The «Aufheben» Concept Implicit in Plato’s «Arithmoi Eidetikoi» Dialectic. Part 1.: History of the «Aufheben» Concept Series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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