philosophy

[dniprovska]

II. DIALECTICS

The quintessence of classic philosophy is dialectics. This cognitive method (considering things in their changes, interrelations and interconnections) is almost as ancient as philosophy itself. The father of dialectics was Greek philosopher Heraclitus, which was the first thinker who noticed the existence of opposites, the hidden connections between all things and relative nature of perception. Dialectical method was actively used and developed by such prominent ancient thinkers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
German classic philosophy raised dialectics to the new level. E. Kant created a special transcendental (dialectical) logic that operated with antinomies and viewed an idea/phenomenon as something that has its own history of development. The works of G. Hegel became the acme of dialectical thought. This great philosopher elaborated the most fundamental and comprehensive system of dialectical laws and categories rested on three basic principles – unity and struggle of opposites, transition from quantitative changes into qualitative and negation of negation viewed as the general laws of development. K. Marx in his turn provided materialistic interpretation of Hegel’s dialectical concept and enriched it with a number of fresh ideas.
But in the modern society dialectics exists as a “dead” knowledge. Post-classic philosophy views it as an anachronism, while devoted Hegelians and Marxists have turned dialectical method into a set of dogmatic principles broking tight connections between the method and living practice.
Sure, the theoretical principles, formulated more than 150 years ago can not remain immutable, but so valuable intellectual heritage must not simply fall into oblivion. All the more, dialectical frame of mind (when things are viewed in their changes, interrelations and interconnections) was demonstrated not only by philosophers, but by the writers of realistic school (who depicted their personages as developing characters acting within a concrete social environment), by Ch. Darwin (who recognized that biological species are not eternal and immutable, but had evolved from extinct ancestors and underwent perpetual changes as a result of interrelations with natural surroundings), as well as by A. Einstein, who refused the idea of absolute space and time and proved their dependency on the relative motion of observers, by Niels Bohr, who enunciated the principle of complementarity and others.
It is curious, but the most of scientists and men of letters who actually used dialectical approach in their creative activity showed very little interest in Hegel’s and Marxist philosophy being the summit of dialectical thought. Presumably, such neglecting attitude was caused by the fact that the central statement of the abovementioned dialectical concepts was hardly applicable to special systems. This statement (formulated by Hegel and supported by Marx, as it perfectly suited his own idea of class struggle) reads that all things contain contradictory sides or aspects (thesis and antithesis) whose tension or conflict is the driving force of change and eventually transforms and dissolves them. But the latest scientific data show that the development of physical, biological or socio-economic systems does not follow this logic. Stars and galaxies (whose cores are the wombs for new chemical elements) are the products of accidental processes (fluctuations) in massive gas clouds; the inception of evolution of species is mutations (sudden changes in genetically controlled features); the source of social progress is not class struggle (that exists both in developing and in stagnating/degrading societies), but unpredictable scientific and technical inventions (providing society with new means of production) as well as accidental deviations from regular course of events (the result of wars, crises, disasters) that urge individuals to search for new forms of economical and social organisation.
Nowadays an unengaged researcher who deals with developing (self-organizing) systems of any type will prove that all evolutionary changes are initiated by accidental events.
The nature of the occasional has always been a subject of sharp discussions. In general, there are two main approaches towards the problem: deterministic and indeterministic. Deterministic concept formulated by Laplace (and shared by A. Einstein and some other physicists and philosophers) states that an intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
The other (indeterministic) opinion (pertaining to quantum mechanics and the most of post-classic philosophic concepts) is based on the conviction that along with periodical and strictly predetermined events there are those regulated by probability laws, so the occasional is something that may occur or may not occur. The latter view has at least one vulnerable point: the main reason for qualifying an event as not strictly predetermined is the impossibility to forecast it. This argument is not quite indisputable: numbers of events being formerly unpredictable later become actually (or theoretically) predictable (such as changes of weather or Brown movement).
However today the problem can not be finally resolved by pure abstract speculations – both opinions have weighty reasons and only new empirical facts can put an end to this age-old dispute. What can be said for sure is that the main difference between occasional and regular events is the nature of their causes. In distinct from regular (predictable) events which have permanent causes (material objects with constant parameters), the causes of occasional events are variable – they usually “dissolve” in the environment (or change their parameters) just after they have caused the effect, so it is impossible to retrace (and hence predict) them.
In general there are three types of movement:
- completely predictable movement caused only by constant factors (for example, the rotation of planets);
- completely unpredictable chaotic movement caused only by variable factors (movement of atoms and molecules of gas,);
- partially predictable movement determined both by constant and by variable factors and described in the terms of probability theory pertaining to the most of open/self-organising systems.
That which is called probability is correlation between constant/overt and variable/covert causes. Constant causes (factors) serve as a frame which outlines the field of action of variable factors; the narrower and the more rigid is the frame the more probable/predictable is the event, and vice versa.
The most usual source of occasional events is broken regularity – i.e.: a thing/system that has abruptly lost its integrity/disappeared. The explosion of a supernova may serve as a vivid model demonstrating the process of transformation of the regular into the occasional and vice versa. The explosion of a concrete star can not be qualified as a regular event as it occurs only once, but at the same it is a necessary (inevitable) event as a star which perpetually looses mass and energy can not maintain equilibrium for an unlimited period of time. The explosion trigs a chain of chaotic (occasional) interactions between atoms and subatomic particles that leads to emergence of new chemical elements constituting material for new stellar objects. The planetary system that appears as a result of an enormous number of irregular interactions consequently turns into a regularly moving structure. So, regularity may be defined as a settled fortuity, the fortuity that acquired systematic character by integrating/evolving into a system.
Presumably, all occasional events in the Universe are the remote consequences of the Big Bang that plunged matter into chaos and led to relatively unequal distribution of matter in space which curved trajectories of things in different ways, desynchronized events and processes and hence made physical bodies sporadically deviate from their regular courses, clash with each other and produce new forms.
If a newly appeared form is viable and if it is able to find vacant space (niche), it becomes a part of the system and a factor that determines its further development. If the amount of space and energy necessary for coexistence of both old and new elements exceeds the available reserves, the system undergoes rapid and radical transformations. In terms of dialectics quantitative changes turn into qualitative.
The unpopularity of dialectics among modern scientists led to independent rediscovering of this dialectical law in 20 century – various concepts of self-organization (such as the theory of catastrophes or synergetic) described this dialectical process in their own way, using for example the term “bifurcation” instead of “qualitative leap”.)
It should be marked that the later concepts of development (self-organization) demonstrate better understanding of the role of occasion as an important source of evolutionary changes and are based on experimental data (in contrast with classic dialectical concepts based mainly on abstract speculations). However, modern theories of self-organization have their own drawbacks.
1) These latest theories of self-organization were developed mainly by the specialists dealing with relatively simple systems and processes, such as chemical reactions or behaviour of micro objects – the patterns that are typical for the abovementioned structures are not always applicable to more complex biological and social systems.
2) While classic dialectical theories underestimate the role of accidental events (viewing it as something secondary and unimportant), modern theories overestimate the creative role of chaos and the influence of weak fluctuations on a system’s behaviour at the moment of bifurcation (qualitative leap). According to modern concepts of self-organization there are several alternatives a developing system may choose and its final choice may depend on small fluctuations that appear near the point of bifurcation; at this moment a system becomes extremely flexible and may be easily “turned” in this or that direction even by weak forces.
There is no doubt that when the balance is broken a system becomes very sensitive to external influences and even weak fluctuations may initiate big changes, but if observe the behaviour of open systems of various types more carefully, it will be evident: a system “submits” only to that weak forces which vector corresponds with the vector of a dominating tendency.
Those who study self-organizing systems usually mix two different terms: tendencies and variants. As usual that which we usually view as equally possible alternatives are tendencies with approximately equal sets of characteristics being accessible for observation and measuring. But along with measurable parameters they contain numbers of hidden properties which reveal themselves only in at the very moment of qualitative leap, when interactions between system’s blocks and elements become extremely intensive, so it is very difficult to estimate their real capacities beforehand. And the more complex is a system and the higher is the dynamic of its inner processes the less information is accessible. This fact creates an illusion that accidental (small) factors may determine the line of changes while actually they only reveal or activate the hidden potentialities of a certain tendency. As usual the choice a system makes at the moment of qualitative leap (bifurcation) is prepared and strictly predetermined by the previous period of quantitative (latent) changes that gradually alter the balance of forces within the system.
Small fluctuation and deviations may play important role only when a system is of micro size (like a chain of atoms or molecules) or if the competing tendencies are approximately equal, so a small portion of mass and energy added to this or that tendency may tilt the balance to its advantage. But the more massive and complex is a system the more weighty and numerous factors are necessary to determine the line of its further development. (World War I was triggered by the shot of Gavrilo Princip, but only naive persons may believe that at the moment when Europe was at the breach of the war somebody’s constructive personal initiative could persuade political leaders to resolve the conflict by peaceful means. That deadly clash was prepared by rapid economic expansion of leading European nations and may be averted only by a miracle, which would create additional markets, sources of energy and raw materials without which further economic development of belligerent states was impossible.)
The evolution of such colossal object as a star (its subsequent development on the main sequence) also can hardly be dependent on accidental deviations, but strictly predetermined by its mass.
All practical experience prompts that the cause(s) and the effect(s) should be always equivalent. The only difference pertaining to self-organizing (developing) systems is that the line of its further development is prepared and determined by a chain of minor causes which have been gradually accumulated during a certain period of time and remain inactive until the last factor (trigger) put them in motion acting as a last straw, adding the last portion of energy that breaks the shaky balance. This peculiarity creates the illusion that big changes may be caused by small factors