Assumptive Foundations -- Essay 1: The Impact of The Hegelian Dialectic on Psychoanalysis

Other Hegelian papers inside and outside of Psychoanalysis can be found at this blogsite listed below....


http://hegelshotel-mostrecentpapers.blogspot.com/



There is plenty of room for semantic confusion in what we call 'The Hegelian Dialectic' or 'Dialectic Logic' so let us see if we can't clear up one or two of those areas for potential confusion right here and now.

Firstly, let us distinguish between Aristotlean Logic and Hegelian Logic. Hegelian Logic is the more dynamic, the more interactive, and the more integrative of the two forms of logic. Aristotlean Logic is structural and stationary -- it basically follows Parmenides view of the world as 'unchanging' -- whereas Hegelian Logic follows Heraclitus' view of the world as 'constantly changing'. Anaximander (the second oldest Western philosopher and probably Heraclitus' most important indirect teacher) was the first evolutionary, dialectic thinker. Heraclitus followed in Anaximander's footsteps as the second oldest evolutionary dialectic thinker with one important addition to Anaximander's work: the idea of 'homeostatic-dialectic balance' (HDB).

Lao Tse -- from the limits of my knowledge of ancient Chinese Philosophy, who was arguably the founder/creatior of Daoism/Taoism -- is the oldest known Eastern evolutionary, dialectic thinker. From Lao Tse (or perhaps from some invisible philosopher before Lao Tse) we get the Eastern concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' (feminine and masculine energy -- and the need for Homeostatic-Dialectic-Balance -- HDB again -- between them.

Too much 'yin' and we will get sick; too much 'yang' and we will get sick. The mind and body or mind-body need a balance between masculine and feminine energy (yin and yang) to function properly, to function healthily.

Too much 'yang energy' causes too much 'stress' and/or 'inflammation' and/or 'heat' in the mind-body; whereas too much 'yin energy' causes too much 'passivity', not enough 'heat' in the mind-body, and 'lack of assertive energy' in the propulsion of the mind-body.

Now with Aristotle -- or at least with Aristotlean Logic or what is also called Aristotle's principle of 'non-identity', you do not get this type of evolutionary, dynamic, dialectic logic.  Rather, you get 'A' is 'A' and 'B' is 'B' and their respective characteristics are different, never overlap, and therefore, 'A' can never be 'B', and similarly, 'B' can never be 'A' . A horse is a horse, a cow is a cow, and a horse can never be a cow, just as a cow can never be a horse. This is what we are calling 'Aristolean -- (Either/Or) -- Logic'.

This was before Hegel (1770-1831) and then Darwin (1809-1882) entered the picture. Hegel was by far the more profound, abstractive thinker (and predated Darwin) although Darwin obviously shook the foundations of religious philosophy at its very core. Hegel wrote his philosophical masterpiece -- 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807) -- when Darwin was 2 years old.

Hegel's dialectic logic encompassed the idea of 'interaction' and 'integration' that Aristotle's 'either/or logic' did not. Thus, Hegel's dialectic logic encompassed the spirit of 'genetic logic' even if it was Darwin that took genetic logic much further.

You can also call genetic logic 'copulation or fertilization logic'. When 'A' copulates with 'B' and an 'egg' is fertilized, resulting in the offspring of 'AB' that has some of the genetics of both 'A' and 'B' but not all of both -- well, this is Hegelian Dialectic Logic expressed in sexuality and genetics. We might call it the 'sexualization of Hegelian philosophy'.

Other thinkers have said this before me: The greatest ideas are the ideas that have had the most sex. They 'fertilize' the most new ideas.

Hegelian Dialectic Logic is all about 'the fertilization of new integrative ideas through their dynamic, interactive, integrative intercouse with other ideas'.

If 'A' and 'B' dialectically interact and integrate, then this is dialectic logic.

If 'A', 'B', and 'C' (for example, Hegel, Freud, and Jung) dialectically interact and integrate, then this is what we will call 'Multi-Dialectic-Integrative Logic'.

And it is from this type of thinking, that we get what I am calling 'Multi-Dialectic-Integrative (MDI) Psychoanalysis'.

-- dgb, July 1st, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

Table of Contents

I am going to start the process of digging up all my Psychoanalytic papers written over the past couple of years and organize them within this template here. Once all the papers I can find are organized in some coherent fashion, then I will set about the task of further dividing DGB Psychoanalysis into the following parts (and new templates) -- or some later modification of what you see below:

01. The DGB Introductory, Assumptive, and Metaphysical Papers;

02. The DGB Personality Theory Papers;

03. The DGB Personality Type Papers: 'Oral' vs. 'Anal', 'Dionysian' vs. 'Apollonian', 'Narcissistic' vs. 'Altruistic', 'Organized' vs. 'Disorganized';

04. The DGB Learning and Transferernce Theory Papers;

05. The DGB Primary and Secondary Process Papers;

06. The DGB Conscious and Subconscious Theory Papers;

07. The DGB Mythological, Dream, and Nightmare Papers;

08. The DGB Papers on Narcissism;

09. The DGB Seduction Theory Controversy Papers;

10. The DGB Reality-Fantasy Theory Papers;

11. The DGB Traumacy-Impulse-Defense Papers;

12. The DGB 'Instincts and Their Viscisitudes' Papers;

13. The DGB 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' Papers;

14. The DGB 'Ego and The Id' Papers;

15. The DGB Papers on The Theory of Aggression, Destruction, and Death;

16. The DGB Object Relations Papers (The Sexual Object/Figure, The Transference Object/Figure, and The Love/Hate Object/Figure...);

17. The DGB Papers on Neurosis and Psychopathology;

18. The DGB Papers on Humanistic-Existential Psychoanalysis;

19. The DGB Papers on Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: What Should The Integrative Boundaries Be -- The 'Couch'? The 'Hot-Seat'? Either? Or Both?

20. The DGB Papers on Creativity and Sublimation;

21. Summing Up: The DGB Papers on Multi-Dialectic Integrationism vs. 'Either/Or' Choices, Decisions, Actions...


-- dgb, July 1st, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain