Individual Inquiry

I have written before (February 2012) about how Thomas Merton—the American Trappist monk—employed a kind of personal dialectical process in his search for a deeper understanding of what it means to lead a spiritual life. Merton was exploring this technique in the mid-20^th century. His use of this approach was a bit unusual, because the dialectical method usually refers to when two or more disagreeing parties discuss their positions, in a cooperative search for a greater truth.

I find that using a personal dialectical activity can be an excellent way to work my way through philosophical questions, such as: What's most important to me? What's the meaning of life? How do I find happiness? What is my true nature?

Briefly, the personal dialectical process is: (1) Come up with your best answer to the question (called a thesis); (2) sit with your response for a while and ponder it; (3) play the devil's advocate with yourself and criticize your thesis; probe its weaknesses; seek opposing thoughts and ideas, and then offer a contradictory point of view (the antithesis); (4) sit with and ponder the two apparently incompatible responses of thesis and antithesis. Is there any common ground? Is there a truth which is deeper than either?; and finally, (5) formulate a new hypothesis that is better than the original and contains aspects of both opposing views (called the synthesis).

This use of the dialectical process as a type of individual or personal inquiry is not easy to employ. It calls for a high degree of honesty, as well as the ability to let go your treasured beliefs and open up to contending beliefs. That is especially hard to do in today's polarized atmosphere, which urges us to think that there is only one truth: that of one side or the other. We live in our silos, while viewing those who inhabit other silos as completely foolish and wrong. The gap between them is wide and seemingly absolute. Thus we come to believe that there is no common ground; no third or novel possibility. 

On the contrary, the dialectical process demands that we find a way to listen to the opposition—not to convince them that they're wrong and to see it our way—but to discover with them a new truth more valid than either of us previously would have conceived.

The personal dialectical process also calls for us to sincerely engage in it, not by creating a counter argument that is dishonest and a sham. When we do this, we come up with a phony thought that we can easily refute and destroy, in a disingenuous attempt to validate our initial thesis. This is not a way to grow, but a way to harden our initial belief. 

I think that my career as a scientist helps me to see the value of the dialectical process—whether it is between two opposing points of view of disagreeing individuals or is used as a personal growth technique. In fact, I find the scientific process to be quite similar: (1) it ponders a question, (2) it offers an answer in the form of a theory or hypothesis, (3) it puts it to test, either by experiment or by engaging with others who have different interpretations, (4) it engages in debate, and then (5) comes up with a new hypothesis, or synthesis.

This concept of stepping back and looking for gaps or weaknesses in your theory was expressed very well by an Islamic scientist (Ibn al-Hytham) over a millennium ago, when he wrote “The duty of a man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning is the truth of his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads... attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.” That was 600 years before the European Renaissance!

The work of one's personal growth—either spiritually, as in Merton's case, or scientifically or philosophically, in order to arrive at a deeper truth—is demanding. But when did enlightenment ever come easily?