
Dialectical Wisdom - arikr
https://medium.com/8vc-news/dialectical-wisdom-1217a67ac427
======
jasim
From time to time there returns upon the cautious thinker, the conclusion
that, considered simply as a question of probabilities, it is decidedly
unlikely that his views upon any debatable topic are correct.

Here are thousands around me holding on this or that point opinions differing
from mine—wholly in most cases; partially in the rest. Each is as confident as
I am of the truth of his convictions. Many of them are possessed of great
intelligence; and, rank myself high as I may, I must admit that some are my
equals—perhaps my superiors. Yet, while every one of us is sure he is right,
unquestionably most of us are wrong. Why should not I be among the mistaken?
True, I cannot realize the likelihood that I am so. But this proves nothing;
for though the majority of us are necessarily in error, we all labor under the
inability to think we are in error. Is it not then foolish thus to trust
myself?

When I look back into the past, I find nations, sects, philosophers,
cherishing beliefs in science, morals, politics, and religion, which we
decisively reject. Yet they held them with a faith quite as strong as ours;
nay—stronger, if their intolerance of dissent is any criterion. Of what little
worth, therefore, seems this strength of my conviction that I am right? A like
warrant has been felt by men all the world through; and, in nine cases out of
ten, has proved a delusive warrant. Is it not then absurd in me to put so much
faith in my judgments?

\-- Thinking as a Science, Henry Hazlitt

~~~
_callcc
For Hegel this form of Skepticism/Pessimism is one of the "moments" of
Spirit.[1]

[1]
[http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7d5nb...](http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7d5nb4r8&chunk.id=d0e2063&toc.depth=100&brand=ucpress)

------
defgeneric
For anyone interested in the Phenomenology, I think the best guide is Peter
Kalkavage's _Logic of Desire_. Kalkavage exemplifies the best of the
pedagogical tradition at St. John's College. I spent a good number of years
working through the 20th century secondary literature on Hegel (largely from
French and German philosophy--Hyppolite, Kojeve, Heidegger, etc.) and really
wished I had found Kalkavage's book earlier.

~~~
Chiba-City
I ploughed through a semester of Phenomenology with other kids at Harvard and
grabbed Kojeve and In the Spirit Of Hegel as guides. Very tough going for a
young Anglo-American scholar. Phenomenology made more sense over years in rear
view mirrors than at the time. I will add Kalkavage to the reading pile.

------
jdoliner
There's a famous quote on the dialectic:

> You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested
> in you.

It is often mistranslated with "war" in place of "the dialectic" and is often
misattributed to Leon Trotsky. [0]

The dialectic in this case was substantially more politicized than the one
Lonsdale discusses. So the mistranslation to "war" is somewhat forgivable. I
like this quote because it neatly captures the essence of dialectical
thinking. The dialectic is provoking, extremes always are, and once you're
engaged it's all-consuming. This isn't a bad thing, Lonsdale is encouraging us
to engage with the dialectic, and I believe we should listen to what he has to
say. However, the dialectic is a volatile thing, especially the modern
dialectic, which might not be too many steps removed from the dialectic of
Trotsky's era.

[0]
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky#Misattributed](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky#Misattributed)

Relevant X-Files scene:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4ZZllANMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4ZZllANMg)

~~~
bshimmin
That really isn't from The X-Files, it's from a TV series called "Aquarius" (I
looked this up because Duchovny's bouffant baffled me!).

~~~
jdoliner
My mistake, I haven't seen either show, I was just going by the Youtube
comments... which I should have known wasn't a reliable source.

------
amasad
It's such a powerful mental model and a phenomenon that presents itself in
social, political, and other types of systems.

I recently applied dialectical thinking in a discussion about progress in
programming. The main question I was trying to answer: "are we make any kind
of progress in programming or are we just randomly traversing the space of
possible languages and frameworks?"
([https://amasad.me/dialectical](https://amasad.me/dialectical))

At first it seemed like there is a lot of arbitrary jumping back and forth.
One example: in web development we started out by rendering the UI on the
server, and then client-side rendering became the norm and now we're back at
server rendering with the various "SSR" techniques. This seems like a totally
useless hop back and forth. But in reality we might end up in a -- to use
Hegel's language -- "synthesis" where we have universal rendering (server +
client rendering).

~~~
varjag
Problem with dialectics is zero predictive force and zero utility. It can be
used to argue about things in hindsight nearly universally, but otherwise
entirely useless.

~~~
Chiba-City
There are generative forces of new statements not "predictable" prior to
statements like Euclid's or Newton's Laws that newly rendered features of both
past and future suddenly known to be determinate upon measured examinations.
What generates any hypothesis? Do we imagine exhaustive search of every
generated hypothesis like monkeys banging on typewriters. Software developers
should have a keen sense for evolving composition and syntheses against
conundrums.

~~~
varjag
Let me illustrate. Consider this thread from dialectic perspective: a pro
argument, followed by (my) cons, develops the spiral with more detailed pro
followed by my (now taking it into account) counter. A very clear dialectic
thread developing!

Was that easy to come up with hindsight? Yes.

Was it hard to predict the reiteration of pro and contra arguments? Not
really.

Could you use dialectic approach to predict the exact character of follow up
arguments? Of course not.

To sum up, none of dialectics observations are important or in any way non-
trivial if you put Hegelian grandeur aside. The only attempt to put it for a
practical test (Marxist theory of social development) didn't really pan out.

~~~
amasad
I don't think anyone is claiming they have predictive power. I think judging
all our thinking tools the same way we judge Science (scientism) makes it
harder to make sense of the world. That's why I emphasize it being a "mental
model".

As for it being trivial, to prove otherwise I observe that a lot of things, if
not most things, don't follow a dialectical pattern. Most things can worsen,
improve, evolve, devolve, spiral, stagnate, or change randomly. Rarely do I
find a dialectical pattern in say the weather, the economy, the stock market,
my hunger patterns, my mood swings, or my shoes.

------
SapphireSun
It was pretty funny to click on that expecting something on Dialectical
Materialism and finding an essay on Hegel by a VC that co-founded Palentir no
less. This idea of dialectics is very powerful, and his reasoning is sensible.
I wonder how he balances helping build an omnipresent surveillance state
unknown in human history with the moral principles he espouses.

Unrelated, I wonder if dielectrics (a material that polarizes in an electric
field) maybe were named by scientists aware of philosophy that made a pun.

------
jonnybgood
> Is it any surprise that Hitler and Mussolini displayed the cruelest forms of
> Nietzschean behavior — even drew directly upon Nietzsche as inspiration for
> their atrocities?

What he's calling "Nietzschen behavior" is not Niestzchean. But then again,
Nietzsche is the most misunderstood philosopher.

------
JohnStrange
If you have very simple concepts such as "thesis-antithesis-synthesis", "yin
and yang", or "sheeps and wolves", then the conceptualization will apply to
almost everything. That doesn't mean much, though.

~~~
uoaei
Au contraire! Many people are seeking precisely the universal. It is their
(and my) opinion that modern language and its interpretation is the barrier to
distilling further meaning from these concepts without significant pondering.
That doesn't mean that these concepts don't hold merit, unless you put a
postmodernist spin on things.

------
cousin_it
Let's distinguish the epistemic from the instrumental. Epistemically, truths
can't oppose each other. But instrumentally, different tools can have
different strengths. For example, merge sort is simple, fast and stable but
not in-place, while heapsort is simple, fast and in-place but not stable.
Between them lies the deep unsolved problem of designing a simple, fast,
stable and in-place sorting algorithm. That's exactly like the dichotomies
described in the post: two kinds of effective leaders, two kinds of
organizations, etc.

------
mmjaa
I've always been highly suspicious of those who resort to dialectic, and only
dialectic, in their reasoning. I think its only a small part of the picture -
that there are ways of synthesising ideas without requiring dialectic
materialism.

Yet, its a common social structure - common enough that we use it without even
thinking. And that, I think, is the worst possible outcome - assumption of
correctness without correction.

(Oh no, I'm doing it too!)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
From the article:

> But compromise is often even less accurate than the extreme poles of a
> dialectic.

One problem with dialectic thinking is that, the closer you get to one extreme
(pole) being completely "true", the more likely you are to make a synthesis
that is _less_ true than the thesis. (This is even more of an issue where
someone else is controlling the antithesis - perhaps a debater or a
propagandist. In fact, if you're thinking dialectically, and I can supply your
antitheses, I may be able to completely control the results.)

On to your comment:

> Yet, its a common social structure - common enough that we use it without
> even thinking. And that, I think, is the worst possible outcome - assumption
> of correctness without correction.

In particular, the idea that "dialectically is the correct way to think" is
wrong. This is elevating the dialectic from a technique to a philosophy.

Why is that idea wrong? Well, take the statement "dialectically is the correct
way to think". Make that your thesis (in the dialectic sense). Then, if the
dialectic is correct, there must be the antithesis. I don't know what the
antithesis would be, and I don't care; all I need is that there should be one.
And then there should be the synthesis. Again I don't care what it is; all I
need is that it exists, and it is different from the thesis. So starting with
the statement that "dialectically is the correct way to think", _and thinking
dialectically_ , we immediately see that the dialectic is inadequate and needs
to be replaced (because the synthesis is different from the thesis, and the
thesis was that the dialectic is the correct technique).

You mentioned dialectic materialism. That's even worse. Marxist-Leninist
philosophy started with materialism (the wrong starting point, in my opinion),
proceeded six dialectic steps, arrived at communism, _and then stopped_. In
stopping, they were untrue to their dialectic methodology. If the dialectic is
correct, there is an antithesis to communism, and then a synthesis, and after
the seventh step, the answer is no longer communism.

~~~
mmjaa
First, I must compose the statement: I used the phrase "materialism" in a
real, materialist sense. I didn't mean communism, although that is a standing
wave in a social context, but more that the material value of the effort is
only gained by way of the process; i.e. its only for fun, yo. I'm no
communist.

And .. 'wrong'?

Really?

Perhaps it was the social angle, which makes this relevant?

I'm not really wrong, until my friends and enemies tell me I am wrong .. until
them, I'm just .. 'passively disengaged from the dialect' .. or, is it not so?

I totally get you on the philosophy vs. technology approach, though, and I
acknowledge (comrade) your identification with my desire to actually bend that
particular event horizon.

------
danielam
The truth as a matter of fact is quite a different matter than the process of
coming to know the truth. I do not know what an "extreme" is with respect to
the truth as a matter of fact, but where belief about what is true is
concerned, this can mean, e.g., to hold as true an error that reduces reality
in some way. Given that, it may be that, in retrospect, a person who has swung
through extreme positions on some particular point has gained a certain depth
of understanding and perspective, discovering the strengths and weaknesses of
these positions over time. He may find himself facing aporia that he is unable
to resolve (which is what Lonsdale seems to have in mind when he says we
should be able to handle cognitive dissonance). However, the holding of
extreme positions, i.e., errors, is not the end goal even if the end goal is
not practically attainable. It is at best an intermediate state. If there is
some truth to each position, it is not because reality is composed of
contradictions (which is Hegelian), but because each position contains a
kernel of truth that is exaggerated, misattributed, etc. The hard word of
extracting, verifying and reconciling these kernels of truth lies ahead.

Second, that "oppositions" in organizations can produce good results is really
a matter of practical prudence following on the recognition that each of us
may have different strengths and weaknesses, that each of us has a limited
perspective or perspectives on reality and that because of our character
flaws, we may take things to extremes. So, to draw on Lonsdale's example,
let's say we have a bureaucrat driven by an excess fear and desire to
eliminate risk and an entrepreneur who is wreckless, rash and impulsive. When
both kinds of person are pitted against each other at parity, the ensuing
conflict can have a moderating effect on average. It's hardly a perfect
situation, of course. The perfect man would be one in whom these two extremes
of excess caution and wrecklessness are not merely "averaged" into some
arbitrary and bland compromise via some "mechanical or thoughtless procedure".
Rather, "finding the mean in any given situation [...] requires a full and
detailed acquaintance with the circumstances" [0]. It requires the
comprehension of the good and how the bureaucratic and entrepreneurial can
best contribute to it in the given situation and acting in comformity with
this comprehension. This virtue is called courage.

[0] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-
ethics/#DocMea](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#DocMea)

------
cs702
_> Extreme, conflicting viewpoints are often simultaneously true — whether in
business or more broadly in human life. It is the hallmark of a wise
individual to eschew the milquetoast path of middling compromise, and instead
to embrace these "antinomies" of reason and fuse them into a concrete course
of action; to be patient and comfortable with cognitive dissonance._

I fully agree, but I prefer to think of it in terms of Thesis, Antithesis, and
Synthesis.[1]

When one has a mental model of how the world works; that's the Thesis. Then
one comes across a different model that explains how the world works that
contradicts one's Thesis; that's the Antithesis. Over time, one figures out
how to reconcile these two contradicting models into a new model; that's the
Synthesis.

This model of how thought evolves can be applied to large-scale movements in
history. For example, a Thesis of Western capitalist economies in the 19th and
early 20th century was that welfare programs were unnecessary in market
economies. This led to the emergence of an Antithesis in the form of the
socialist movement and eventually communist states, which represented a new
form of political and economic organization. Eventually, a new Synthesis
emerged: the modern Western welfare state, combining the wealth-generation
forces of capitalism with a government-funded safety net that dulls the
sharpest edges of the market.

The Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis model can also be applied to the evolution of
scientific thought. For example, a widely held Thesis in Physics prior to
Einstein's theoretical breakthroughs was that light must travel through a
substance scientists called the "luminiferous aether" in order to satisfy
Newton's and Maxwell's equations.[2] However, in experiment after experiment
the speed of light somehow always appeared to be constant to all observers,
regardless of conditions, which made no sense within the prevailing
theoretical framework (Newton's and Maxwell's equations); this was the
Antithesis to the prevailing Thesis. Finally, Einsten reconciled the Thesis
and the Antithesis into a new Synthesis: the special and then the general
Theory of Relativity.

The Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis model is a great mental model to add to one's
arsenal.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether)

------
DrScump
The original (and non-paywalled) version is here:

[https://www.quora.com/Joe-Lonsdale-what-are-dialectics-
and-w...](https://www.quora.com/Joe-Lonsdale-what-are-dialectics-and-why-are-
they-important-useful)

