Philosophy of Science Association

On the Nature and Use of Dialectic Author(s): Edward G. Ballard Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Jul., 1955), pp. 205-213 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/185315 Accessed: 18/03/2010 16:14
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ON THE NATURE AND USE OF DIALECTIC

EDWARD G. BALLARD

Dialectic, like love, has a good and a bad reputation. This ambivalence may be illustrated in different ways in almost every period of philosophical history. One may even suspect that this richness borders upon confusion. And yet, the attempt to orientate oneself in this jungle of meanings can be expected to be profitable, for the term "dialectic" has always referred, although often obscurely, to notions and processes of the first importance. The definition, illustration, and evaluation of the uses of this term should, accordingly, be a task promising some value. Hints concerning the nature of dialectic are offered in the myth of the Phaedrus, according to which the philosophic and divine souls imitate the celestial bodies and circle around the intelligible fire in an ecstasy of insight. Thus ordinary dialectic, following the natural inclination of the soul, circles around one topic and developes its intelligible aspects until understanding is attained. Quite naturally, then, Plato hailed dialectic, both in the earlier form of hypothesis and elenchus and in the later form of collection and division, as the philosopher's instrument and technique par excellence. On the contrary, though, Aristotle believed it not to be a means for increasing the precision and scope of knowledge but rather to be futile or at best probable reasoning. According to Kant's usage, dialectic cannot add to knowledge at all. Then Hegel sought to restore its ancient reputation and use and succeeded in exalting it almost beyond recognition. One may wonder whether, in this see-saw history, these meanings have retained anything in common or whether they have not been caught up in the dialectic process itself and made to undergo a sea-change. If the term does retain any meaning common to these varied philosophies, probably it refers to the actual processes of the mind in its attempts to clarify its concepts and to acquire knowledge; it seems to refer to logic in actual operation. The varying estimates of its value appear to stem from the recognition that the mind easily misuses this instrument and produces seductive illusion instead of clarifications. Dialectic is a dangerous instrument. Dangerous or not, though, it is probably a defensible historical thesis to hold that a fairly stable meaning has been associated with this term throughout philosophical history, even by those who disprove of its use. The present purpose is not to defend this historical thesis but to provide a definition and a description of "dialectic" in a general form, to suggest some illustrations of this meaning which will elicit important facets, and finally to discuss the problem of its evaluation. 1. The Meaning of Dialectic. Originally dialectic referred to a well-regulated conversation in which the participants, by the exchange of information and ideas, brought each other into a state of agreement or at least into mutual understanding. As many philosophers have recognized, though, the pattern of an interchange of this kind is involved in very many contexts other than the conversa205

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tional. It will be useful to express this pattern in its most universal form. A viable and generaldefinitionof this term may be found, I believe, if it be specified as a sort of causal relation,holding between entities of a certain kind, and related to an end. The suggestionthat dialectic may be definedas a kind of causal relationmay sound like an explanationignotium per ignotium. Nevertheless,there exists some consensusthat causality can be separatedfrom anthropomorphic accretionsand renderedboth preciseand widely applicableif it is definedin terms of sufficient conditions.Thus, it is not the case that the cause occurs and the effect fails to occur;that is, only if the effect occursdoes the cause occur.This is as much to say that the cause is the sufficientconditionof the effect.1 Unfortunatelythis definitionlogically entails that on the occasionswhen the effectfails to occurthat the causefails also. This possibilityis often not intended by the usage of "cause".For example,if my readingan article is the cause of of its subject matter, it does not followin fact that my failure my understanding to understandit causes my omissionto read it. This difficultycan be avoided For the presentpurpose,however,the definiby an alterationin the definition.2 tion of the causal relation as given will suffice,for I do not believe that such modifications as the last remarkmay suggestwill falsify what is to be said about dialectic. This causal relation is exemplifiedin many differentkinds of occasions, for example in efficient causation where contact with one particle is the sufficient condition of the change in momentumand velocity of another, and where the causingparticleundergoesan alterationas a result of the impact. The momentum might be passedalong an indefinitelylong series of particlesin this manner. This causal relation is exemplified in organic systems and in psychological Likewisein a logical sense, premisesare said to be the sufficientconchanges.3 dition or cause of the conclusion,and certain theories of induction attempt to set up conditionsunderwhich the data might be said to cause the theory based upon them. Some restrictionis placed upon the generalityof the definitionof the causal relationby noting that the kind of entities it can relate must be at least partly homogeneous.The momentum of the billiard ball does not somehow cause a thought to appearin another billiardball; the effect is analogousto the cause. as it already possesses. The causal event can transmit only such characteristics This transmittedelement may be thought of as a structure.The moving billiard ball is a structure of mass and force; it communicatesthe same or partly the between cause and same structure to its effect. This kind of correspondence
I This translation of the causal relation into the relation of material implication has not infrequently been expressed. Cf. J. M. Johnson, "Rival Principles of Explanation," Psychological Review, 46, no. 6, Nov. 1939, p. 493 ff; and A. W. Burks, "The Logic of Causal Relations," Mind, LX, 1951, pp. 363-382. 2 Cf. H. A. Simon, "On the Definition of the Causal Relation," J. of Philos. XLIX, no. 16, July, 1952, 517-528. ' Cf. H. M. Johnson, article cited.

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effect was phrased by the Mediaevals as an axiom: like causes like. Russell has given this axiom a modern turn in his generalization: "It appears generally that if A and B are two complex structures and A can cause B, then there must be some degree of identity of structure between A and B."4 For present purposes, this expression of the partial structural identity between cause and effect is introduced to define the kind of entity which can enter into a causal relation. It limits the causal relation to holding among partially homogeneous entities. An occasion of causation is an occasion where some identity in structure is transmitted from one event to another. It will be useful to distinguish causal relations which are linear, as in the example of the billiard balls, from those which are cyclical. The latter are exemplified in certain self-perpetuating systems in nature and in human organizations. These systems are organizations characterized by the presence of events which maintain continuously reciprocal causal relations. If A and B are such events in a relatively isolated system, then if A causes an effect in B, A will be changed as a consequence; such events are said to be related by reciprocal causality. But this statement is scarcely other than a generalized statement of Newton's third law. If, though, the relation between A and B is continuously reciprocal, the situation is greatly changed. The change effected in B will react back on A, changing A. The changed A will then react in a somewhat different way upon the changed B, and so on. Thus a system of continuously and mutually changing events or entities is set up; this may be called a cyclical system. When this relation of cyclical or continuous reciprocal causality holds among events, then they are dialectically related, or they interact dialectically, or they form a dialectical system. Such a dialectical system will be continuously in the process of altering its characteristics while, in virtue of the principle of similarity of cause and effect, preserving some identity of structure. This kind of change will be referred to as evolution or dialectical movement. Dialectic is the changer changing in a continuous process. one In a linear causal series, in which A causes B and B causes C, etc...., can scarcely refer to an end of the series in any sense other than the final temporal member of the series. In the cyclical or dialectical system, however, again the situation is different. For this kind of system moves in a direction; it moves in one specifiable manner rather than in another. The notion of end is a convenient way of defining this direction. And this end is not merely a terminal member of a series, for the dialectical system changes and increases the complexity of its organization during the process of its development. The end may be defined as the most complex state in a dialectical development. No reference is made at this point to conscious foresight of the end nor to its desirability or maturity. These are complicated notions which are referable to some systems but not to all. All that is stated is that the end of a dialectical movement is the most complex state which is compatible with preservation of its (structural)
4 Human Knowledge,N. Y., 1948, p. 468.

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identity. The way in whichthe notion of end can be used in evaluatingdialectical movementwill becomemore clear as we proceed. A dialecticalsystem, then, is exemplifiedon any occasionwhen distinguishable homogeneousevents are related by continuouslyreciprocalcausality and move toward a state which, in some specifiablesense, may be termed an end. It is not pretendedthat this definitionof dialectic in its genericsense is final. On the contraryit obviously employs principlesand notions which requireexplication.Such clarificationand explanation,however,would lead beyond present limits and into some further study. We shall, at this writing, accept this definitionand note a few illustrationsof it in differentspecies of systems. in terms of the kinds Speciesof dialecticalsystems are roughlydistinguishable of elementsor entities which enter into this dynamicrelation.Thus there is, for instance, a mechanicaldialectic, a biologicaldialecticin which the elements are organismsor families of organismsin dynamic relationshipwith the environment,-and various sorts of dialectical situations in which human beings participate. 2. Illustrations of Dialectic. The type of physical system which most clearly illustrates the notion of dialectic as mutual causation is the self-regulatingor automatic control machines.In a system of this kind one mechanismA effects a changein another,B. A distinctive aspect is the feedback,a mediatingmechaA of the change,with the nism which recordsthe alterationin B and "informs" then, is a mechaFeedback, result that A's causal activity is altered thereby. in new activity. behavior of former the results nism for continuouslyincluding causality. A B reciprocal and are related continuous by Throughits operation is of this of machine scarcely intelligiblewithout kind a Further, the behavior mention of the goal it is built to achieve, for the alterationsof A and B are purto a desiredstate. A thermoposive and are measuredby their approximation static device set to maintain a room at a given temperatureregulates the fuel feeding mechanismin a manner inversely proportionalto the temperatureof the room. Room and furnace constitute the cyclical causal order characteristic of a dialecticalsystem. Without the feedback,the room and furnacewould constitute a linea causal order, and the furnacewould heat the room to whatever temperatureuntil it ran out of fuel. Many of the interactions between animals and their environment,whether physical or animate, provide an unlimited number of illustrationsof the same which have often been recognizedto be very closely kind of intercommunion Thus the developingmutual adaptation of similarto self-regulatingmachines.5 is an obvious illustration of such a system. Other organismand environment groupsof illustrationsof mutual causationare to be found within variouskinds of human activity and its products. Dialectical relations may hold between a
s Many analogies of this sort between self-regulating machines and organisms, already evident in the terminology associated with Cybernetics, are developed and discussed by K. W. Deutsch, in "Mechanism, Organism, and Society," Phil. of Science, 18, no. 3, July, 1951, pp. 230-252.

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science of nature and its data; they may hold among sciences and techniques themselves (for instance, the art of painting in perspective and projective geometry were once related in this manner). A man may be dialectically related to his work, each causing changes in the other continuously. People, in large and small groups, enter into this relation. And there is every reason to suspect that a dialectic is also carried on within an individual between distinguishable parts of his organism. This pattern is, in fact, so widespread and so familiar that more detailed illustrations of it would appear to be needless for present purposes. It will be more interesting to ask how a good illustration is to be selected. Usually there exists the presumption that the relative value of dialectical systems is a function of their efficiency in reaching or avoiding a given goal. For dialectic often does not move in the manner and direction desired. Computing machines sometimes go into oscillation. Species of animals become extinct. And men sometimes become involved in fruitless routines or lose contact with their world. It plainly becomes important, therefore, to be able to pass judgment upon a dialectical movement. Perhaps a fuller characterization of this movement could be used over again as a standard by which it could be judged and partly controlled. 3. The Standard of Dialectic. The kinds of knowledge of the dialectical movement which will be useful in controlling it are plainly insight into its end and knowledge of the means by which the end is produced. For the purpose of a brief consideration of these two problems, it will be convenient to be restricted to situations in which human beings are involved. First, then, what is the nature of the end of a dialectical movement? More specifically, it may be inquired whether the end of a dialectical movement is intrinsic to that movement or whether it must be imposed by some external agent. This problem, which in one form or another has been the storm center of so many philosophical controversies, is scarcely answered by the suggestion that the end of a developmental process is its most complex identifiable state. If there is an intrinsic end to a dialectical movement, though, perhaps it can be identified by noting the pervasive characteristic of this complexity. This characteristic will evidently be present in the several examples of dialectic which have been cited. In the cybernitical illustration with which we began, the effect of A's causal relation to B was "fed back" to A, thereby altering A so that its subsequent causal relation to B, as thus changed, would more closely approximate to the desired end. That which is fed by B back to A is technically called "information". Information has been defined as "those aspects ... of each physical process which all these processes have in common."6 The language of this definition evidently assumes the partial homogeneity (or the comparability) of the entities A and B and recalls the prescription of their structural likeness in the quotation from Russell cited already. This mutual causality mediated by "information"
6 K.

W. Deutsch, Op Cit. p. 243.

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gradually moves A and B toward the goal, which is evidently a state characterized by the fuller sharing by A and B of a common structure. As an animal lives in its environment, it changes that environment and becomes changed by this activity, with the result that animal and environment approach a state of mutual adaptation or mutual information. Data and theory, knower and known, likewise become mutually informed. The data become more and more amply available and increasingly precisely observed as improved theory enables the construction of more selective and accurate instruments. The final and ideal result would be the detailed and complete theory precisely reflecting the whole of the data. And finally, the human being, the knower, entertains a dialectical movement between the imaginative and unconscious parts of his psyche and his intellectual mind. Probably most physicians would agree that the desirable development involves both of the parts mutually related. Information, in the healthy mind, moves back and forth between imaginative and unconscious levels of the psyche and the intellectual portion of the mind in the form of dreams, reverie, appreciation, and in motor, verbal and rational activity, with the final consequence that the several parts of the mind become harmoniously related, i. e. "integrated." The conscious and intellectual mind accepts the imaginative mind, and each reflects the other; the one is constantly translating the enlarging contents of the other into its own economy. In each of these instances the movement which the dialectical relation appears naturally to engender is toward a mutual reflection or conformity between the A and the B, i. e. the events which enter into this relation. This may be expressed by saying that the events within such a context tend toward identity of structure.With respect to this goal dialectic may be regarded as mutual translation. Indeed, this culmination might have been foreseen in the definitions with which we began, but it is significant that it should be found to be exemplified in fact. This goal, the achievement of identity of structure, can be accepted as a standard and used as a means for passing a rough judgment upon the efficiency of any dialectical system. The standard, however, can be observed in more than one form. It is easy to note, as examples of dialectic are passed in review, that movement toward identity of structure within a dialectical system is of two kinds: finite and continuous. Some dialectical systems achieve a state of equilibrium in which this identity has progressed, apparently, as far as circumstances will allow. When a computing machine solves a problem it arrives at a definite termination of its dialectical movement. When a species of animal becomes stabilized within its environment and ceases evolution (e.g. some anthropods), or when a man ceases growth and uses his energy in the repetition of routines, then again the dialectical movement arrives at a termination. On the other hand some dialectical contexts do not appear to reach any such point of arrest or routine. The relationship between theory and data in the healthier sciences seems to progress without end toward ever increasing theoretical precision and scope. Similarly in the psychically healthy man the unconscious impulses and energies are continuously being translated into concepts and actions, and these translations react

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again upon the unconscious. Or in a Platonic dialogue, the definitions discovered and the partially solved problems provide instruments and arouse energies for attacking the same and kindred problems, and the process appears to reach no termination except the continuous clarification of the infinite obscurities in human life and thought. Perhaps, though, this is end enough; in dialectic of the continuous type the goal is the continuous increase in degree of structural identity or formal similarity among the entities which enter into this relation. Dialectic moves toward harmonizing the structures of the events which participate in it, but the harmony actually achieved may not always be that which is externally desired. For this reason, in part at least, dialectic has acquired a bad name among some philosophers. The only standard intrinsic to dialectic, however, seems to be the standard relative to the movement toward similarity in form or identity of structure among the events which participate in it. A dialectical process is intrinsically good if and only if the events involved in it do in fact move through mutual interaction toward increasing similarity in form. Whether the form is that which is desired by someone making use of the process for his own ends can be decided only by external criteria. Again whether these criteria are good or not depends upon factors external to the given dialectical process. No doubt, the outcome of some dialectical development will have to be chosen as the supreme standard and erected into an axiological principle definitory of such notions as the desirable, the mature, the perfect. Is there, though, any reason to expect this crucial dialectic to reach a final end which ought to be regarded as the perennial orthodoxy? The answer to this question-human prejudice to one side-must depend upon the nature of the categories which the thinker is able to bring to bear upon the problem. And this opens up quite another pursuit. The present point is restricted merely to this: the intrinsic end of a dialectical development is homogeneity of structure of the events composing it. It cannot propose its external end; this end must be selected for it. Once, though, the end or specific type of identity of structure is proposed and incorporated in a dialectical system by suitable means, or made intrinsic to it, the process may move toward its achievement. A dialectical system may move toward the goal toward which it has been aimed or is aiming, but clearly this movement is not inevitable. The means may be inadequate; that is, the events composing a dialectical context may not be capable of achieving homogeneity of structure. The pathology of dialectic is a large and difficult topic; it will be appropriate in this paper to mention briefly only three of its varieties which are pertinent to the illustrations already used. One kind of dialectical failure can be seen in a computing machine which may go into oscillation, if given an insoluble problem, or it may stop. The analogy is often pointed out between such a machine and the neurotic who becomes involved in a vicious circle and violently attempts to achieve two mutually opposing ends at the same time. Another kind of failure is observable in a dialectical system when one member or entity within it ceases to react causally; mutual translation does not occur among its members and development ceases. Evidently something similar to this condition occurs in the persons who disintegrate

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mentally. In these persons one portion of their personality is repressed and disassociated from the other portion. The disassociated portion may live a life of its own, so to speak, but it stops interchanging information with the other part and hence ceases to be a part of the same system. More philosophically interesting than these two kinds of pathological dialectic is a third which fails, apparently, because of too great a success. This is the tragic theme of antiquity. It will be remembered that the tragic hero was always a man of superior ability whose tragic catastrophe occurred owing to his superior, even excessive, virtue. Similarly, dialectical systems are sometimes encountered which function with such efficiency that they appear to attract other and foreign elements into their system. If these new elements are not such as can in reality embody the form or structure which is the goal of the dialectical system, then a catastrophe follows which demands a catharsis of the foreign elements. Examples can be cited from the history of philosophy to illustrate this kind of pathological dialectic. Certainly one of these crucial points in history occurred at the end of the middle ages when it was recognized by some men possessing curiosity about nature that the doctrine of final causes, as it was then current, actually prevented attaining insight into nature and its laws. Descartes and Bacon therefore explicitly repudiated this doctrine, and the former substituted the well known mechanistic and materialistic metaphysics. This was his catharsis of the prevailing dialectical routines. The primary elements in this dialectical system were, first, the theories which were developed in classical philosophy by elaborating the original artist-analogy and included the system of four causes defined by Aristotle, and on the other hand the other element in this dialectical context was data gathered by observation and measurement of natural objects. The difficulty was that the data appeared to exemplify patterns which were not reflected in the theory, and vice versa. However fruitful the anthropomorphic analogy was for ethics, politics, poetry, religion, it appeared to offer nothing for science. Substituting the mechanistic hypothesis for it reenlivened the dialectical context so far as science was concerned. Then human persons and society were drawn into this dialectic and subsumed under the mechanistic theory. It quickly became evident to some philosophers, though, that the human being as he had always understood himself, was dangerously distorted in this context. Man is an alien in the world-machine. Structural identity between man and the machine does not seem to be within the realm of possibility. Here then, again, was a dialectical system which refused to operate as it was expected. The theory could not force its data to assume the given theoretical structure. One member of the dialectical context had to be altered if the relationship of mutual causality was to move the system on to further developments. The Romantic and antiintellectualist philosophers attempted to provide this alteration. The reasons why one member of a dialectical context cannot tyrannize over the others within the same system are not easy to understand. We may say that nature is not really human and hence cannot design ends for itself as the human artist can. And we may argue that, in the nature of the case, the human being does not always act as the laws of mechanics and electricity might predict that

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he would act. He has problems which mechanics cannot solve. Why this should be the nature of the case is the big question. We may avoid the question for the moment, however, by naming it metaphysical. We have at this point accumulated three problems for further study: (a) the problem of stating the principles of dialectic in their most comprehensive and fundamental form (e.g. what must we mean by process, event, cause, similarity, system, value, etc.); (b) the problem of providing an extrinsic standard for evaluating the dialectic; (c) the problem of determining why dialectic fails to operate under certain conditions. These problems, though, belong to another paper. My point here has been to show that when dialectic is defined as a relationship of mutual causality among homogeneous entities which moves them toward a goal, that a large variety of occasions or processes can be recognized as dialectical systems. Examination of some of these indicates inductively that the end to which they move is toward sharing or acquiring more and more exactly a common pattern, the so-called "feed-back" or mutuality of the causation being the mechanism which favors the increasing development of a similar structure among the elements in the dialectical system. This development of common structure provides an intrinsic standard by which a dialectical system can be judged. Finally, we noted that a dialectical system can be put to uses by men, but that the standard for judging the wisdom of this use requires a standard extrinsic to the given dialectical context and perhaps finally depends upon the pertinent metaphysics, or axiology. And furthermore, the failure of some systems to operate as they are sometimes expected to operate indicates a further dependence of a dialectical system upon conditions without it, and suggests the necessity of a final recourse to metaphysics in order to understand the nature of such systems fully. These two dependencies-the dependency of a dialectical system upon its extrinsic end which must be proposed-and may be faultily proposed-by something external to it, and its dependency upon an internal mechanism which may not operate perfectly-have been largely responsible for the bad reputation of dialectic. Dialectic appears to be a dangerous means to the ends which it achieves. Nevertheless, if the present discussion has reached anything like the truth, evidently it is a necessary means; the effort to neutralize its dangerous potentialities through understanding would seem, therefore, to be as important as any of the problems which face dialectic. Tulane University