How to use the rules of the Socratic Method in our search for truth
romain_a
by Romain Angeles
Ideas as the governing factor of human action and of the universe
Every conscious human action (real human action, not merely human
acting as animals) is guided by thought. Thought is, as Larouche
states, “the judgment [of ideas] which is regulated by the increase
or decrease of the sense of identity [in an individual]”. The
following paper will treat this question: how does human reason
function? What are the dynamics of human thought and how do ideas
interact with one another in our search for truth?
As is explicitly shown in the various Dialogues of Plato, reason uses
three relationships: definition, cause, and effect (or consequence).
These processes of thought manifest themselves in our mind through the
following fundamental questions: what, why and how. The other questions
such as “when” or “where” only provide further details in the
definition.
Every individual is acting according to personal or collective sets of
principles. These principles (whether they are conscious or
unconscious) can be viewed as the basic axioms that produce every
subsequent thought and justify the actions of the individual. “I did
that because I believe in God”; “I support deregulation because I
believe that the more competition there is among businesses, the better
the economy” or “I kicked my brother because he didn’t want to
give me the remote control for the TV”, etc. Extending that principle
to human personality, we can see that the general geometry of thought
is the guiding principle of self-consciousness.
When these underlying axioms are conscious so that an individual has
understood and mastered the very principles that guide his life, the
individual can be clinically labeled as “sane”. However, when the
major principles guiding the life of an individual are unconscious,
they can lead to insanity, criminality or more simply stupidity (the
two latter could be considered special cases of insanity). These
dynamics of reason not only determine the way humans define themselves,
but also the way they explore the universe. In the case of
self-consciousness, an individual will ask himself the following
questions every time he needs to act: “What should I do? Why should I
do that? How should I do it?” In the case of an observer of the
universe, he will ask the following questions: “What am I observing?
Why is this behaving like that? How can I verify the truth of my
theory?”
The three fundamental questions of human thought are thus essential to
understanding the search for truth in any given idea. The writer will
explain in detail what these questions represent, how they manifest
themselves in our mind and in a second part, he will explain the
relationship they play with one another so as to lead us to truth.
The art of definition
The first question “What?” is used to define an idea: it is the
first step to take to pursue truth. It consists of making the idea
understandable to an individual, by means of decomposition and
distinction. Just as the painter chooses specific colors and uses
contrast in his painting to represent his idea more clearly, the common
individual when communicating always makes his idea as precise as
possible so as to be understood. Thus the art of painting and its
process of composition is essentially the same as the process of
defining an idea: the position and the tone of the colors in the
painting are not sufficient to make the idea intelligible (they are
only words or dots). It is the originality and uniqueness of the
interactions between those points and the process which governs them as
a unity that is the real nature of the definition. And a good painting,
just as the truthful oral or written expression of an idea, such as
poetry or playwriting, lies in the efficacy with which that particular
idea is conveyed to and understood by the observer.
The main objective of this first step is the truthful and precise
expression of an idea so as to lead the observer to grasp its essence.
The idea, once expressed by the artist, can be both accepted and
recognized as a meaningful and true idea by the observer, or quite the
opposite. The difference in the thought process between the observer
who understands the idea from the one who doesn’t lies in the
latter’s inability to experience and control that process
consciously. The course of understanding, which consists in raising our
level of consciousness to grasp an idea, will be made clear in the
following part.
The Socratic Method is the only road that leads to truth
Once the definition of an idea has been agreed upon, but its essence
has not been accepted as truthful, the observer must prove to himself
if the idea is indeed true or false. To do that, he uses the last two
questions (why and how) in a complementary way. The process is, in a
broad sense, to elevate the abstraction of an idea to a desired level
and subsequently look at the expression that the consequence of that
abstracted new idea has in the physical universe. “If this is true,
then that, that and that have to be true also. But if that, that and
that are true, then I should expect to observe these particular
phenomena in the physical universe. If I can indeed observe these
phenomena, then the first main idea should be true.”
“Why?” is the question used to raise the level of abstraction of an
idea in order to understand its origin and thus identify its
parent-ideas. When an individual doesn’t understand or opposes an
idea, it is because he isn’t conscious or is consciously opposed to
one or more of its parent-ideas. This process of going up in the level
of abstraction to find a common idea shared by both the artist and the
observer can be an efficient way of understanding an idea.
Nevertheless, it is possible that the observer is confronted to a
parent-idea (that is central to his understanding of the main idea)
that he has never met before and cannot prove directly. In this case,
he has to lower the level of abstraction of that idea, “descend”
and look for an observable physical manifestation of that idea. This is
exactly what Larouche has emphasized repeatedly concerning the process
of education, namely the reenactment of the discovery of a universal
physical principle. Only in this way can an individual really pretend
to have understood an idea and made it a part of his identity.
“Kepler says that every celestial body moves in the heavens in conic
sections. What experiment did he go through to discover that principle?
How can I do the same experiment to confidently approve his
statement?”
The rules of debating
The successive steps to follow in a search for truth are explicitly
shown in this last part, where the writer presents it in a set of rules
to follow during a conversation, a debate, a psychotherapy session (any
situation where there might be dispute or willingness to raise one’s
self-consciousness):
1) Define the idea: P=X1+X2+…+Xn
2) If Xi is not understood or accepted, go back to 1) and use Xi
instead of P
3) When P and all its components have been agreed upon find the cause
for P, or for its different components (Xi): why does P (or Xi) exist?
What makes the existence of P (or Xi) possible? What are P’s (or
Xi’s) parent-ideas?
We can use the symbol ∫ (integral) to express the causality:
“∫P d(existence) = Y” or “the cause of the existence of P is
Y”
4) What is the consequence of P (or Xi, or Y) in the observable,
physical world? What consequences does the existence of P (or Xi, or Y)
must have in the physical universe? How can I verify through
observation if P (or Xi, or Y) is actually a truthful idea?
We can use the symbol ∂ (differential) to express the consequence:
“∂P / ∂(reality) = Z1+Z2+…+Zn” or “the consequence of P on
reality is Z1, Z2,…,Zn”
It is important to note the following: when any new idea introduced is
not understood, the two debaters should go back to 1) and define it
together. Once this is done, they should go back to the step they were
before, and continue the process normally. This has a particular
importance for the last part, where Zi expresses a consequence that is
physically observable and somewhat measurable. Therefore it is of
crucial importance for both parties to agree on that last part, as it
will determine the experiment that will give them a definite proof for
their original statement “P”.
How to free ourselves from the sarcasm of debating
As was so elegantly stated by Blaise Pascal in his De l’Esprit
Géométrique:
“[The human individual] knows naturally nothing but falsehood, and
[…] he ought to receive as true only those things the contrary of
which appear to him as false.”
Stated in discrete mathematical terms: P=true iff –P=false. This
simple yet powerful principle is probably the best weapon in debating
and in proving someone wrong. Simply by proving that the contrary of
what someone is saying is true, will force him to admit his error.
The systematic application of this method to the false arguments of a
person can lead that person to a form of distress which can have
different expressions: fleeing from the debate, changing the subject,
insulting the other debater, attacking physically, crying, and
sleeping. The realization that something he said could be wrong
challenges that person’s set of axioms and disturbs his sense of
identity. As Larouche says, this reaction to an “unheimlich” is
simply the resistance of his ego to a feeling of new self-awareness.
This problem of insane people wanting to debate issues, but fleeing
from them when they realize they were wrong is a problem which any
honest debater has encountered. My experience of the problem convinced
me profoundly that the rules I have outlined in the previous part are
indispensable to any decent form of debating. Also, debating should be
introduced as a form of game to attract even more the attention of
people, with clear points given for particular reasons and taken away
for others.
For example, points ought to be given every time an individual leads
his opponent to absurdity. Also, a debater should lose points whenever
he is lead to absurdity, or when he must rephrase one of his
propositions (to “fit it with truth”), or when a debater evades too
much the questions of his opponent. Points should reward honesty, good
intention, participation, cooperation, willingness for the adversary to
understand his point of view, and willingness to understand his
adversary’s point of view. The debate would end when the starting
proposition has been proven wrong or false by a debater (and thus the
other debater lost) or when a debater violated too many rules and lost
too many points.
The new Aristotle: Ayn Rand (or more accurately, Alissa Zinovievna
Rosenbaum) and the emasculating cult of the mother-image
The problem of debating today is its irrelevance. People see debating
as a means to entertain them, and don’t believe ideas matter: they
read a lot, just as they would pump iron in a gym, and they think
debating is a tool for measuring who is the strongest, who had the best
training, who lifted the heavier sets. They don’t see it as a means
to educate them, and when they lose, they just say “Ok, you had a
better training than me, but I still won’t change my views, I’ll
just do heavier sets”.
These people, as typified by the followers of Ayn Rand, are clinical
masochists: their view of love and respect is through intimidation and
power. That is the exact reason why they follow the doctrine of Ayn
Rand: her philosophy is made intelligible to people only through
intimidation. “If you don’t believe what I say, I won’t like you
and I will despise you. And because I say that with so much confidence
and rage, you take it as an order and believe the rest of my
philosophy.” There is no scientific, provable basis for any part of
her philosophy. The types of people who believe her are people with a
weak self-esteem, feeling an urge to give their souls away to a cause
so as not to have to be accountable to their conscience: “I didn’t
say anything, she said it. I’m not responsible for any of what
happened!”
As the group L.O.G.I.C. (Logic, Objectivism, Greed, Individualism, and
Capitalism) demonstrated with their logo during the debate at UCLA, in
November of 2005, against Cody Jones and Sky Shields of the WLYM, they
are all about muscles! They think that showing off their power is
their strength, because they are able to intimidate some people. That
feature really is their biggest weakness: they are self-declared thugs.
Following Larouche’s approach in dealing with a thug in a debate such
as his advice to John Edwards in how to deal with Cheney in 2004, one
must resort to provocation. By irritating and accusing him of being
weak and violent, one will have his attention. (Unfortunately John
Edwards lacked the guts or the will to follow on this advice!) That
principle was made even clearer after the Danish cartoon affair: some
Arabs were outraged “You are accusing us of being terrorists? We are
going to kill you!!” This is the exact approach to take when
organizing a debate against scoundrels: provoke them and lead them into
a trap (i.e. a debate anti-sophistry).
The point is that debating is a necessary tool for ridiculing the
“soldiers of satan”. And because they are all criminals, they will
most likely accept the challenge when provoked. Nevertheless, debating
should be done following strict rules abolishing sophistry, by
geometrically showing to the attending audience the foolishness of the
adversary. The main reason for presenting it as a game is, in my
opinion, that it will increase the attendance of debates in the
population. By stimulating the thirst of individuals for debates, we
could also promote a real search for truth in society and thus
destabilize the oligarchy furthermore.