Abstract
Using as central reference point a complex evolutionary interpretation of the East Asian Taijitu (associated with yin-yang theory), this chapter leans toward a kaleidoscopic dialogue involving: Western dialectics (as exemplified through Bhaskar’s dialectical critical realism and philosophy of meta-Reality); brain hemisphere function (via McGilchrist’s work critically exploring the globally significant under-regard of the right hemisphere and its relationship to dominant culture); the philosophy of quantum physics; Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, Winton’s pattern dynamics; critical social theory; and an ecosystem of postformal developmental psychological modalities. Enhancements are effected both toward Boyer’s scholarship of integration—by the utilisation of postformal reasoning to propose a scholarship of complex integration—and toward such notions as dialogue and pertinence. With radical implications for global academia and formal Western contexts of thought regarding the critical underuse of such semiotic patterns as the Taijitu, this chapter aspires to the betterment of humanity and the world.
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Notes
- 1.
Example of complex is postformal dialectical.
- 2.
‘Ends-in-view’ is a dialectical identification advancing the notion of ‘conclusion’ through recognising that further dialogue is always possible.
- 3.
From an iconographic perspective, identical designs of the classic Daoist symbol (as per Fig. 1) appeared in the West in Roman times—around 430 CE—and in similar forms in Celtic times several centuries BCE. However, these Western examples do not appear to have had any philosophical or cosmological significance—notwithstanding possible inferences regarding the caduceus or ouroboros (see Di Giovanni Monastra 1996/2000).
- 4.
Two more nuanced cross-cultural identifications in this regard are: (a) dichotomisation ‘may reveal a different kind of relationship hiding behind the strict opposition—they may overlap or even coincide (as in the Medieval Christian coincidentia contradictorium), they may both be illusory (as in Nagarjuna’s or Sextus Empiricus’s skeptical dialectics), or there may be some kind of interrelatedness and/or flux (as in Heraclitus and/or some aspects of Hegelian dialectics). Cultural differences, especially East–West differences, are often phrased in absolute terms, but generally the ‘absolutes’ are mere tendencies, or modal forms of thought. All forms of dialectical relationships can be found in both ‘East’ and ‘West’. However, while strict oppositional variants are more common in the West (and perhaps in Indian thought as well), the yin-yang model is more common in East-Asian thought. Nevertheless, Heraclitus, Hegel, and a few others occasionally seemed to get close to the yin-yang model’ (Brons 2009, p. 294–295); (b) the reason–passion dialectic ‘while being foundational for much of Western thought, does not have a clear equivalent in Chinese or Japanese thought. And conversely, there is no Western equivalent for the Neo-Confucian dialectic of ‘reason/principle’’ (Brons 2009, p. 294).
- 5.
Further dialectical operations can be performed upon the Taijitu to produce further levels of insight.
- 6.
Thanks to Nikolaus von Stillfried for our generative conversations regarding this topic and helping to emphasise the identification of asymmetry in complementarity/postformal dialectical units.
- 7.
Further dialectical operations upon this situation would reveal further complexities involving relations between symmetry and asymmetry.
- 8.
Hence Derridean deconstruction.
- 9.
Applying dialectical operations to such poststructural approaches indicates the context-dependence of the Other whereby ‘the Other of the Other’ offers the possibility of that which is not the Other; this might include a return to singular identity or might infer something more complex; regardless, the possibility of a reconstructive postmodernism (see Griffin 2002) is surely born from othering a fundamentalist or essentialising interpretation of deconstructive postmodernism on the understanding that a nuanced reconstructive postmodernism sits in positive relation with its deconstructive complement (see Hampson 2007).
- 10.
The spatial positioning of the seed in each is such that the seed is identified as occurring in the fullness or extreme aspect (rather than partial, moderate or developing aspects) of the other. This locational significance plays a part in the I Ching’s differentiation between ‘moving’ yang (one about to transform to stationery yin) and ‘stationery’ yang (and vice versa regarding moving yin and stationery yin).
- 11.
Note that a helix is formed by the combination of a circular motion (horizontally)—the yin-yang cycle—with a linear motion (vertically)—the evolution of the yin-yang seeds.
- 12.
See endnote 11.
- 13.
Such an understanding should certainly take account of cetaceans (Hampson 2005).
- 14.
One may additionally, lightly, ironically or otherwise note that—at a more meta-level—this difference in interpretation could possibly be allowed for by a meta-Deleuzian approach which explicates difference at this level.
- 15.
From a dialectical critical realist perspective, it might also be that various questions arise about the use of the Taijitu in the manner of ‘why should there be a focus on this particular formation (against possible others)?’ and ‘what might be the benefits and dangers of such a focus?’ Additional questions might also arise with respect to the relationship(s) between the Taijitu and the real (i.e. inquiries addressing the epistemic fallacy). Whilst such questions form part of a potential dialogue between dialectical critical realism and the Taijitu, space does not permit here a detailed engagement in this regard, please note that this chapter’s intention is merely to empower such dialogue rather than to fully explicate it.
- 16.
See endnote 9.
- 17.
Such critical contextualisation of conventional academic norms is given further weight in the discussion on brain hemispheric function below.
- 18.
This exploration resonates both with the aforementioned dialectic between Apollo and Dionysius and with the following section on brain hemispheric function.
- 19.
Complementarity can be identified as a pattern comprising a ‘dual’, or dialectical binary, each half of which is apparently ontologically incompatible with the other, where such incompatibility is understood through conventional logic. Here it may be of particular interest to mention that, when asked to design a coat of arms in the context of being honored by the Danish King for his achievements, Bohr chose the Taijitu—thus implicitly acknowledging that this symbol best represented the physical principle of complementarity which he identified as the most fundamental feature of physical reality known to humanity so far (von Stillfried 2010).
- 20.
- 21.
Given the probable approximately-equivalent intelligence of many cetacean species, research regarding cetaceans and brain hemisphere function with respect to the Taijitu seems yet more promising, given its current under-regard.
- 22.
In this context I use ‘v’—abbreviation of ‘versus’—as shorthand for ‘complex complementarity’ or ‘the dialectic between complementarity and opposition’ as indicated above.
- 23.
The direct reception of sensory information from the right half of the body by the left hemisphere should be noted as an aspect of the counter-tendency.
- 24.
Whilst the degree of simplification inferred below should suffice for the current context, please note the yet-more inherent complexities regarding the character of the hemispheres.
- 25.
Note the few physical connections between the hemispheres and that many of these primarily function as dampeners of connection!
- 26.
Other possibilities for adaptive signification include ‘the scholarship of ecosystemic integration’ (or ‘eco-logics’—Hampson 2012) or ‘the scholarship of postformal integration’’. Like the scholarship of complex integration, these similarly imply a more ecosystemic, multi-layered approach to integration than reductive integration. In the current instance, one implication of this sensibility is that there is not necessarily any requirement to establish a singular essentialising perspective on the connections identified in the chapter: the territory may be left with a multiple of signifiers, it may be pragmatically cohered through the context in question (the Taijitu in the current instance), or it might be that a grounded approach may eventually identify a singular key perspective, i.e. signification is context-dependent.
- 27.
It is beyond the scope of the current chapter to explore this further at this juncture.
- 28.
To use a ‘modern’ metaphor.
- 29.
For the new worldview: my preferred academic or ‘logical’ signifier is ‘reconstructive postmodern’—see Griffin (2002) and Hampson (2013); my preferred ‘public-friendly’ signifier is ‘planetary’’; I would also note the potential usefulness of the notion of ‘eco-logics’ (Hampson 2010, 2012), which calls upon the concept of ecosystem across the three domains of the ‘environment’, human society, and the realm of thought(-feeling)—see Bateson’s (2000) ecology of mind and Guattari’s (1989/2000) three ecologies (in relation to Naess’s et al. 2005 ecosophy).
- 30.
With gratitude to Ananta Giri for empowering the festival metaphor.
- 31.
Context in relation to the host book on ‘social theory’: relations to ‘social theory’ are postformal in combining two contrasting but harmonising perspectives. The first is that the topic adds content to social theory by exploring underlying patterns which might empower social theories of an aptly Asian-inclusive nature, ones which normatively seek to move us into a collectively preferred future (here signified as moving beyond modernism to reconstructive postmodernism). The second is that the construct ‘social theory’ is held lightly to enable its partial deconstruction and reconstruction in two ways: firstly, there is an interest in expanding ‘social’ integratively to include the planet as a whole (i.e. whilst it is only in the social sphere that we can create social theories, they nonetheless often have impact upon other species, ecosystems, and future human generations); secondly, the construct ‘theory’ from a postformal perspective might in some contexts be useful, but in others it might be generative to use the more accurate construct ‘poetics’ which, roughly understood, is the consequence of a conversation between theory and aesthetics through employing such approaches as construct awareness used in the generic process of theorising; specifically, conceptual metaphor theory indicates that languaging (including that of theory) can never be totally innocent, value-neutral or without metaphoric or aesthetic inference (even if relatively slight). So it could be said that the study contributes to ‘planetary poetics’ (or similar)—a context which is sufficiently/aptly preservative of the notion of ‘social theory.’
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Hampson, G.P. (2018). The Taijitu, Western Dialectics and Brain Hemisphere Function: A Dialogue Facilitated by the Scholarship of Complex Integration. In: Giri, A. (eds) Social Theory and Asian Dialogues. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7095-2_8
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