2 - Dialetico

Dialetico é um trabalho coreográfico que interpreta e expressa as diferentes escolas e filosofias da dialética em movimentos. Faz parte da série Alphanum representando o número 2.

Conceitos:

Tudo é formado por forças opostos, ou se desintegra.

A unica constante é a mudança.

Dialética é o estudo entre a interação desses opostos e as mudanças resultantes dessa interação.

O processo de mudança vai de quantitativa (gradual e lenta, no início) para qualitativa a partir de um ponto de virada (efeito pipoca) onde a mudança gradual já mudou a natureza inicial da situação (Engels?). Toda mudança segue esse padrão - das interações atômicas, passando pela filosofia e história humanas até a dinâmica dos cosmos.

A mudança se move em espirais, não em círculos: O resultado do processo de mudança não faz com que o processo volte onde começou, mas o leva "um nível do espiral" acima, onde ele pode recomeçar a dialética. Isso nos leva do estudo da mudança ao estudo do progresso.

Contradição: Fatos que não podem co-existir.

Paradoxo: Fatos que parecem contraditórios mas conseguem chegar num meio-termo.

Dialetica universal vs Dialética relativista.

Dialéticas: Sócrates, Platão, Aristóteles, Hegel, Marx/Engels.

Socrates: Perguntas levando à aporia -> Identificando contradições-> Sei que nada sei -> "Verdade" inacessível. (Método socrático) -> Tese do interlocutor analisada e considerada falsa -> Conquista concordância em premisas anteriores, contraditórias -> Chamar a atenção para a contradição -> Desfazer (refinar) o conhecimento. A via para a verdade é considerar a ignorância inicial sobre tudo.

Platão: Todo pensamento é uma "cópia incompleta" da "Verdade" e tem seus equivalentes paradoxais -> A interação entre esses equivalentes refina e leva essas copias mais próximo à "forma universal" da "Verdade" em questão. O processo é identificar as comonalidades e diferenças entre as versões pra isso (coleção e divisão) -> Via suprema para a verdade.

Aristóteles: Sobre premisas: O dialeticista estuda quais premisas levam a quais conclusões, assim como quais premisas seriam aceitas por qualquer tipo de interlocutor,usando o conhecimento-comum. Dialética não é o barômetro para a verdade, já que provar ma tese errada não me prova correto (ambos podemos estar com as premisas longe da verdade e exercer a dialética a respeito delas). Dialetia nao é a via suprema para o conhecimento por que se baseia em conhecimentos anteriores (premisas) em vez de obseração empirica.

8.3.1 Gymnastic Dialectic
First, there appears to have been a form of stylized argumentative exchange practiced in the Academy in Aristotle’s time. The main evidence for this is simply Aristotle’s  Topics, especially Book VIII, which makes frequent reference to rule-governed procedures, apparently taking it for granted that the audience will understand them. In these exchanges, one participant took the role of answerer, the other the role of questioner. The answerer began by asserting some proposition (a thesis : “position” or “acceptance”). The questioner then asked questions of the answerer in an attempt to secure concessions from which a contradiction could be deduced: that is, to  refute ( elenchein ) the answerer’s position. The questioner was limited to questions that could be answered by yes or no; generally, the answerer could only respond with yes or no, though in some cases answeres could object to the form of a question. Answerers might undertake to answer in accordance with the views of a particular type of person or a particular person (e.g. a famous philosopher), or they might answer according to their own beliefs. There appear to have been judges or scorekeepers for the process. Gymnastic dialectical contests were sometimes, as the name suggests, for the sake of exercise in developing argumentative skill, but they may also have been pursued as a part of a process of inquiry.

8.3.2 Dialectic That Puts to the Test
Aristotle also mentions an “art of making trial”, or a variety of dialectical argument that “puts to the test” (the Greek word is the adjective  peirastikê, in the feminine: such expressions often designate arts or skills, e.g.  rhêtorikê , “the art of rhetoric”). Its function is to examine the claims of those who say they have some knowledge, and it can be practiced by someone who does not possess the knowledge in question. The examination is a matter of refutation, based on the principle that whoever knows a subject must have consistent beliefs about it: so, if you can show me that my beliefs about something lead to a contradiction, then you have shown that I do not have knowledge about it.

This is strongly reminiscent of Socrates’ style of interrogation, from which it is almost certainly descended. In fact, Aristotle often indicates that dialectical argument is by nature refutative.

8.3.3 Dialectic and Philosophy
Dialectical refutation cannot of itself establish any proposition (except perhaps the proposition that some set of propositions is inconsistent). More to the point, though deducing a contradiction from my beliefs may show that they do not constitute knowledge, failure to deduce a contradiction from them is no proof that they are true. Not surprisingly, then, Aristotle often insists that “dialectic does not prove anything” and that the dialectical art is not some sort of universal knowledge.

In  Topics  I.2, however, Aristotle says that the art of dialectic is useful in connection with “the philosophical sciences”. One reason he gives for this follows closely on the refutative function: if we have subjected our opinions (and the opinions of our fellows, and of the wise) to a thorough refutative examination, we will be in a much better position to judge what is most likely true and false. In fact, we find just such a procedure at the start of many of Aristotle’s treatises: an enumeration of the opinions current about the subject together with a compilation of “puzzles” raised by these opinions. Aristotle has a special term for this kind of review: a  diaporia, a “puzzling through”.

The first use of dialectic is for the exercise of the reason. Most people are aware that the body needs exercise and also the internal sense powers like the memory and imagination. But it is not so easy to recognize that the human intellect or reason, as such, is in need of exercise. Yet, we see that men are easily deceived, especially in the beginning of the speculative life, and this is a sign of the weakness of man’s reason. The human reason is like the human body in a weakened condition, a body that is easily susceptible to any disease that comes along. We can call 1. Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Rule II, Vol. I, p.5. ·— All volume and page numbers for Descartes in this articles are from the Dover edition of The Philosophical Works of Descartes in two volumes. 2. Vol.I, p.5. 3. Topics, I, c.2. D ESCARTES AN D D IALEC TICS 177 error, by a certain proportion, a disease of the reason. Hence, as bodily exercise makes the body more capable of withstanding harmful things and of doing its proper operation well, so dialectic strengthens the reason so that it is less easily deceived and is more capable of achieving its end. Even the errors of those who have gone before us are useful to exercise the reason. Hence, a fortiori, the consideration of probable opinions, and the arguments drawn from them, will exercise the reason. The second use of dialectic is for intellectual encounters with others in which we can argue against them from their own opinions. This is the most effective way of removing that impediment to seeing truth which a man has who assents to a false opinion. Such a man thinks himself to know when really he is ignorant. It is by leading a man into a contradiction that we can make him realize his ignorance. This is precisely what Socrates was fond of doing. We might also compare this to what takes place in the body. Just as the doctor cannot induce health into his patient without first curing him of his disease, so the teacher cannot bring truth into a student’s mind without first curing him of any errors he may have. The third use of dialectic is in reference to the sciences, expecially the philosophical ones. Dialectic enables us to construct probable arguments on both sides of a question. Arguments arise on both sides of a question precisely because there is some truth hidden there, some truth difficult to see. The opposed arguments point out to the mind where the difficulty lies, and hence the mind knows where to give its attention to find the solution. The solution is the discovery of some truth.

Kant:

☀ "[Kant's] dialectic no longer offers rules for executing convincing judgments, but teaches how to detect and uncover judgments which bear a semblance of truth but are in fact illusory" (Caygill 157). Kant's dialectic could be considered a medium of false epistemology. -> Relacionado a Aristóteles-> A dialética serve para remover ilusões discretas em nossas crenças e sobre nossos proprios conhecimentos. A razão humana, por conter essas ilusões, não deve ser usada (Critique on Pure Reason) --> Pure reason, in both its theoretical and practical forms, has a tendency to run into a certain sort of problem. If one thing depends on another, pure reason expects to be able to trace the dependencies back until it finds the thing that depends on nothing else. However, such an endpoint to any dependency can be found only in the noumenal realm, not in the phenomenal realm. Since the phenomenal realm is the only one we have access to, pure reason is bound to be frustrated. When pure reason is thus frustrated, it produces "antinomies," conflicting statements both of which appear to be validated by reason. Kant's uses the term "dialectic" to connote neither a "logical argument" nor a "discussion." His dialectics are arguments that go astray because of some wrong presupposition. Or rather, they are arguments that come in pairs, both of which go astray in opposite ways because of the wrong presupposition. The Dialectic section will then seek to remove the presupposition in order to generate a more justified conclusion about the topic at hand. In this sense, the dialectic is like a discussion, where the two wrong arguments that contain a grain of truth are the two participants. Hegel and Marx model their dialectics after Kant's, where the partial truths of the "thesis" and the "antithesis" are reconciled by the "synthesis" of the two.

Hegel (+von Schiller e Jacob Fichte): Idealismo dialético -> Abstrato + Negativo = Concreto. -> verdades são relativas e mutáveis. Qualquer idéia abstrata deve passar por um obstáculo quase oposto para se refinar, mas em vez de tentar se aproximar de um absoluto através da descoberta, o processo cria um absoluto novo ao levar os paradoxos a meio-termos. A espiral para cima e a combinação desses meios termos (manter o que é racional, escartar o que não é), levando em consideração ainda a mutação perpétua das condições, nos aproxima de saber a "Verdade".

Marx/Engels - Rejeita Hegel -> Materialismo dialético -> A dialética tenha que se basear em idéias, mas sim em observações concretas das realidades das classes. -> A diferença e tensão social durante a historia que cria as contradições, paradoxos e mudanças graduais, e entendê-las nos aproxima da verdade -> As "antíteses" são praxis - respostas práticas naturais das classes às suas situações. Isso compõe a história humana (ou seja, apesar de fazer historia, o humano não a controla) -> O resultado final da dialética é a existência de uma sociedade sem classes nem desequilíbrio de condições materiais (comunismo).

(((Descartes)) rejeição da dialética - tudo o que sabemos, concluimos por experiencia, observação ou história e usamos filtros para julgar e avaliar esses processos. Só podemos rastrear o conhecimento até certo ponto, até que eles entrem em um meio metafísico de discussão, dos quais não temos conhecimento. Portanto, toda dialética pode ser baseada em premisas falsas sem nossa consciência. Apesar de rejeitar o assunto, essa abordagem tem ligação com "só sei que nada sei", de Sócrates.