The
«Aufheben»
Concept
Implicit in
Platon’s
«Arithmoi
Eidetikoi»
Dialectic.
Part 1.:
History
of the
«Aufheben»
Concept
Series.
Dear Reader,
We hold that
the emergence of the «aufheben» concept – as relation, and even as
process – began long before a word, such as the German word «aufheben»,
became available, which combines the meaning of determinate [not
abstract] negation and conservation and elevation,
became available.
We detect early
beginnings of this emergence in Plato’s dialogue Sophist, in the passage
from ~253c to ~253e:.
“STRANGER: Well, now that we have agreed that the
kinds stand toward one another in the same way as regards blending, is not
some science needed as a guide on the
voyage of discourse, if one is to succeed in pointing out which kinds
are consonant, and which are incompatible with one another – also whether there
are certain kinds that pervade them all and connect them so that they
can blend, and again, where there are divisions [separations], whether there
are certain others that traverse wholes and are responsible for the division?”
“THEAETETUS: Surely some
science is needed – perhaps the most important of all.”
“STRANGER: And what name
shall we give to this science? Or – good
gracious, Theaetetus, have we stumbled unaware upon the free man’s knowledge
and, in seeking for the Sophist, chanced to fins the philosopher first?”
“THEAETETUS: How do you mean?”
“STRANGER: Dividing according
to kinds, not taking the same form for a different one or a different
one for the same – is not that the business of the science of dialectic?”
“THEAETETUS: Yes.”
“STRANGER: And the man who
can do that discerns one form everywhere extended throughout many, where
each lies apart, and many forms, different from one another [M.D.: e.g., «hypo-gene», or
species kind categories, or «eide»], embraced from without by one form [M.D.: e.g., a «genos» kind
category, or «eide»], and
again one form connected in a unity through many wholes [M.D.: e.g., a «hyper-genos», or super-genus
kind category, or «eide»], and many forms, entirely marked off apart. That means knowing how to distinguish, kind
by kind, in what ways the several kinds can or cannot combine.”
“THEAETETUS: Most Certainly.”
“STRANGER:
And the only person, I imagine, to whom you would allow this mastery of
dialectic is the pure and rightful lover of wisdom.”
[The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters, Edith Hamilton
and Huntington Cairns, editors, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, USA,
1989, pp. 998 to 999].
Thus, in Plato’s «arithmoi
eide-tikoi» dialectic, the internal and immutable ‘ideo-taxonomy’,
or ‘eternalistic systematic dialectic’ of fundamental «ideaV», multiple
species-like – not at all necessarily biological – kind
categories can combine with the single «genos» kind
category under which they all fall; to which they all belong, because it stands
for the qualities which they all share, as their generalization. But without
[i.e., abstracting from] the «differentia specifica» which divide and
qualitatively distinguish them, each one from each of the others.
They multiple species
categories – or «hypo-gene» – converge upward until they
all merge into the, more general, «genos» category “above”
them, losing specificity, losing determinations, losing their
different «differentia specifica» as they go “up”, until their
differences, and thus, they themselves, as kind categories, dissolve together
in that, their “higher” [more abstract] «genos» category.
Note that this process of
rising into lessor specificity, into greater generality, into fewer
determinations is an «aufheben» human-cognitive process – albeit that,
for Plato, this is an eternal, statical relation among his «eide», not a dynamical process-in-time,
and that Plato, of course, did not know this process under the German word «aufheben».
The several species
sub-categories, in their relation to their single «genos»
category, are, in that relation, determinately negated as specific
and as separate, conserved inside their «genos» category,
which upholds the qualities which they all share in common, and elevated
into a “higher” level of ‘gene-rality’ or of abstractness; of
lesser determinateness.
This we find the «aufheben»
relation at the very heart of Platon’s dialectic, albeit not
explicitly noted as such.
For more
information regarding these
Seldonian insights, and to read and/or download, free
of charge, PDFs and/or JPGs of Foundation books, other texts, and images, please see:
www.dialectics.info
and
https://independent.academia.edu/KarlSeldon
For partially pictographical, ‘poster-ized’ visualizations of many of these Seldonian insights -- specimens of ‘dialectical art’ – as well as dialectically-illustrated books
published by
the F.E.D. Press, see –
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DialecticsMATH
¡ENJOY!
Regards,
Miguel
Detonacciones,
Voting Member, Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica [F.E.D.];
Elected Member, F.E.D. General Council;
Participant, F.E.D. Special Council for Public Liaison;
Officer, F.E.D. Office of Public Liaison.
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