What is Dialectical BME?

By David M. Boje, Ph.D.

May 19 2016

I take a Hegelian approach to Dialectical Storytelling Praxis.

The Dialectic of Fractal Selfsameness Recurring and that of Differentia the fractal branching of rhizomatics

“247. In those systems, therefore, which are characterized by a fixed, general selfsameness, this means that both the cognitive side and the things themselves remain selfsame. But this expansion of the self-identical determinatenesses, each of which describes the course of its progress unhindered and with scope for free play, leads of necessity equally to its opposite, to the confusion of these determinatenesses; for the differentia, the general characteristic, is the unity of opposites, of what is determinate and what is in itself universal; it must therefore split up into this antithesis” (Hegel, 1807: # 247)

The End (necessity) has been there from the beginning; resulting from what was already there (and nothing else issues forth); Or, does the outcome of its action return only to its own self for its End and its antenarrative (prious) is and of itself

257. “The necessity in what takes place is hidden, and shows itself only in the End, but in such a way that this very End shows that the necessity has also been there from the beginning. The End, however, shows this priority of itself in the fact that nothing else issues from the alteration resulting from the action than what was already there. Or, if we start from what is first, then this in its End, or in the outcome of its action, returns only to itself; and through this very fact it demonstrates itself to be something that has its own self for its End, and thus, as a prius, has already returned to itself or is in and for itself” (Hegel, 1807: # 257).
prius: something that precedes or takes precedence : precondition ; antenarrative: before (fore-having), between (fore-structuring), bets (fore-sights), beneath (fore-concept) , becoming (fore-caring) …

 

The End arriving only at itself obtains its feeling of self, in the dialectic of what it si and what it seeks as minor distinction, but major one is its own self a Notion.

257. “Therefore, what it arrives at through the process of its action is itself; and in arriving only at itself, it obtains its feeling of self. We have here, it is true, the distinction between what it is and what it seeks, but this is merely the show of a distinction, and consequently it is in its own self a Notion” (Hegel, 1807: # 257).

 

In BME-Narrative (beginning, middle, end) is the Middle the character of singleness, or the action of the character of universality (agent of action equated with outcome of action). The Middle between Beginning and End, where Middle is contingent necessity with universal and Notion fall outside of it. How can Middle genus be immediate content (uncontrolled by law), or fall outside of it.

“260. On this view, what belongs to the organism itself is the action lying in the middle between its first and last stage, so far as this action bears within it the character of singleness. So far, however, as the action has the character of universality and the agent of the action is equated with the outcome of that action, purposive action as such would not belong to the organism. That single action which is only a means comes through its singleness under the category of an altogether single or contingent necessity. What an organism does to preserve itself as an individual or as a genus is, therefore, as regards this immediate content, quite uncontrolled by any law, for the universal and the Notion fall outside of it. Accordingly, its activity would be an empty activity devoid of any content of its own; it would not be even the activity of a machine, for this has a purpose, and its activity therefore a specific content. Deserted in this way by the universal, it would be the activity merely of something immediate qua immediate, i.e. an activity like that of an acid or base which is not at the same[…]”