stated differently, there is a psychology truism that runs something like this: 'It is often the same characteristic that attracts us to a person -- particularly in a new love partner -- that can spell doom to the relationship sometime further down the line.' There is also a psychological truism that states that often our strongest characteristic is also our weakest. How do we integrate these ideas and where do they take us?

Well, the people who live and work closest to us generally know us best. In similar and/or different ways, this could include our family, our lover, our closest friends, and/or the people we work with every day. They come to assess our strengths -- and our weaknesses. Often, they are one and the same thing. We like something in our new lover -- a characteristic that consciously or subconsciously we may view as reflecting a 'gap' or 'void' within ourselves -- something that may be keeping us from being 'complete' or 'whole'. Spending extended time with our new lover may move us in one or the opposite direction -- or both at the same or different times. Over time, we may start to 'integrate' the characteristic that we so value in our lover -- and in the process, start to become more integrated, more complete, more whole. This is how a relationship can contribute to the evolution of personal growth.

However, people also tend to be inherently stubborn and resistant to change. If we are the way we are, we are generally that way for a reason. Often a strong reason that may go back to childhood upbringing and/or trauma. Strong emotions 'lock in' strong behaviors and prevent them from changing without great time, energy, and/or difficulty. To be sure opposites can and do attract -- especially at the beginning of a relationship -- but give it time, and watch the sparks start to fly -- sparks of aggression, resentment, conflict, war, even hatred, that may start to mix in with the sparks of passion, and then eventually take over the passion completely. Gone is the passion. Gone is the chemistry. And gone is the relationship.

In more successful relationships, couples find a way of 'weathering' through this phase of their relationship -- they listen to each other, empathize with each other, negotiate, compromise, and either integrate their differences and/or come to accept and tolerate them without the type of internal resentment that can drag a relationship to its tombstone.

In the case of too much 'similarity' in a relationship often couples -- especially over signficant time -- can grow to a point where they are almost living clones of each other. This can rob excitement, passion, and chemistry from a relationship just as easily as too much conflict, friction, and internal resentment can. Or perhaps not enough conflict, friction -- and difference -- in a relationship can cause internal resentment -- usually in the form of boredom -- just as easily as the opposite of too much conflict, friction, and difference can. It all seems to be about 'balance' or 'homeostasis' to use the technical, scientific term.

G.W. Hegel (1770-1831), the central philosopher of influence in my work here, once said something that hit home for me -- one of the most profound statements committed to philosophy. I will include the actual quote here when I find it again but in the meantime I will offer you my extended, paraphrased version of it:

Every idea, every theory, every paradigm, every 'school' of philosophy, psychology, politics...every characteristic -- carries with it the seeds of its own self-destruction.

Wow! What does this mean? What does this mean for all of us who tend to wittingly or unwittingly move towards righteous one-sidedness, extremism, indignation, intolerance
-- and hate? It means that there is usually another point of view out there, another opposing perspective, that may have just as much righteous validity as the one that we are so righteously -- and one-sidedly -- defending.

So what does all this mean relative to the philosophical work that I am starting here and why did I call it 'Hegel's Hotel'?

For the laypersons amongst you, I would love to teach you philosophy -- at least what I have learned about philosophy so far, including the history of philosophy, the different sub-topics of philosophy, the strengths and weaknesses of different 'schools' or perspectives of philosophy...and more than anything the negotiation and integration of different schools and perspectives of philosophy into a larger, more balanced, whole. Call this 'DGB' Philosophy if you will (it used to be called 'Gap' Philosophy which you will see in some of my older papers). 'DGB' reflects both the initials of my name -- David Gordon Bain -- and the initials of my mission -- Dialectical Gap Bridging (Negotiations and Integrations).

Technically or academically speaking, I view DGB Philosophy as a '21st century, existentialized, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-a-lot-of-other-philosophers-and-psychologists...school of philosophy'.

For the more technically, academically minded philosophy students, professionals, professors, specialists...amongst you, I hope to challenge you in different parts of my work as well -- perhaps taking philosophy in new directions and/or 'bridging gaps in old perspectives, old viewpoints, old schools of philosophical thought'.

For those of you academically minded philosophy specialists out there who might call yourself 'deconstructists' and/or 'post-modernists' who shudder with disdain and/or salivate with excitement at the prospect of critiqing my alleged new 'school' of integrative philosophy, I rise to the challenge. It is my contention that we need both 'builders' and 'deconstructionists' in philosophy just as much as we need builders and deconstructionists in every other part of life and culture: architecture, politics, psychology, economics, science and medicine, art, religion...Life is about building and then deconstructing when strong criticisms and/or better ideas come along...and then building again....as well as 'integrating' or 'synthesizing' differences in philosophy and/or anything else... There is a time for 'either/or' philosophy (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche...) and there is a time for 'integrative' philosophy (the Han Synthesis, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel...). There is a time for deconstructionist philosophy (Socrates, Nietzshe, Derrida...and there is a time for idealist philosophy (Plato, Hegel...) There is a time and a place and a degree for capitalist narcissism just as there is a time and a place and a degree for altruistic socialism. Every philosophy self-destructs when taken too far -- beyond. its range of 'health' and into its range of 'pathology'. And in this regard, every philsophy needs its opposite philosophy -- its 'alter-ego' -- to keep it in line and bring it back into the integrative, balanced range of 'health' again...Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis...Hegel revisited, existentialized, modernized, revitalized... in the sense of being allowed to 'dialectically interact with, and meet the challenge of all of Hegel's many detractors with their many different brands of criticisms. He was 'too abstract, too idealistic, had his head in the clouds, wasn't materialistic enough, didn't see the effect of the money, didn't see the effect of human narcissism, nastiness, and power...' All of those criticisms can be met and minimized if you simply look at Hegel's classic, idealistic, dialectical philosophy as being just another -- albeit extremely important -- step in the evolution of both Western and Eastern philosphy, in human culture in general, in fact, in life in general.

Stay tuned as we connect classic Hegelian dialectical philosophy -- as well as its modernized DGB post-Hegelian version -- with both ancient Western and Eastern dialectical philosophy (Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Fu Xi, Laozi, Confucious, the Han Philosophers, Taoism, I Ching, Yin/Yan...) as well as contemporary philosophy with all of its potential implications and applications...

I believe in the astrological characteristics of my sign. I am a pisces...creative, fantasy-dwelling, a thinker, have many perculating ideas, never at a loss for ideas, often not sufficiently complemented by action, living in the world of my creative mind and often losing track of the simplest -- and sometimes just as, or more, important -- day to day realities of life. I am like two fishes swimming towards each other, then away from each other, towards commitment, away from commitment, essentially bi-polar, or even multi-bi-polar and needing all of these 'multi-bi-polarities' to come together in a more harmonious, wholisitic integration...

One of my main strengths -- 'thinking' -- is often my main weakness -- 'thinking too much' (and not acting on my thoughts enough). Alternatively, and paradoxically, I have no problem being spontaneous and living day by day as I feel. The problem here again is this trait taken too far in the absence of its opposite: not being goal-directed enough, and/or having sufficient self-discipline, regimentation, and persistence enough to carry a goal through to its completion. I can also be too narcissitic in my thoughts and actions, often avoiding people in order to 'do my own thing', often stuck inside myself, almost hermit-like, at the cost of letting important friendships and other relationships 'slip away from neglect'...To a large extent we live in a 'me first' narcissistic world -- speaking as a baby boomer, perhaps the main 'overcompensation' of the baby boommers as a whole, as they invested much time and energy into rebelling against the more conservative, 'anal-retentive' values and morals of their parents, their righteous authority, by extension the righteous authority of anyone, and often tied into this, the righteous values and morals of the religous institutions that used to play a major role in generations before us. Nietzsche wrote: 'God is dead!' as he did much to 'deconstruct' and kill Christianity -- in both its good and bad elements. Well, today we might write the opposite: 'Altruism is dead!' -- it died in Western culture with that part of Christianity that shouldn't have been killed, and 'obsessive, unadulterated, often pathological narcissism' has for better or worse grown up and flourished in its absence. Today we are looking at the fallout of too much narcissism in the world and not enough altruism. In philosophy, in psychology, in politics, in business and economics, in law, in science and medicine, in family life (or its absence), we need to 'deconstruct the pathological extremes of individual and cultural narcissism'.

It is within this combination of 'obsessions' and 'gaps' or 'voids' that Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy and Forum takes off as a projection of both my internal and external strengths and my weaknesses, and the wish for a more 'wholistic integration in the form of evolving personal and cultural growth'.

If you are with me still, understand where I am coming from, and get the gist of where I am going in my philosophical work, then 'Welcome to Hegel's Hotel'.

db, July 8th, 2007.

The World's Oldest Philosophies

The issue of 'oldest philosophies' comes down to three epistemological questions and how broadly or specifically we want to define 'philosophy'.

1. What do we credibly and reliably know?
2. What are we unreliably speculating about or guessing at?
3. What do we not know?


Thales (624-546BC) is generally considered to be the 'oldest' Western (Greek) philosopher. Anaxamander (611BC-547BC), generally considered the second oldest Western (Greek) philosopher is a much more important figure to the evolution of both Western and Eastern philosophy than Thales for a reason I shall cite at the end of this essay.

Confucius (551-479BC) is one of the oldest and recognizable -- credibly reliable -- of Chinese philosophers. To be sure, there were 'hazy' philosophical figures before or contemporary with Confucious -- Laozi or Lao tzu (perhaps the earliest creator of Taoism) being one of these hazy figures who could have lived anywhere between the 6th and 4th century BC. Way before these, there is the hugely mythical figure of Fu Xi (alleged author of the I Ching) who may have lived as far back as 2852-2738BC!! Or not. All is very hazy here. And did he write I Ching? Maybe or maybe not. What is the difference between 'Tao Te Ching' credited to Laozi vs. 'I Ching' credited to either Fu Xi, Confucius, the Han philosophers (207BC-9AD) and/or any of a host of other early Chinese philosophers. All is very hazy but this important point remains the same: The principles seem almost identical.

What is even more remarkable is that the main core of ideas coming out of both the West and the East -- with or without Eastern to Western or Western to Eastern or mutual influence -- were very, very similar.

(Forgive me if I am presently ignorant on the evolution of Middle Eastern philosophy.)

The key principle uniting all these hugely significant Eastern and Western philosophers together (except Thales) is the principle of the inter-relationship and/or the necessity of a balanced, dynamic, wholistic, unity of polar opposite qualities. This basic principle -- which might be viewed as 'the ancient roots of Hegelian Dialectical Philosophy (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis)' -- in Taoist terms is 'the way of nature'. It governs both the Eastern and Western principle of 'homeostasis' (the scientific term for 'balance') -- the centrepiece concept of the over 20 network of blogs and 200 essays to follow. The principle of homeostasis is used in science and medicine (east and west), psychology, can be used in philosophy, politics, economics, religion, and every other aspect of human culture. This network of blogs -- Hegel's Hotel: The DGB Philsophy-Psychology-Politics...Forum is designed to connect the ancient wisdom of philosophers east and west with the modernized (existentialized) dialectical thinking of one of the greatest philosophers in Western history, G.W.Hegel (1770-1831), and also the health and pathology of contemporary North America society -- particularly Canadian.

db, July 6th, 2007

Life Is About Priorities and Choices

Some days -- many days -- I can feel the lethargy and entropy dominating my body and stopping me from going to my computer. Health is obviously critical. It can be the difference between wanting to do something productive and idealistic -- vs. not. My dad has always said that idealism generally requires the full-blooded energy of youth. Obviously I cannot speak for everyone -- maybe I am mainly speaking about myself -- but by the time you hit 50, hopefully you are reasonably financially secure, or at least stable, idealism may have lost some or a lot of its edge, disappearing in life trauma, negative experiences, skepticism, cynicism, and/or just fitting into a comfortable groove, doing your thing, and hanging on. Energy for 'idealistic projects' comes and goes. As the cliche goes, wouldn't it be nice to combine the energy of youth with the wisdom of later life.

In my 20s, I hated and avoided politics. Looking back at that time now, I would say that I was an 'Epicurean' -- in that I avoided politics while otherwise pursuing what I thought would give me a happy life. Mistakes were made to be sure. First, you go too far this way; then too far that way -- struggling towards that 'ideal' balance in the middle. Indeed, I would say that I am still an Epicurean today, except that at different times I try to face up to politics and get my idealistic two cents in.

What is Epicurean philosophy? I like using Wikipedia as my first introduction to a philosopher and/or philosophy so let us see what Wikipedia has to say about Epicurus and Epicureanism. (I became more interested in it the other day when I was reading through some Thomas Jefferson quotes and found that he threw his full validation and support behind it.) That made it worth reading up again for me.

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Epicurus (Greek Ἐπίκουρος) (341 BC, Samos – 270 BC, Athens) was an ancient Greek philosopher, the founder of Epicureanism, one of the most popular schools of thought in Hellenistic Philosophy. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of existence and not to be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.

This sounds at least partly like a very secular, humanistic philosophy to me. Unfortunately, over the years its has often been confused with, and/or distorted into extremist 'hedonism' which it is not. Epicureanism is not a philosophy that believes in the 'wallowing in pleasure' but rather is a philosophy that believes in pursuing the achievement of 'equilibrium' (or 'balance'). (reference: Richard Osborne, Philosophy for Beginners, 1992, Writers and Readers Publishing, Incorporated, New York, New York). Now achieving equilibrium or balance can be like walking a (Nietzschean) tightrope wire -- the minute you think you are in control of things you may be one minute or one second away from toppling over the edge of the 'abyss' (or 'gap'). Balance does not come easy and at best it is generally a very tenuous and fleeting state of being. Invariably, there will be some 'punch' thrown at us by life that will throw us into imbalance again -- as we precariously fight for balance on life's highwire act. But that is life -- and not to bravely step back on the tightrope wire again is not to live with passion and intensity. (We have here a little mixture of Epicureanism with Nietzscheism.)

So life is also partly -- or mainly -- about choices and priorities. 'To be or not to be.' (Now we introduce a little Shakespeare through Hamlet.)
Where am I today and where are my priorities? How important a project is finishing this philosophical work? Some days the energy is here; some days it's not. Everything is relative. I'm sure my dad would love to be 52 years old again. I look through the history of philosophy and see that Kierkegaard was dead before my age (42), and Nietzsche had gone insane, for the last 11 years of his life (that would be around 45 years old), dying at 56. These are two magnificent philosophers in the history of Western philosophy and evolution with all of their brilliant works behind them before the age of 50.

Life is about choice and priorities. Where is the drive, the motivation, the discipline (or non-discipline)? As Alfred Adler would say, where is the 'direction of movement'?

Some of the great philosophers philosophized in wealth and luxury, or comfortably through an inheritence, a university teaching position, and/or through wealthy benefactors. Hegel and Schopenhauer come to mind. I'm sure with a minimum of easy checking -- if you are a researcher you have to love the instant convenience and previously undreamed of wealth of information on the internet! -- I could list you off many more 'wealthy' philosophers, men who had lots of free time on their hands. Conversely, you had Karl Marx who wrote thousands of pages of astounding philosophy from a state of poverty. Where there is a will, there is a way!

I don't know of many philosophers who were happily married men! A few perhaps. Most seemed to be either 'anal retentive hermits' (Kant and Kierkegaard come to mind) or 'had multiple lovers' (Rousseau, Bertrand Russell, Carl Jung...) which is not to say that you can't be an anal retentive hermit and still be happy and healthy, or have multiple lovers and still be happy. But generally, I think, many philosophers were philosophizing from 'pain' -- they were perhaps attempting to compensate for a life of pain, torment, and/or internal 'demons'. (Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche come most prominantly to mind -- largely unsuccessful in love, promiscuous in the cases of Schopenhauer and perhaps Nietzsche, weighed down by heavy 'religious and/or internal father issues' in many cases, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche coming to mind here again, with Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's dads both dying at an early age, Schopenhauer's from suicide.) These men were all carrying heavy issues and heavy pain inside their heads -- that they needed to 'self-therapeutically compensate' for. These are generalizations to be sure, and for every generalization there is always an exception -- Kant was perhaps the most anal-retentive of all philosophers, so predictable in the time of his walks, that people could know what time it was -- and yet Kant did not really seem 'demonized' by his seemingly totally 'Apollonian' existence, indeed, he seemed very ethical, organized, caring, deeply religious...you just have to wonder how much fun he had in his life...Did he every have sex with a woman? Did he every fall in love with a woman? Or was that blasphemy -- and/or out of reach -- in his life?

So here I sit, perhaps partly at a crossroads in my life at 52. For the most part, I have eked* out a reasonably comfortable middle class existence for myself although even a reasonably good income seems barely enough these days. (Again the internet is amazing. I looked up the word 'eked' to make sure it was a proper word and that I was using it correctly. Again, the internet did not fail me.

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*eke 1(k)
tr.v. eked, ek·ing, ekes
1. To supplement with great effort. Used with out: eked out an income by working two jobs.
2. To get with great effort or strain. Used with out: eke a bare existence from farming in an arid area.

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I have a pretty amazing girlfriend who I have been going out with for about 8 or 9 years now, although to be sure, we have had our moments of intense conflict, differences of opinion on issues of priority and choice of lifestyle...

My father and I have for the most part made our peace although, to be sure, there may still be things we disagree on. In some ways he reminds me of Kant -- some of his 'anal retentiveness' and orthodox ways -- but my dad at 78 has the most amazing woman to spend his time with each and every day and night, i.e, my mother, which unless I am sadly and totally wrong, Kant could never say...You look up 'Kant' on the internet and it is hard to find more than a few words on his personal life, presumably because, aside from the conversations he had with his friends, he essentially had no personal life, it was all about his scholarship...there were no soap operas, no huge drama, in this man's life...

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The critical turn

At the age of 46, Kant was an established scholar and an increasingly influential philosopher. Much was expected of him. In response to a letter from his student, Markus Herz, Kant came to recognize that in the Inaugural Dissertation, he had failed to account for the relation and connection between our sensible and intellectual faculties. He also credited David Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumber" (circa 1770). Kant would not publish another work in philosophy for the next eleven years.

Kant spent his silent decade working on a solution to the problems posed. Though fond of company and conversation with others, Kant isolated himself, despite friends' attempts to bring him out of his isolation. In 1778, in response to one of these offers by a former pupil, Kant wrote "Any change makes me apprehensive, even if it offers the greatest promise of improving my condition, and I am persuaded by this natural instinct of mine that I must take heed if I wish that the threads which the Fates spin so thin and weak in my case to be spun to any length. My great thanks, to my well-wishers and friends, who think so kindly of me as to undertake my welfare, but at the same time a most humble request to protect me in my current condition from any disturbance." [3]

When Kant emerged from his silence in 1781, the result was the Critique of Pure Reason. Although now uniformly recognized as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, this Critique was largely ignored upon its initial publication. The book was long, over 800 pages in the original German edition, and written in a dry, scholastic style. It received few reviews, and these failed to recognize the Critique's revolutionary nature. Its density made it, as Johann Gottfried Herder put it in a letter to Johann Georg Hamann, a "tough nut to crack", obscured by "...all this heavy gossamer."[4] This is in stark contrast, however, with the praise Kant received for earlier works such as the aforementioned "Prize Essay" and other shorter works that precede the first Critique. These well-received and readable tracts include one on the earthquake in Lisbon which was so popular that it was sold by the page.[5]

My most appreciative thanks to Wikipedia for this and many other internet outtakes and references...

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I will probably never read The Critique of Pure Reason although I have several times held it in my hand at Chapters, and one day I may buyd it for my personal library so that I at least have access to it. That being said, I find it tough enough to read through an 'Introduction to Kant', and all else being equal, I would sooner read Nietzsche or just about any other philosopher I come upon. I recognize Kant's greatness, admire his extreme dedication and self-discipline, would like much more of it oftentimes for myself, but in the end, I would sooner be working on my fantasy basketball or baseball team, or spending time with my girlfriend, or just doing what spontaneously seems most appealing to me than spending any significant length of time reading Kant...or for that matter doing anything out of 'self-discipline and obligation' rather than heart felt interest. Obviously, that may have something to do with where I am today and where I am not. A huge amount of self-discipline and sacrifice is probably a very good reason why Kant has his very esteemed place in philosophical history, and unless I come on with a strong late flourish and rush of brilliance -- not to mention again the dreaded word 'self-discipline' -- will retain my rank as an 'amateur philosopher'. But then again, I think I like my own lifestyle better than I like Kant's. The point here is: life is all about choices and priorities -- and degree of focus and self-discipline relative to seriously going after and achieving one's most important life desires and goals. And somehow I think this essay which came partly out of nowhere after about a month or two of non-writing, was and is about psyching myself up, i.e., motivating myself, towards writing a series of essays on epistemology which takes us at least partly into Kant's territory or what I will call 'Kant's Room'. Meet me there if you are interested in reading, writing, and debating, on the subject of epistemology. I will try my best to make a usually 'dry' subject area as interesting and entertaining as possible.

db, originally written April 7, 2007, modified and updated May 24th, 2007.

http://hegelshotel-dgbn-epistemology.blogspot.com/

On The Issue of Conceptual Property, Conceptual Narcissism, Conceptual Respect, and Conceptual Integrating

I offer an updated version of this 2007 essay. I am looking at this essay now in January, 2011, almost 4 years later, and wish to go back and make some editiorial adjustments and clarifications...dgb, Jan. 29th, 2011.

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Good day! My name is David Bain. I am 52 years old (55 years old now -- ouch!). I have an Honours B.A. in Psychology with an academic and experiential background in both Gestalt Therapy and Adlerian Psychology, as well as being self-taught in Psychoanalysis and the history of Western Philosophy and Clinical Psychology. (added, Jan. 2011).

I am in the process of writing a network of 26 blogsites (that has extended to 50 blogsites now, added Jan. 2011) with a varying number of essays in each blogsite.

My goals are at least twofold:

1. To teach the history and evolution of Western Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology with my own editorial comments along the way.

2. To integrate ALL major schools of philosophy and psychology in such a way that they all have a role to play, and a 'room' and/or 'floor' to call their own -- in 'Hegel's Hotel'. (added Jan. 2011.)

The work as a whole is called: 'Hegel's Hotel: Where Philosophers and Psychologists Meet' (added Jan. 2011) and each blogsite is referred to as a 'floor' in Hegel's Hotel.

Within the confines of these 26 (50, Jan. 2011) different blogsites or floors of Hegel's Hotel, I will be writing on a wide assortment of different topics pertaining to philosophy, psychology, politics, religion, and more...

Obviously, I don't have enough time in my life to go hugely in depth into each and everyone of these areas. However, within each realm, I will bring my unique, post-Hegelian, integrative approach to what I want to say -- and, in the process, connect each essay, each blogsite, to my overall thesis which is that 'integrative dialectical evolution' is a process that can be taught and applied to all areas of human culture, living, and activity in a way that is often if not usually superior to an 'adversarial form of righteous-either/or philosophy and lifestyle'.

'Either/or' and 'right and wrong' belong to 'Aristolean Logic' which is what we are indoctrinated with in our schools, parliamentary debates, courts, newspapers, and places of business. (added Jan. 2011).

A is A, and B is B, and never the two should meet. They are mutually exclusive -- separated by their mutually exclusive, distinctive properties. (added Jan. 2011).

In contrast, 'Hegelian Dialectic Logic' tends to be more dialectically engaging, dynamic, process oriented, looking at how A and B interact with each other, and how A influences B while, at the same time, B influences A. They both mutually influence each other and affect each other's history and evolution. This is the logic that G.W. Hegel laid down in his revolutionary philosophical treatise, 'The Phenomemonology of Spirit', 1807, at least partly as a replacement for Aristotlean Logic (although Aristotlean Logic still has its place in certain contexts where there is no evidence of mutual dialectic influence and/or accountability). (added Jan. 2011)

I am looking to reach both introductory and advanced academic and/or professional audiences that are interested in the study of philosophy and/or psychology. (added Jan. 2011)

There is a sense in which I could very easily be called a 'Gestalt philosopher' in that what I am trying to do is to introduce a type of 'dialectic hot seat' to most of the essays I write here -- with an 'integration' or 'synthesis' between 2 or more competing perspectives, theories, concepts, paradigms, etc.

For a period of 12 years -- from 1979 to 1991 with 'gaps of non-involvement', I was, at different times during this overall period, very intensely and intimately tied up to what I was learning at the Gestalt Institute in Toronto.

I had good contacts with a lot of friends I met there, and had/have a lot of respect for the teachings of Gestalt therapists Jorge Rosner (deceased), Joanne Greenham (the present leader of The Gestalt Institute of Toronto), and other leaders and workshop participants.

Now here I am writing a 'philosophical treatise and forum'
that both draws upon the essence of Gestalt Theory, Therapy, and Philosophy as well as extending Gestalt Therapy's conceptual, theoretical, and therapeutic boundaries both back into history as well as into a 'more conceptually integrative future'. (added Jan, 2011)

This is my broader philosophical and psychological project which I am not sure that The Gestalt Institute shares with me. In a sense, there is a paradox or dichotomy between the 'structure of Gestalt Therapy' that maintains and holds onto dearly certain philosophical and theoretical boundaries, vs. the 'dialectic, dynamic process' of Gestalt Therapy that aims to 'break through many existing Aristotlean either/or boundaries' in order to reach a more 'harmonious, unified, homeostatically balanced integrative existential state'. In this sense, there is an inherent contradiction between the 'structure' and the 'process' of Gestalt Therapy. Because the dialectic dynamics of Gestalt Therapy -- if applied to Gestalt Therapy itself -- would inevitably 'change' the theoretical, therapeutic, and/or philosophical boundaries of Gestalt Therapy. And that, to my knowledge, hasn't happened in all the years that I was there -- and since I left in 1991. (added Jan. 2011)

So, yes there is indeed a heavy Gestalt influence in most of the essays that I have written in Hegel's Hotel.

However, there are many other influences as well: Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Adler, Korzybski, Hawakawa, Erich Fromm, Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, Schopenhauer, Foucault, Derrida, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Jefferson, Diderot, Montasquieu, Kant, Fichte, Locke, Spinoza, the Han Philosophers, Heraclitus, Anaxamander...

So this is not all about Gestalt Therapy being applied to the broader domain of Hegel's Hotel philosophy-psychology.

And yet in a partial sense -- a good size partial sense -- it is. It is not entirely by accident that many of my philosophical influences are the same ones who influenced Perls and the evolution of Gestalt Therapy -- for example, Freud, Jung, Korzybski, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heraclitus...

It was through studying Gestalt Therapy that I first became seriously connected to Hegel's philosophical work -- and it was this connection, this bridge if you will, that led me backwards from the study of psychology into the study of philosophy. I largely left behind my study of psychology in 1991, and have been studying philosophy -- through books and the internet -- from 1991 to 2007, still continuing. (That is not exactly true in that I did become involved in the Freud-Masson Seduction Theory Controversy, and lately, (2010-11), I have started to write a whole host of new psychology essays that are designed to lay out the boundaries of what I am currently calling, 'Gap-DGB Quantum-Integrative Psychoanalysis'.

There is a sense in which almost everything I have developed in this network of blogsites, in each essay, I learned either from watching or experiencing the 'hotseat' in Gestalt Therapy.

But the hotseat was a therapeutic invention by Perls that combined the Hegelian dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis) with Nietzschean existential urgency and Kierkgaardian immediacy.

The purpose of the hotseat and empty chair technique -- one chair with the therapeutic client sitting in it, the other seat facing him or her, empty -- was to help a person 'to gain better contact with a person who wasn't present, or to gain better contact with a part of the client's own personality (i.e., usually between a more dominant side of the personality -- what Jung called the 'personna') -- and an opposing, more suppressed and neglected side (what Jung called 'The Shadow'. (added Jan, 2011).

Through this process, a person, 'dialectically alienated' from a particular part of his or herself, could work hard in the hotseat with openess, honesty, and immediacy to become more 'dialectically integrated' through the therapeutic synthesis of opposing parts in his or her personality. This is the therapeutic purpose of The Gestalt Hotseat.

Hegel's Hotel (Gap-DGB) philosophy-psychology may not generally include the raw immediacy of hot seat work but it does contain the process of 'dialectical opposition', 'dialectical contact', 'dialectical negotiation', and 'dialectical integration'.

In Gap-DGB philosophy-psychology, I may at this point be stepping away from the most dramatic existential dynamics of the human psche in its rawest immediacy, as seen through hot seat and empty chair work.

However, I am expanding this process to each and every part of human culture and activity -- and then we will come back and connect what we have learned from this philosophical adventure into such areas as narcissism, epistemology, ethics, business and economics, politics, law, science and medicine, spirituality and religion -- to psychology again.

What goes around comes around. What is projected (viewed as if it is a 'movie' out there) into any and/or every aspect of our social lives, comes from within our own personality, our own psyche, as an 'internal movies' before it becomes an 'external movie'.

The world -- and particularly man's culture both collectively and privately -- is very much a reflection of a man's character, and in both a good and a bad sense, at the same time, his or her personal narcissism.

Personal and collective narcissism very much dominates the human psyche. Which is not to say that there isn't an important place and a need for the balance and equillibrium of the opposite of human narcissism which includes such things as: altruism, generosity, caring, love, social sensitivity, empathy, helping one's friends and neighbours, caring about the state of the environment, and the like.

There is an important place for a good balance of both narcissism and altruism in man's psyche, in the projections of his or her psyche into culture, and in the structure and process of any human philosophy, psychology, politics, and the rest.

I watch politicians fight with each other in parliament, treat each other disrespectfully, as each and everyone of them chases after a narcissistic, either/or, right or wrong, ideology -- as if theirs was the only 'right' ideology on the face of the earth.

Sometimes the 'game' they seem to be playing, the 'show' they seem to be putting on, reminds me of something I might see on television wrestling. But if it is not all 'game' and 'show' and politicians actually believe that they are being 'righteously real', then someone needs to show these politicians how to better work with each other, not against each other.

The dialectic can be used righteously, manipulatively and maliciously -- 'narcissisticly' is the word I will generally use (see my essays on narcissism) -- or it can be used judiciously and integratively, utilizing a combination of reason, compassion, common sense, empathy, humanism, ethics, a balance of personal assertiveness (and in this regard narcissism in a good sense to the extent that it is kept in line by giving room for the rights and wishes of others) with social altruism.

The same goes for corporations vs. unions or non-union employees, natural health medicine vs. standard, orthodox Western medicine, sports owners vs. athletes taking into account the fans, indeed, any type of human conflict where people have a choice between acting reasonably with each other vs. going off ballistically with each other because they can't see past their own personal narcissism.

As for the issue of my 'classification' as a philosopher, and whether I can or should be called a 'Gestalt philosopher' -- someone who has learned from Gestalt Therapy and extrapolated on these lessons into the realm of philosophy, politics, medicine, religion, art, and the like -- well that is a dialect in its own right between me and members of The Gestalt Institute who I haven't really talked to since 1991. The prodigal son may one day return back to some of his main roots and foundations. Or not.

In the meantime, a lot of this 'labelling' and 'conceptualization' and 'classification' and 'boundary' business depends on where you want to draw the line, and based on what reason. Property, money, narcissism, a personal belief in right and wrong -- or perhaps alternatively, an integrative, always expanding, vision of the enlightenment and evolution of mankind.

Gestalt Therapy has its own ideational space and boundaries which can be differentiated from Psychoanalysis or Jungian Psychology or Adlerian Therapy or Rational-Emotive Therapy or Behaviorism or any of a hundred different schools of psychology and psychotherapy.

Again, I make the distinction between 'either/or' evolution vs. 'integrative evolution'. When a man and woman create a baby, there is a mixture of 'either/or' evolution and 'integrative evolution' going on here.

The child may have the ears of the father, the nose of the mother. The child may look exactly like the mother or the father. This is 'either/or' evolution. Perhaps the father's genes dominate, or the mother's genes dominate and the child almost looks like a clone of the parent with the dominant genes.

Or the child can be seen to have a mixture of both parents genes and here we can see the process of 'integrative evolution'. The concept of 'biological diversity' is very much tied up to what I am calling here integrative evolution.

Now let us leave the world of biology and enter the world of philosophy, psychology, conceptuology, and/or ideology. The same two evolutionary processes exist with sometimes either/or evolution dominating, other times integrative evolution dominating.

Indeed, the whole ideational evolution process becomes more complicated -- and unfortunately often stagnated into non-evolution -- when you introduce such factors as: capitalism, money, property, corporations, patencies, people's livlihoods, etc...

With the additions of such factors, people not only get narcissistic about their money and their property and their choices of what they want to do -- they also get narcissistic about their ideas. Somewhere back in the 1980s or 90s, I called this phenomenon 'conceptual narcissism'.

Now here is the point: often conceptual evolution and conceptual narcissism collide and conflict with each other, do battle with each other, and become a dialectic in its own particular right, either good or bad, or both. Metaphorically speaking, one might ask the question: 'Which ideational gene is going to dominate? -- the 'narcissitic-either/or gene' or the 'integrative-evolution' gene?

Example. In the 1970s Jeffrey Masson was a fast-rising psychoanalyst and writer. He worked his way up the steep ranks of the many different Psychoanalytic Institutes in both North America and Europe. He got right up to the top -- to Anna Freud -- and was given free access to the Freud Archives. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Masson got into the Freud Archives and he didn't like what he was reading. The issue was Freud's abandonment of his 'traumacy and seduction theory' around 1896-1897. In its place, Freud developed his (in)famous inter-related theories of distorted childhood memories, childhood sexuality and the Oedipal Complex.

Masson basically came to the conclusion that these latter three theories were garbage -- and that worse than that -- they tended to perpetuate female childhood sexual assault and traumacy by 'non-legitimizing' them. That is, according to post-1900 Classical Psychoanalytic and Oedipal Theory, a woman's 'memory' of a childhood sexual assault and/or seduction would be taught to psychoanalysts to be generally and stereotpically 're-interpreted' as a 'childhood fantasy', not a real memory, due to the young girl's and/or later teenage girl's standard romantic and sexual infatuation with her father. Thus, very few female childhood sexual assaults were being interpreted as such. In Masson's words, they were basically being 'clinically suppressed'. No more childhood sexual assaults in Psychoanalysis because most, if not all, of them were being re-interpreted by psychoanalysts everywhere as 'distorted memories based on underlying female childhood sexuality fantasies'.

Masson broke this scandal open, first in the New York Times in the late 1970s, then in his hugely controversial book, 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory'. (1984, 1985, 1992 by Jeffrey Masson)

Not unexpectedly, Masson's book didn't go over very well at all with the many different Psychoanalytic Institutes. He was evicted from some and resigned from others. And now he is living in New Zealand and writing books about emotions in animals. No real resolution to the controversy. Psychoanalysts defended themselves saying that they had the freedom to interpret 'childhood assaults' if they believed one happened. Aside from that, the conflict seems to have bascially gone underground again -- I cannot say for sure because I have not followed the various evolutions and/or non-evolutions of various Psychoanalytic schools of thought. I think many of them have discarded classical Oedipal theory and moved on to different schools of Object Relations and Self Theory. Some -- I do not know what percentage -- have remained loyal to Freud's original Classical/Oedipal theory. If you are a woman who knows that you were sexually assaulted as a child or young teenager, then I would probalby be thinking twice about engaging in Classical Psychoanalysis. There is definitely, in my mind, some element of truth in Masson's book -- if not a lot of truth. The many Psychoanalytic Institutes should not have pushed Masson's book and thoughts aside so quickly and rudely. As embarrasing as it might have been, they should have probably ideally used it as a starting point for the beginning of their own 'private organizational Psychonalysis'. Maybe this has already partly happened. Or maybe Classical Psychoanalysis is going the way of the dinosaur as newer and more flexible brands of Object Relations and Self Theories of Psychoanalysis slowly phase it out. Once again I believe in the value of the dialectic and in smart theorists and therapists using the dialectic to full functional advantage. From my perspective -- and I am far from the first person to say this -- it seems that Classical Psychoanalysis if it wants to stay alive and to have any kind of credibility and trust with the general public, especially women, needs to 'feminize' itself and to discard all ideas and practices that discriminate against women in order to bring it into the 21st century. Classical Psychoanalysis cannot be teaching its student psychoanalysts that memories are to be viewed as 'distortions' and as 'symbolic fantasies', particularly relevent to women who come into clinical therapy with memories of childhood sexual assaults. Therapy cannot be dictated by theoretical biases because life can never be comparmentalized, and life will never always follow one set of theoretical biases. But all else being equal, a therapist has got to at least tentatively accept a client's memories as being real until there is strong and overuling evidence to suggest otherwise. A therapist may never know the 'objective truth' -- to be sure a client's thoughts, feelings, and memories are filled with their own subjective biases -- which is why it may be very dangerous on a client's memories alone to all of a sudden start accusing a particular parent, sibling, relative, or family friend, and dragging him into a court of law. There has got to be strong supporting evidence and for the most part I believe that that is outside the therapist's realm of responsibility. The therapist's responsibility is to help the client work through his or her personal issues and get better. Therapeutic epistemology is not necessarily legal truth. Indeed, the distortion of the client's private epistemology may be one of the main reasons why the client is in therapy (although, to be sure, the client is not likely to agree). This does not mean that you automatically assume that the client is wrong or that you automatically substitute a 'pre-canned theory' into the place of the client's verbalizations. I don't mean to come across as a seasoned therapist here but to me it means that you 'go with the flow', at least until you realize that your client's flow is going to take you over Niagara Falls. I think Freud might have had this experience once or twice, if not more often. There was a reason Freud mainly abandoned his traumacy-seduction theory and I think that his later perception of the 'truth-value' of some or all of his clients confessions probably had a lot to do with it. I do not necessarily buy into any or all of Masson's proposed 'cover-up' and 'Freud's lack of integrity' theories. However, you can never count out the influence of human narcissism -- not with Freud or anybody. Freud's scientific and medical stability and his ability to make an income for his family might have both been seriously negatively affected by his bringing the problem of 'childhood incest' into the open. If I see my boss fire a driver, two drivers, ten drivers, and I don't like the reasons that he is firing them, I have a choice -- and so do the other employees I work with who are seeing the same thing. I can tell him that I don't like what he did, or I can listen to him rant, nod my head, and keep my mouth shut. In other words, my dominant reaction was not to 'rock the boat' in order to not put my own job into jeopardy. Has my integrity been compromised? Probably. However, without trying to justify or rationalize this, I imagine that there are probably thousands of people who go to work each day, see what they don't like, see what they believe is ethically wrong -- and do or say nothing. The 'silent majority'. This is how 'corporate narcissism' grows, corrupts, and poisons people's outlook in the work field. To be sure, it is very possible that Freud was not immune to 'folding his cards' under this type of professional and economic pressure. After Freud folded his traumacy-seduction cards -- if that is what he did, or alternatively believed that he was scientifically and clinically right in doing so -- then it would, to my limited knowledge, be more than 60 years before the issue of 'childhood incest' would rise again to public awareness as feminism began to rise in the 1960s. From a woman's standpoint, it is too bad that Freud did not stick to his pre-1897 observations, generalizations, and conclusions. But sometimes human evolution takes a step -- or more -- backwards.


Another example. What would happen if a psychoanalyst ever decided to abandon his or her use of the 'therapeutic couch' and borrow instead the 'hotseat' from Gestalt Therapy? Would this psychoanalyst still be called a psychoanalyst? Probably not by his psychoanalytic peers and superiors. Would he or she more appropriately be called a 'Gestalt Psychoanalyst'? Perls went this direction -- trained originally I believe in Kleinian Psychoanalysis or Object Relations (I will have to check this.) -- until he decided at some point to 'dump' the couch and develop the hotseat. Soon he was called just a Gestalt Therapist.

Integrative evolutions have happed often enough in the psychotherapy business, as much as they are often discouraged, even blacklisted and scandalized. Some theorists and therapists have integrated Adlerian Psychology and Psychoanalysis. Some theorists and therapists have integrated various forms of Cognitive Therapy with Gestalt Therapy. Perls partly did this himself. He liked Korysbski and General Semantics.

Back in the 1980s, I was integrating Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis -- which is how I got 'GAP Psychology. Cognitive Therapy, humanistic-existentialism, and Jungian psychology also eventually had an impact on my thinking.

Conceptualizations, classifications, and labels can be stretched or re-tightened according to our wishes and agenda. It could be argued that Freud was a Gestalt Therapist before he was a Psychoanalyst -- much of Freud's early work in the 1990s on traumacy theory could easily be viewed as the real foundation of Gestalt Therapy (before Freud decided to go a different theoretical direction).

Anaxamander and Heraclitus can be viewed as the first two 'dialectical theorists' in Western philosophy and the precursors of everyone from Kant to Fichte to Hegel to Marx to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls. Anaxamander can also be called the first 'evolutionist' -- some 2000 years plus before Hegel or Darwin.

What is the moral of everything that is being said in this essay. How about this? When you are all ready to get your shorts tied tightly in a knot and turn purple with rage over protecting an idea, a concept, a theory, a philosophy, a paradigm, an ideology, a religous belief, ask yourself this: Can integrative evolution take me to a better place that is better for me and better for the people around me? And if so, then why am I holding on so tightly, so emotionaly, to an idea that may be a better idea once it is blended with other different and maybe even opposing ideas. Every seen a parent and a child fighting over 'curfew'? I have seen or heard indirectly of some of the worst fights you could possibly imagine. 15 year old girls evicted from their homes. Come on, what's with this? Rage is probably the best personal indicator -- to be sure often but not always -- that it may be time to think 'negotiate, compromise, integrate'; not 'I am right, you are wrong'.

Cheers.

db, May 20th, 2007, partly upgrade Jan. 29th, 2011.

On The Philosophical Connection Between Hegel and DGB Philosophy

People like the familiar and the secure. People like to try new things.

Here we have two antagonistic statements -- they are saying basically opposite things. What can we say about this? One is true and the other is false? Or -- alternatively, they both have their own respective realm of truth and reality?

The first is an 'either/or' perspective -- often the curse of mankind -- as people battle, often violently over their respective beliefs of 'right' and 'wrong'.

It might not always be so bad if people could always respect each other's differences in opinions and leave their debates on the democratic, debating floor but too often people's personal biases, personal blinders, personal narcissism, and personal righteousness takes them to a place that keeps escalating to the point of tempers flaring, fists flying, even weapons becoming involved. Thus, an 'either/or' perspective too often leads to over-righteousness, close-mindedness, personal narcissism and bad will between people with different opinions.

My name is David Bain. I have an honours degree in psychology, a background in Gestalt Therapy (founded mainly by Fritz Perls), and a decent understanding of Freud, Psychoanalysis, Jung and Jungian Psychology.

There are at least two or three important philosophers from the 19th century who had a strong impact on each of these three psychologists. Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. You could add Kierkegaard and Korzybski in there as far as also having an important influence on the development of Gestalt Therapy.

Most important arguably of all of them is G.W. Hegel (1770-1831). He was the starting point -- or at least the first philosopher to put together in a coherent, understandable form (not that Hegel couldn't be far from easily understandable oftentimes) -- a new form of logic, a new form of reasoning, a new form of 'evolution theory' before Darwin.

Up until Hegel, much of Western Philosophy was 'righteous, either/or' philosophy -- every philosopher with a different perspective that took off from the philosopher before him or her which he or she at least partly disagreed with. Protagonist and antagonist. Thesis and anti-thesis. Where was the truth?

What Hegel said in the clearest fashion up to his point in philosophical history -- and to be sure his ideas didn't come our of nowhere; credit must be given partly to Fichte and Kant before him, as well as much further back in the deepest roots of ancient Greek philosophy in the work of Anaxamander and Heraclitus, and later in China in work leading up to the synthesis of the Han Philosophers in the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the eastern concepts of 'yin' and 'yang'.

What came together in very coherent fashion for the first time in Hegel was the beginning of 'dialectical thinking', 'dialectical logic', 'dialectical reasoning', and the principle of 'dialectical evolution'.

Opposite ideas are not right or wrong but part of a 'greater dialectical whole' -- a 'greater, wholistic truth and unity that comes together when both opposing parts of the dialectic are creatively integrated together in a fashion that maximimizes their respective strengths and 'truth-value' while ideally minimimizing their respective weaknesses'.

Thus, 'truth', according to Hegel, is often not in a 'righteous, either/or' philosophical position but rather in the creative negotiation and integration of the opposite philosophical perspectives. This is the essence of dialectical logic, reasoning, wholism, unity, and evolution.

And it is the starting point of Hegel's Hotel: GAP-DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...

Now I know that most of my potential readers out there probably don't like fancy, technical acronyms that mean little or nothing to you. What the heck is 'GAP-DGBN' Philosophy?

Well, to begin with, you will see that I tend to use a lot of different hyphenated words -- and for a very good reason. It is the essence of 'dialectical logic and reasoning' -- integrating different things, processes, and concepts together in a way that was quite different than the way these different things, processes, and concepts were dialectically separated and alienated from each other before the 'dialectical contact, creative negotiation, and integration' came about.

Have I lost you, or are you still with me? If you have a background in Hegelian philosophy and logic, then you are probably still with me. If you are a beginning philosophy student, trying out philosophy for perhaps the first time, then maybe I am intimidating you by throwing out fancy, technical combinations like 'dialectical this' and 'dialectical that'... Don't be intimidated. Like anything in life, it is all about repetition, getting used to the language, the technical words that are a part of any serious philosophy, art, and/or science of investigation. Sometimes -- oftentimes -- new words can take you new places in your thinking and in your perspective on life -- think of this as a 'first dialectical philosophy date' -- unless of course I am writing to a more experienced 'dialectical reader'. I want you both.

Regarding the first acronym -- 'GAP'. Firstly, I philosophize in the 'gaps' between other philosophical perspectives and paradigms. Secondly, I have been heavily influenced by Gestalt Therapy, significantly influenced by Adlerian Psychology, and significantly influenced by Psychoanalysis -- which combine to form the letter 'G-A-P'. There you have two different reasons for the first acronym -- 'GAP' -- a name I have been using since at least 1991.

Now regarding the second acronym - 'DGBN'. My philosophy is not only about 'gaps' but it is about 'bridging gaps' -- it is about 'dialectically bridging gaps' -- it is about 'Dialectical-GAP-Bridging-Negotiations'. Practically every essay I write is about Dialectical-GAP-Bridging-Negotiations. My essays are about the 'creative void or gap' that demands a 'creative leap into the void or gap' hoping, trusting, expecting, that in the process of leaping into the creative void, my creative problem-solving and conflict-resolving abilities will help me to 'dialectically bridge the gap' between the 'two opposing cliffs and the abyss between them'. The 'two cliffs' could be anything or anyone -- Marx and Adam Smith (or Ayn Rand), socialism and capitalism, liberalism and conservatism, black and white, religious and atheist, scientific and artistic, Freud and Adler, Freud and Jung, Freud and Perls, Hegel and Nietzsche...

Let's talk quickly about Nietzsche before we finish up this essay. (We will talk about him much more later.) Nietzsche didn't want anything to do with Hegel and yet Nietzsche's first book -- 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- was a brilliant post-Hegelian work that in my opinion was the bridge between Hegel and Psychoanalysis (as well as such mofifications of Psychoanalysis as Jungian Psychology and Gestalt Therapy).

My favorite Nietzschean metaphor is the metaphor of the 'tightrope and the abyss'.
Call it the 'Nietzschean Tightrope of Life'. We all need courage to live, to live passionately and creatively, and to take risks -- to take 'leaps of faith and trust' into 'creative voids', into abysses, where only a faith in our own problem-solving abilities will help us to build the 'tightrope', the 'bridge' across the abyss. It is only on the Nietzschean tightrope of life -- often in the midst of great anxiety relative to the looming abyss below us -- the 'pit of life' if you will -- that we can find both ourselves and find others in creativity, intimacy, love, and vulnerability -- a little less scary perhaps than Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum, but scary none-the-less -- Nietzsche's 'Tightrope and the Abyss'. In Gestalt Therapy this is called 'the hot seat'.

There is one, actually two, other meanings of the acronym -- 'DGBN'.

'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism'. You will have to read my papers on narcissism and politics if you want a better understanding of this philosophical assertion.

And, oh yes. 'DGBN' just happens to also represent four of the letters in my name. Everyone is entitled to a little egotism and narcissism relative to the things that we create -- just as long as we don't turn into 'egotistical, narcissistic monsters'.

I will do my best not to go there.

db, May 14th, 2007.

A Paper On the Chronological Development of Gap-DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics

It is 6:00 am on this fine morning of May 7th, 2007, and the first time that I have gotten up this early to write in years. I woke up about 3:00am and watched a piece on 'The Greatest Canadian' -- which in this case was on Terry Fox. What can be more inspiring than watching a piece on Terry Fox? It is enough to make anybody want to get off the bed immediately and try to accomplish great things. Or even simply personally meaningful things, done with great conviction. NOW!

And so it is that I -- for the 100th or possibly the 1000th time -- will try to put together a meaningful introduction that will lay before you the type of philosophy that I am promoting to be in the best interests of man, both in particular and in general. How can any one philosophy -- and the philosopher behind it -- be so bold as to ascertain the possibility that any one philosophy can be good for all of mankind, both individually and collectively?

Well, the answer is this: the philosophy or model that I am presenting is big and flexible enough that it has room to incorporate the existence and partial meaningfulness of almost all other philosophies. I would say that there is no room in my particular philosophy for any extremist philosophy that advocates the onslaught of violence and death. But aside from that there is room for almost anything that may give added meaning to someone who wants to take this philosophy down a particular corridor to see where it takes them.

I have been doing that for quite some time. I started out by studying psychology between about 1972 and 1991. First, I was smitten by Psycho-Cybernetics (the psychology of perception and belief). Then I was smitten by General Semantics -- the language-meaning-philosophy of Alfred Korzybski, followed by the work of his student S.I. Hayakawa and others. I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology on the potential connections between General Semantics and Cognitive Therapy. But the paper was a little more than this. Without really knowing it, it was my first attempt at writing a paper on 'epistemology' -- the study of knowledge -- under the influence not only of Korzybski and Hayakawa but also Nathaniel Branden and indirectly Ayn Rand -- the ultimate 'objectivist' epistemologist.

At the same time, I was also being influenced by the work of Erich Fromm -- a 'neo-Freudian', humanist, and Marxist-socialist. So I was getting a 'double polarity of influence' from Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand, both avid Capitalist idealists on the one hand, and Erich Fromm, the Marxist-Socialist idealist on the other hand. Here we were looking not at 'man the perceiver, the interpreter, and the epistemologist' but rather 'man the evaluator and valuist'. And here were two sets of eqally smart political-economic philosophers coming down on opposite sides of the political-economic fence. Where was truth -- or does the issue of 'truth' have any relevance to the study of 'values'? Does the study of truth pertain only to the study of epistemology and not to the study of values? Yes, I answered to myself -- the study of truth pertains only to the study of epistemology and thus and no relevance to the study of values. But then, how do we assess the inherent 'goodness' or 'badness' of a value? How do we establish an ethical basis or some other standard of evaluation for choosing say Capitalism over Socialism or Socialism over Capitalism or Liberalism over Conservatism or Conservatism over Liberalism? These are head-scratching questions and a lot of it -- as Nietzsche was quick to point out -- comes down to the 'subjective perception of personal benefit' which could be one way for you and another totally different way for me. If I am making money near the top end of society's payscale, then I am much more likely to be a Conservative and a Capitalist whereas if I am new to this country, and/or near the bottom of society's payscale, then I am much more like to be an NDP or a Liberal which tends to favor more socialist policies than the Conservative Party. This rule of thumb may not be totally carved in stone -- there are always exceptions -- but one can see how 'values' are tied to 'the perception of personal benefit'.

When I left university after graduating with an Honours degree in psychology, I started studying different 'schools' of psychology with more focus -- particularly Adlerian psychology as I became involved with the Adlerian Institute in Ontario, and Gestalt Therapy as I also became involved with The Gestalt Institute of Toronto. Again, I was struck by the 'polarity and the paradox of difference' between different schools of thought. One school -- The Gestalt Institute -- believed in the principle of polarity and conflict in the personality, and the essence of psychotherapy being the 'dialectical negotiation and integration of opposing polarities in the personality'. Wheras the other school -- the Adlerian Institute -- believed that conflict was essentially a 'side show or smoke and mirrors show' in the personality and once you looked past this conflict, you could usually see that the person's core personality or 'lifestyle' with its encompassing pattern of behavior was always aimed in one and only one particular direction.

Once again, I was faced with the 'philosophy of difference' and the question of how to resolve those philosophical differences. But this became my personal philosophical challenge, and in the process, like a snowball that started rolling down the hill and getting bigger, I was starting to develop a particular 'style and process for negotiating and integrating different philosophies and psychologies that was making the net result of my work a little different than the individual pieces that were influencing the evolution of my work from often opposite sides of the philosophical and psychological fence. In essence, I was 'philosophizing in the gaps' between others' philosophical work. This idea, combined with three of the main forces that were influenicing the content and the direction of my work at this time -- Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis -- led to my first name for my work -- GAP Psychology. This was at at a time -- in the 1980s -- when my main focus of study was still psychology. But that all started to change as I worked my way backwards through Perls, Freud, and Jung -- to the main philosophical influencer behind all of them: G.W. Hegel (1770-1831).

Hegel was my window and my bridge between the study of psychology and the study of philosophy.

Here was a man who had influenced most of the great psychologists, most notably, Freud, Jung, Perls, as well as a host of other 'dialectical unity' psychologists. What Hegel put together as a general historical theory of evolution in philosophy and mankind, psychologists like Freud, Jung, and Perls internalized into the human psyche as a general working style and process of the human psyche. Thus, man's psyche, man's philosophy, man's politics, man's law, man's science, man's religion, man's culture in general -- all showed signs of the same general philosophical and psychological process which might be called 'dialectical evolution' -- which Hegel described as a cyclical process of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis', then start the process all over again at a different level of cultural evolution and development.

If psychologists and psychotherapists could harness and utilize the process of dialectical evolution in a way that helped their clients to 'negotiate and integrate their dialectical splits and conflicts' in a way that brought fresh 'dialectical unity and harmony' to their personalities and lifestyles, then why couldn't the same process be harnessed and utilized between businessmen, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, scientists, artists, and so on. This was the essence of my movement from GAP Psychology to GAP Philosophy -- a full-scale expansion and implementation of the principle of 'GAP-DGB Multi-Dialectical Wholism, Unity, Homeostasis, and Evolution.

I will close this work with two Hegelian quotations, one that I don't like and one that I do like. The one that I don't like I have modified and mutated in a direction that I do like.

Hegel wrote: 'The real is the rational and the rational is the real.' I don't buy this because often in my opinion, the real is not rational and the rational is not real. Human narcissism and hedonism often subvert the rational unless you want to talk about 'narcissistic and/or hedonistic rationality', in which case, a case could be made to support the claim that the real is the rational and the rational is the real -- i.e., someone's narcissistic and/or hedonistic rationality who has the power to implement his or her own 'brand of rationality'.

However, from this quote from Hegel, I developed one of my own: 'The truth is the whole and the whole is the truth, and any small part of the whole is a part of the truth -- not cut off and divorced from the whole but only in the full integrative context of the whole. It is in the full integrative context of the whole that we find truth.'

Here is the other quote by Hegel that I like. 'Every theory (my extension: every characteristic, every paradigm, every philosophy, every school of psychology, every brand of politics) carries within it, the seeds of its own self-destruction.'

This to me, is a good, viable warning against the dangers of self-righteousness and the one-sided focuses of thought or philosophy that are invariably leaving out the potential value of the opposing line of thought or philosophy. An integrative balance of both is generally where GAP-DGB Philosophy will attempt to go.

db, May 7th, 2007.

If you would like to read more on the philosophy of the dialectic, then please turn to this link: http://hegelshotel-dgbn-introductions.blogspot.com/