Logic and Dialectical Reasoning

[Pattern-chaser]

---X=X. X is always X and never something else.

Since you can't step in the same river twice, you cannot have X=X.
X=X is only ever an approximation which has to ignore the individuality of all Xes.

Hmm. In algebra, we often use letters to represent quantities, with the understanding that the letters might (at some time) stand for any specific number. Here, I don't think that it is the case. Here, I think we are to understand that X is used to refer to one unique and specific thing, not to a class of things.


As for stepping into rivers, I'm an adherent of Cratylus, who averred that one cannot even step into the same river once.

The message of the one river comment is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice, but something much more subtle and profound. It is that some things stay the same only by changing. One kind of long-lasting material reality exists by virtue of constant turnover in its constituent matter. Here constancy and change are not opposed but inextricably connected.

[ Paraphrased by me, hopefully without compromising the original intended meaning. ]

[thrasymachus]

arjand wrote:
Kant clearly makes a qualitative distinction between analytical and dialectical logic and expresses to say farewell to dialectical reasoning as being a 'logic of illusions' (i.e. invalid reasoning).

Though it is not dialectical thinking as such that runs into trouble. Rather, it is the irresponsible metaphysics it can produce when there is no suitable intuition to give content to concepts. One can hardly argue against dialectics in its form, for it is no less than than an exercise in logic: the conditional. You say, e.g., good fences make good neighbors and I say such fences create barriers between people. we can argue this and at some point, if the weight of the one is agreed upon to exceed the other, the matter can be, at least provisionally, resolved. Kant, of course, wold never deny such a logical process. He does object to the construction of metaphysical thinking that possesses no empirical content, and is not analytic. It's like taking a valid argument and arbitrarily ascribing soundness to it. This is what a Christian metaphysics has been doing for a long time.

[Arjen]

I think Dialectical reasoning is pathological. It starts from fundamentally conceiving of making a choice in terms of figuring out the best option.

I 2nd that.

Also: Dialectical reasoning made to serve is:
1) Play out racial divides with a history of slavery that the current generation had no part in.
2) When choosing who is right (black or white), the logical choice is the former victims, making the current generations victims.
3) This plays out for the whole group as a schism.
4) That schism can then be used by saying: there should not be a schism. In my new way (communism), there is no schism at all.
5) We forgot that the current generation in the USA has nothing to do with the past and that the CCP does have concentration camps with minorities in it.

Pathological alright.

Does anyone recognise this?

[chewybrian]

---X=X. X is always X and never something else.

Since you can't step in the same river twice, you cannot have X=X.
X=X is only ever an approximation which has to ignore the individuality of all Xes.

Hmm. In algebra, we often use letters to represent quantities, with the understanding that the letters might (at some time) stand for any specific number. Here, I don't think that it is the case. Here, I think we are to understand that X is used to refer to one unique and specific thing, not to a class of things.


As for stepping into rivers, I'm an adherent of Cratylus, who averred that one cannot even step into the same river once.

The message of the one river comment is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice, but something much more subtle and profound. It is that some things stay the same only by changing. One kind of long-lasting material reality exists by virtue of constant turnover in its constituent matter. Here constancy and change are not opposed but inextricably connected.

[ Paraphrased by me, hopefully without compromising the original intended meaning. ]

X in that case was intended to represent a state of something, like "the car is blue" or "the dog is in the back yard". Either these things are true or not true, but the dog is not both in and not in the back yard, etc.

I think maybe you answered your own question about contradiction. I saw a bit of the ship of Theseus in that idea of ever-present contradiction, along with contradictions or unresolvable conflicts in our attempts to resolve problems. In the example I gave before about needles for drug users, you can see a yin and yang effect that seems to be present in pretty much every choice. You can't do good without doing something a bit bad in the process.

About parts and the whole... This is about not examining the part out of context of its relationship to other parts, to the past, etc. If you examine the part on its own, the true meaning and usefulness of it (as a component of the whole) is lost. Take one principle from an army handbook of policy and procedure, and apply it to a group of girl scouts. In the process, you have lost the value of the particular policy as a part of a larger scheme. It likely would have a very different value (if any) to the girl scouts, despite the policy being reprinted word for word.

[Arjen]

chewybrian
What is your purpose with this topic exactly, by the way?

[Sculptor1]

Since you can't step in the same river twice, you cannot have X=X.
X=X is only ever an approximation which has to ignore the individuality of all Xes.

X is supposed to refer to the same thing, at the same time, in the same respect, etc. in both instances there. "A thing (at a particular time) is itself" or "A thing is identical to the thing it is" in other words.

There is no such thing as X in the same place at the same time. That is impossible. Simultanouse co-location is not something anything has managed to achieve.

[Sculptor1]

---X=X. X is always X and never something else.

Since you can't step in the same river twice, you cannot have X=X.
X=X is only ever an approximation which has to ignore the individuality of all Xes.

Hmm. In algebra, we often use letters to represent quantities, with the understanding that the letters might (at some time) stand for any specific number. Here, I don't think that it is the case. Here, I think we are to understand that X is used to refer to one unique and specific thing, not to a class of things.

No two quantities an ever be exactly the same, except theoretically.
X is vauge and is used for many things. Unless you want to keep maths and logic purely int eh abstract and theoretical - fine. However it all a but esoteric and the only time that maths and logic have any value is when they are applies to real life situations.
That is exactly why X=X can only be an approximation.

[chewybrian]

@chewybrian
What is your purpose with this topic exactly, by the way?

When I encounter or rediscover something that interests me, I want to learn more, and to test what I think I know about it, to see if my understanding survives scrutiny. My core interest in philosophy is understanding how it overlaps with psychology. I am keenly interested in self-improvement through philosophy. I believe that opinion forms experience in the world. We can effectively improve our experience in the world by changing our outlook, even when we are unable to change the basic facts of reality. So, my broader purpose is to see how these ideas might impact or improve cognition and state of mind.

[Arjen]

I do agree with you, but imagine those buddhist monks in Tibet, changing their perspective. Yet their expercience doesn't seem to get them out of those concentration camps...

I do have a skill in logic. Do you have specific questions that I migjt be able to help with?

[Pattern-chaser]

There is no such thing as X in the same place at the same time. That is impossible. Simultanouse co-location is not something anything has managed to achieve.

No two quantities an ever be exactly the same, except theoretically.
X is vauge and is used for many things. Unless you want to keep maths and logic purely int eh abstract and theoretical - fine. However it all a but esoteric and the only time that maths and logic have any value is when they are applies to real life situations.
That is exactly why X=X can only be an approximation.

I think you're misunderstanding what's being said here. X = X does not compare two things, both referred to as "X". It says that X is identically equal to itself, not to something else. No simultaneous co-location. No approximation.

[Arjen]

The overlap with psychology is just that a formalisation of the working of the mind to understand the thought better. For me, Frege's "Begrifsschrift" was really cool. He is just before the proper formalisation of Logic. For example, he confuses the predicate and the element still.

Russell's paradox confirms the mistake.

[Arjen]

I think you're misunderstanding what's being said here. X = X does not compare two things, both referred to as "X". It says that X is identically equal to itself, not to something else. No simultaneous co-location. No approximation.

Pattern-chaser is right. Identity is identity. In fact, we should say that "The grass is green if and only if the grass is green".
Or: Gg=Gg<==>Gg=Gg
Or your example: x=x<==>x=x

But oerhaps you all feel that triviality can go no further.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think Dialectical reasoning is pathological. It starts from fundamentally conceiving of making a choice in terms of figuring out the best option.

I 2nd that.

Also: Dialectical reasoning made to serve is:
1) Play out racial divides with a history of slavery that the current generation had no part in.
2) When choosing who is right (black or white), the logical choice is the former victims, making the current generations victims.
3) This plays out for the whole group as a schism.
4) That schism can then be used by saying: there should not be a schism. In my new way (communism), there is no schism at all.
5) We forgot that the current generation in the USA has nothing to do with the past and that the CCP does have concentration camps with minorities in it.

Pathological alright.

Does anyone recognise this?

"Recognise" seems like too strong a term. What you have written seems to resemble an unexpected and inappropriate straw man attempt to excuse or justify racism, worthy of the current POTUS. Is this intended as some kind of refutation of "dialectical reasoning"? If so, please tell us how your words achieve this. I can't see it. No, I don't "recognise this" at all.

[chewybrian]

I do agree with you, but imagine those buddhist monks in Tibet, changing their perspective. Yet their expercience doesn't seem to get them out of those concentration camps...

You are right, but the bitter irony is that those guys are surely able to endure the experience better based on their training. If they have no control over their situation, they retain control over their reaction to or opinion about the situation, and this is a huge factor in happiness or state of mind.

In contrast, there are many people here in the states who have freedom, opportunity and luxury unknown to most men who have ever lived, yet lament not having what they don't have. Many of them are miserable because the create perfect forms in their mind of what they should or could have, or 'deserve', and these are something of a fantasy, but seem real enough to cause an impression of suffering.

The bottom line is that your happiness or perceived suffering are only loosely connected to the real world. Some things in the real world will cause you real pain or suffering. But, you can be more of a burden to yourself than the entire world if your expectations are unrealistic, or you are unwilling to reset them as conditions change, as is the case with many people.

I do agree with you, but imagine those buddhist monks in Tibet, changing their perspective. Yet their expercience doesn't seem to get them out of those concentration camps...

I do have a skill in logic. Do you have specific questions that I migjt be able to help with?

I'm not really that interested in pursuing logic further, but in looking behind or beyond it. I'm curious in what situations and on what basis you might see that logic fails or has no standing. I want to know what precedes logic and what rises above it. I was married to logic for a long time, as I think many people are. It is very easy to think that you are fair-minded when you stack logic upon all sorts of preconceptions and prejudices. I've concluded that focusing on the logic and being proud of my devotion to logic led me to a very bad place. Setting it aside and seeing that my perspective was not necessarily correct led me to feel better (a lot better!) and to be better (a little bit, at least).

So, I am not against logic, and I don't embrace illogical thinking. But, I think we lean too hard on logic and suffer greatly and needlessly as a result. I think many of us would benefit by 'unlocking' our brains a bit.

[Steve3007]

I think "logic" suffers from the problem that its colloquial use is often completely different from its standard definition, as do some other words. People often use the term "logical", colloquially, to mean something related to empirical evidence. So they claim that some proposition is illogical when they really mean that the proposition makes an empirical claim which is inconsistent with patterns established by observation.

But, I think we lean too hard on logic and suffer greatly and needlessly as a result. I think many of us would benefit by 'unlocking' our brains a bit.

Could you give an example of an instance of something that you see as leaning too hard on logic?