1.9. Multi-Bi-Polarities and A Broad Overview Of The History of The Dialectic in Western Philosophy: (Chaos-Order, Predictability-Randomness, Determinism-Freedom, Yin-Yang, Male-Female, Process-System, Hegel-Nietzsche, Subconscious-Conscious, Apollo-Dionysius, Freud-Jung, Superego-Id, Personna-Shadow, Freud-Adler, Transference-Lifestyle, Sex-Power, Conservative-Liberal, Capitalism-Socialism, Humanism-Existentialism, Construction-Deconstruction, Life-Death, Being-Becoming, Contact-Alienation, Assertiveness-Sensitivity...And The Ongoing Evolutionary Synthesis of DGB Multi-Bi-Polar, Optimal Balance) Philosophy


The creation of this philosophical 'system' -- if you will -- has been an ongoing creative process which started out as an academic project back between 1972 and 1974, and has slowly evolved into a life-hobby project. The project has moved from 'psychology' as its main field of investigation in the 1970s and 80s to 'philosophy' in the 90s and 2000s. Philosophy has become the backdrop and underlying basement foundation for my previously linked ideas in psychology that integrated elements of General Semantics, Cogntive Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Jungian Psychology, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis (in many of its different Freudian and post-Freudian renditions), and Transactional Analysis.

The key turning point in this creative, evolutionary development for me involved moving backwards from Jung and Perls to Hegel. Hegel -- indirectly through his influence on clinical psychology and psychotherapy in the 20th century -- opened up my eyes and ears to the study and the history of philosophy from Ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy to 20th century humanistic-existentialism and Derrida's post-Nietzschean 'Deconstruction'. Since Hegel seemed to be the main door forwards from philosophy into clinical psychology, personality theory, and psychotherapy on the one hand (with a strong overlapping respect for the corollorary influence of Nietzsche), as well as Hegel providing a major door backwards into the study of all previous Western (and Eastern) philosophy leading up to Hegel, and since Hegel to me, seemed like the ultimate integrative philosopher with his evolutionary dialectical theory (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) that was the propelling theory that motivated me to study Hegel (and subsequently, much of the whole history of Western philosophy), it seemed natural in the end to call this philosophical project -- 'Hegel's Hotel' -- the central philosophical meeting place for all Western (and non-Western) philosophers, psychologists, and maybe even eventually -- politicians.

Welcome to Hegel's Hotel.

The project -- and system -- starts with one basic idea -- the idea of the dialectic which I was originally exposed to through my study of such psychologists as Freud, Jung, and Perls, then traced back to Hegel, and then through Hegel, traced further back into its philosophical infancy -- into the philosophy of Anaxamander and Heraclitus in Pre-Socratic ancient Greece, as well as across the borders of Europe to China with less clarity as to its actual origin in the philosophy of Confucious perhaps, and definitely later in the integrative philosophy of the Hans Philosophers. Whether it was Confucious or the Han philosophers, or someone before both of them, someone in China came up with the dualistic and dialectic integrative concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' which would become a vital part of Chinese philosophy -- and indeed, extended to Western general usage as well, to this day, more than 2500 years later. Amazingly, this yin-yang philosophy -- this philosophy of bi-polar, dialectical integration, unity, and wholism -- would show some remarkably strong associative similarities to the types of ideas that were being asserted by Anaxamander and Heraclitus arguably some 50 years earlier (Anaxamander, 611-547 BC; Confucious 551-479 BC; Heraclitus, 535-475 BC; the Han Philosophers, 207 BC to 9 AD) without any equivalent to the famous 'yin-yang' terminology being connected to the early dialectical ideas that were being espoused. The twin dialectical ideas of 'yin' and 'yang' were more similar to the ideas of Heraclitus than they were to those of Anaxamander. Anaxamander's dialectic was essentially a 'will-to-power dialectic' , an 'imperialist dialectic' -- not that Anaxamander was advocating and promoting imperialism, but rather Anaxamander was simply stating -- and of course interpreting and generalizing from -- what he saw around him. And what he saw around him was a 'playoff of competing bi-polar forces' (such as the 'imperialism' of Sparta vs. the 'democracy' of Athens) where one side never totally, and permanently dominated the other, but rather there seemed to be a 'cosmic, what goes around comes around' type of logic and justice that was at work in the world and that almost fatalistically and deterministically guarnateed that one side of a 'survival of the fittest competition' would never dominate forever; rather, 'mutation of the underdog into a more powerful worldly force' would always come back and knock the 'topdog' back to the sidelines, knock the topdog back to the underdog position. (This sounds like a forerunner and precursor of at least part of Hegelian theory, but even more similar to Derrida's 'Deconstruction Theory' -- over 2500 years before Derrida's philosophical theory became popular!

In contrast, Heracitus brand of ' bi-polar, dialectical theory' took an evolutionary step forward from Anaxamander's philosophy -- which is not to state that Anaxamander's 'will-to-power-and-reversal-of-fortunes-through-mutation-of-the-underdog' philosophy isn't as directly relevant today as it was over 2500 years ago (unless perhaps my philosophy critics believe that I am taking too much creative liberty with the implications and applications of Anaxamander's philosophy -- to be sure, we only have 'small, leftover fragments of his philosphy from which it is easy to go 'creatively wild' with these fragments. However, I will stick to my guns here and continue to argue that my personal interpretation of his philosophy is both grounded and as relevant today as it was over 2500 years ago.) What Heraclitus added to Anaxamander's dialectical formula was the idea of 'dialectical complementarity, negotiation, integration, unity, and wholism' -- which is an idea that exploded into Hegel's most famous of dialectical theories -- the triangular 'dance' of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis'. Nietzsche built on this idea in his first (and he would say only) 'post-Hegelian work' -- The Birth of Tragedy , 1871. In my opinion, BT as we will call it from now on, was the forerunner and precursor of Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Gestalt Therapy. Freud may not have read Nietzsche until later in his psychoanalytic career, but regardless, BT is essentially a psychanalytic work -- some ten or eleven years before Freud met his first patient (the famous 'Anna O' -- around 1882 if I am not mistaken).
What we have in the combined philosophical forces of the pre-Socratics, Anaxamander and Heraclitus, is in essence then, the foundation of Western and (Eastern) dualistic and dialectic philosophy, which in my opinion makes up the bulk of Western philosophy. What I will say from this, and this may be considered by many to be 'philosohical blasphemy' is that the philosophical foundation provided by the combined work of Anaxamander and Heraclitus is just as important, if not more important, to the overall evolution of Western philosophy, as the combined work of Socrates and Plato. (Nietzsche has been here before and made essentially the same argument -- if not even less diplomatically). One can see the remnants of Socratean philosophy in a present day courtroom, one can see the remnants of Plato's philosophy in practically every religion in the world but there is something about Anaxamander's 'will to power and cosmic justice' dialectic and Heraclitus' 'dialectical complementarity, unity, and wholism' philosophy that supersedes the work of both Socrates and Plato. One can say that it was the Anaxamander-Heraclitus connection, not the Socrates-Plato connection, that stimulated the greatest philosophical explosion in Western history from Hegel to Marx to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls to Derrida not to mention the political ramification of Marxian philosophy on the spread of (pathologically interpreted and applied) socialism and Communism in Russia and China, and Nietzsche's 'will to power' philosophy on the evolution of (pathological) German Imperialism and Nazism.

What you have read so far in the paragraphs above represents the backbone of the body of educational information I have arrived at after some 30 plus years of studying Western psychology and philosophy. The 'spinal cord' if you will of this backbone hinges around the idea of the 'dialectic' -- and more precisely, the integrated ideas of 'multi-bi-polar, creative, dialectical negotiation, integration, unity, and wholism'. This is the very essence of the philosophical system -- DGB Philosophy -- that I will be putting before you. 'DGB' stands for the initials of my name -- David Gordon Bain -- and it also stands for 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging' which is another way of describing the essence of the philosophy that I am about to put before you. I put this integrative set of ideas out there before you represented both in its simpler name of 'DGB Philosophy', and in it slightly more technical name of 'DGB Integrative, Multi-Bi-Polar Philosophy'. The system is both an 'epistemological system' in that it is asserting something about human nature, and indeed, about all of life in general: specifically, that we are all multi-bi-polar, and indeed, all of life is multi-bi-polar. I take no credit for this proposition, no credit for this theory, no credit for this philosophy and psychology of man, nature, and evolution, other than perhaps for the new, integrative way in which I present it, and to state that it is a theory and a philosophy and a psychology that has run through both Western and Eastern history in different but similar costumes to the tune of some 2700 years -- from Anaxamander and Heraclitus, to Confucious and the Han philosophers, to Fichte and Hegel and Marx, to Nietzsche (in 'The Birth of Tragedy') and Freud and Jung and and Berne and Perls to the biology of W.B. Cannon and the principle of 'homeostasis', to Derrida's 'Deconstruction'. And I am just touching or shaping a part of the 'dialectical iceberg' of Western and Eastern philosophy. There are many, many renditions of this same general philosophy that I have not touched on. One could easily argue -- which I do -- that it would be impossible for one basic idea -- let's call it the idea of multi-bi-polarity -- to appear and re-appear and re-appear again in a practically an endless varieties of 'language-semantic renditions' over thousands of years of human history -- and not have some strong element of 'epistemological truth' attached to it.


However, beyond epistemology and the endless search for 'functional knowledge or truth' by which to 'base our epistemological or conceptual maps by' and live our lives by, philosophy -- and particularlily here, DGB Philosphy -- takes one giant step further and reaches into the study of 'ethics' and 'ethical idealism'. The philosophical question has been asked over time: 'Can and/or should a system of values, morals, and ethics be co-related and based on a system of epistemology? Many philosophers have said 'no'. This philosopher is saying 'yes'. From the epistemological theory of 'multi-bi-polarity' comes the ethical theory of 'homeostasis', or 'dialectical balance' or 'optimal balance' which can be used to cover science, biology, physics, chemistry, bio-chemistry, medicine, psychology, philosophy, psychotherapy, politics, art, law, business and economics, politics, religion, sports and recreation, and whatever else I may have missed. And this too is the domain of DGB Integrative, Multi-Bi-Polar Philosophy.

From an ethical and a point of view of 'philosophical and psychological health', DGB Philosphy supports and promostes a style of life that operates around the 'half way point' between 'self-denial' and 'self-absorption' -- or, in the latter case, a term that became popularized by Freud and those life myself who have continued to use the term after Freud -- 'narcissism', or in its unhealthy state, 'unbridled, uncontrolled, unadulterated, narcissism'. Thus, in my opinion, Freud was essentially right to differentiate between two different types of 'neuroses' if you will which were/are essentially the 'neuroses of anxiety, guilt, and self-denial' vs. the 'neuroses of over-indulgence, narcissism, and unethical civil behavior'. I call the first brand of 'neuroses' -- if you don't mind me sticking with a psychological term that has been used for over a hundred years -- 'the existential neuroses' (or neuroses of 'not being and becoming') vs. 'the narcissisitic neuroses' which are the neuroses of over-self-indulgence, self-absorption, uncivil behavior, unethical behavior, dangerous behavior, and ultimately, self-destructive behavior.

From this, we arrive at another name for the 'ethical' side of DGB Philosophy which might also be called 'DGB Optimal Balance Philosophy'.

So again I come back to the question, 'Can man arrive at a "natural ethical system" -- one supported by scientific, philosophical, and psychological epistemological knowledge of a functional value? And I answer, 'Yes, the proof -- or at least the logical argument -- lies in 2700 years of Western and Eastern philosophy where the 'epistemological theory of multi-bi-polarity' leads to the 'ethical theory of optimal (homeostatic) balance'.

If this was a 'fictional' novel, of which this essay was the first chapter, then I would be destroying a good novel, because I would be sabotaging the 'mystery' of this novel by essentially writing the last chapter in the first. But this is not a fictional novel -- rather this essay is the culmination of 30 plus years of psychological and philosophical research on my part. So those of you who wish to 'explore the myriad of different pieces that make up the integrative, multi-bi-polar whole of this work', please, I welcome you to stay with me, through essays on epistemology, history, psychology, ethics, politics, law, business and economics, religion, art -- a combination of essays that I have already written and essays that have yet to be written, as DGB Philosophy continues to evolve. And to be sure, this is at least partly and eventually meant to be a 'multi-dialectical-integrative philosophical forum -- 'Hegel's Hotel' -- where your feedback and your essays, regardless of their editorial opinion, are welcome here as long as they meet a level of 'professionalism' and 'humanism' that, in my admittedly subjective, 'non-perfect', opinion, is moving in the same direction as what I wish to accomplish here. I am trying to promote participative democracy here, not suppress it -- even in the cases of opinions, ideas, essays, and other 'systems of philosophy' that I don't necessarily agree with. Come one, come all -- to Hegel's Hotel.

DGB, Dec. 25th-29th, 2006.