Morality is About Relationships

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coberst
Posts: 1516
Joined: Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:30 am

Morality is About Relationships

Post by coberst »

Morality is About Relationships

I suspect that most of us are willing to agree that, broadly speaking, we have ‘fact knowledge’ and ‘relationship knowledge’. I would like to take this a step further by saying that I wish to claim that fact knowledge is mono-logical and relationship knowledge is multi-logical.

Mono-logical matters have one set of principles guiding their solution. Often these mono-logical matters have a paradigm. The natural sciences—normal sciences—as Thomas Kuhn labels it in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” move forward in a “successive transition from one paradigm to another”. A paradigm defines the theory, rules and standards of practice. “In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possible pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant.”

Multi-logical problems are different in kind from mono-logical matters.

Socratic dialogue is one technique for attempting to grapple with multi-logical problems; problems that are either not pattern like or that the pattern is too complex to ascertain. Most problems that we face in our daily life are such multi-logical in nature. Simple problems that occur daily in family life are examples. Each member of the family has a different point of view with differing needs and desires. Most of the problems we constantly face are not readily solved by mathematics because they are not pattern specific and are multi-logical.

Dialogue is a technique for mutual consideration of such problems wherein solutions grow in a dialectical manner. Through dialogue each individual brings his/her point of view to the fore by proposing solutions constructed around their specific view. All participants in the dialogue come at the solution from the logic of their views. The solution builds dialectically i.e. a thesis is developed and from this thesis and a contrasting antithesis is constructed a synthesis that takes into consideration both proposals. From this a new synthesis a new thesis is developed.

When we are dealing with mono-logical problems well circumscribed by algorithms the personal biases of the subject are of small concern. In multi-logical problems, without the advantage of paradigms and algorithms, the biases of the problem solvers become a serious source of error. One important task of dialogue is to illuminate these prejudices which may be quite subtle and often out of consciousness of the participant holding them.

Our society is very good while dealing with mono-logical problems. Our society is terrible while dealing with multi-logical problems.

Do you not think that we desperately need to understand CT, which attempts to help us understand how to think about multi-logical problems? Do you not think that it is worth while for every adult to get up off their ‘intellectual couch’ and teach themselves CT?
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Accountable
Posts: 24818
Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am

Morality is About Relationships

Post by Accountable »

Has it really been nearly 4 1/2 years since we've heard from Codrus? I admit to hardly ever replying to one of his OP's, and not really understanding many of them, but I credit Codrus with spurring me to practicing CT more in my readings and conversations. I get frustrated sometime, though, because I read so many opinion pieces with no real foundation. It's harder for me to enjoy the game of politics.

I miss Codrus. He is like a whale or giant squid in our sea of thought. We glimpse him every once in awhile, follow him for as long as we can before he plunges too deep to follow, but we always enjoy the experience.
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Bryn Mawr
Posts: 16113
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:54 pm

Morality is About Relationships

Post by Bryn Mawr »

Accountable;1422494 wrote: Has it really been nearly 4 1/2 years since we've heard from Codrus? I admit to hardly ever replying to one of his OP's, and not really understanding many of them, but I credit Codrus with spurring me to practicing CT more in my readings and conversations. I get frustrated sometime, though, because I read so many opinion pieces with no real foundation. It's harder for me to enjoy the game of politics.

I miss Codrus. He is like a whale or giant squid in our sea of thought. We glimpse him every once in awhile, follow him for as long as we can before he plunges too deep to follow, but we always enjoy the experience.


I would, at a stretch, have put it at half that. Coberst always appeared to be one of the ever present posters it's difficult to appreciate he's been missing for so long.
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