Willard Uncapher (willard@well.com)

Table 1 of ‘The Four Logics’ and Their Development. A generalization

Copyright 1999-2003. For Educational Distribution Only

[Several More Elements Added to the Grid]

 

Social Structure

“Logic”

Complexity

When / Why ‘Formalized’

Focus

Associated Discipline [actively rethinking the  ‘logic’]

Traditional [contexts, examples, priority]

Pragmatic / Informal

Few examples to explain the whole

Oral [never really ‘formalized’]. Often ‘remembering’ / integration of opposition as key

Whole situation a focus, but when to ‘generalize’? / what purpose?

Negotiation

Monarchal/ Hierarchal [revelation, role, connections]

Formal / Hermeneutics [create boundaries via “excluded middle”] – ‘deductive reasoning’

“Synchronic”

‘Realist’

From few [axioms, principles, definitions] to many [conclusions]

Writing [350 BCE turning point– writing back to 3500] – work with formal print world – meaning and ideals as key

Meaning and Connection a focus, but how to gain perspective?

Interpretation, Logic, Anthropology, Biology of closed systems.

Enlightenment [values: reason, individualism, progress]

[problem: irrationality, elitism, colonialism]

Digital / Sampling [assume-dictate boundaries from higher level; chance/ arbitrariness proposed]

‘Inductive reasoning’

“Diachronic”

Nominalist

‘code / encoding / decoding’

From many [mass, sample] to few [average, median] – coded version

Printing [1650 CE turning point – type printing back to 1450] – work with tables and data – arranging data as key

Power, Organization, and Elitism a focus, and yet who has power to decide?

Sociology, Poly Sci,

Postmodern [values: paradox, relativism,

Constructivistism

[problem: extremes of relativism, soplicism,

 

Scalar / Network [boundaries as process related]

transductive reasoning”

Many ‘generate’ simpler (emergence of the synergistic next level); simple generates the complex (eg. fractals)

Computers [1950 turning point – systems back to merchants 1750s] – generating boundary breaks a key; multi-level/dimensional modular integration as a key

Identities and levels questioned, but are there fundamentals?

Biology of open systems, Computer Sci, Contemplative Analyis, [network/ complexity analysis, cybernetics]

? [Neo-evolutionist] – Still a phase of the postmodern

 

 

 

Emergence? How to get beyond solipsism and fragmentation