#+title: Dialectics | Why Theory
- source :: [[https://soundcloud.com/whytheory/dialectics][Dialectics by Why Theory | Free Listening on SoundCloud]]

* Notes
[[file:../20210310113839-dialectics.org][Dialectics]] is either:
1. [[file:../20210518213042-contradiction.org][Contradiction]] is the driving force of thought and maybe being
2. Identity is always involved in what negates it

[[file:../20210310113839-dialectics.org][Dialectics]] originates in [[file:../20200810223554-plato.org][Plato]], which for him was a form of argument. It was the
idea that you could arrive at a form of [[file:../20210526120310-truth.org][truth]] by identifying contradiction.

Aside: Ryan makes a point in this episode that [[file:../20210526120421-sophistry.org][sophistry]] seems to have won out.
In the court of law, the truth does not win out, but the best argument does.

Dialectics comes back onto the scene in philosophy with [[file:../20200913222320-immanuel_kant.org][Kant]]'s "transcendental
dialectic.", which for him is the idea that we can know the limits to reason at
the points where we run into contradiction, e.g. "does the universe have a
beginning and an end?" We cannot know the fixed beginning and end.

[[file:../20200720100117-hegel.org][Hegel]] intervenes at this point, believing that we /can/ say something about
these moments. "The failure of knowledge indicates something on the level of
being." It becomes an ontology for Hegel.

- [[file:../20210526125354-sense_certainty.org][sense certainty]] :: "all I can trust are my senses"

Aside from Ryan: we're not "post-truth", we're pre-[[file:../20210127223322-enlightenment.org][Enlightenment]], because of the
prevalence of [[file:../20210526125443-conspiracy_thinking.org][conspiracy thinking]].

For [[file:../20200720100117-hegel.org][Hegel]], identifying something means to identify all the things it is not.
Todd says that [[file:../20210520163227-adorno.org][Adorno]] is wrong, then, because for Hegel, every position
ultimately undermines itself if you simply play it out.

[[file:../20200720100117-hegel.org][Hegel]], unlike [[file:../20200810223554-plato.org][Plato]] and [[file:../20200720224232-aristotle.org][Aristotle]], didn't think one should simply get rid of a
concept because it's contradictory.

The [[file:../20210310113839-dialectics.org][dialectical]] approach sees things as interconnected, in contrast to the
analytic approach which sees things in isolation.

Todd and Ryan believe that [[file:../20200707090614-jacques_lacan.org][Lacan]] is a dialectical thinker, because he rejects
the [[file:../20210526153610-subject_object_divide.org][subject-object divide]]. This is best illustrated in his concept of [[file:../20210526153722-objet_a.org][objet a]],
or the "object cause of desire", because it's something "external" to the
subject but something that's important to the subject, affecting the external
world.

The link between [[file:../20200707090614-jacques_lacan.org][Lacan]] and [[file:../20200720100117-hegel.org][Hegel]] is the idea that the concept of [[file:../20210509131706-drive_theory.org][drive]] is one of
self-undermining.