Philosophical Requirements of a Comprehensive D.I. System

2. Epistemological Considerations: Hegelian Dialectic

Hegel argued that human beings develop institutions based on one-sided ideas, take these as far as they can go until they inevitably break down in self-contradictory practices, and then go on to form new syntheses based on elements of the old institutions but in improved form. There is a parallel between Hegel's well-known thesis, antithesis and synthesis sequence, and his lesser-known subjective, objective and absolute sequence. For him, every view of an object believed to “exist” is dependent on an observer to form that view of the object. At the same time, for a person's mind to be able to function, there must be the on-going experience of objects situated as external to oneself (Gilson et al., 1966). To emphasize the first is to emphasize the subjective; to emphasize the second is to emphasize the objective. Neither view is sufficient by itself.