Threesology Research Journal
Embellished Dichotomies
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Embellished Dichotomies Series
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In an attempted explanation of the "Embellished Dichotomies" idea, let us take for example the 3-part idea of progressive thinking proposed by Auguste Comte with his from Religion- through the Metaphysical- into a Scientific view scenario. The "Metaphysical" is sometimes viewed as a transitional phase between the first and third item and is thus considered by some not to be an actual second and distinct phase, but expresses a period of overlap between two polar positions, as one might describe with a Venn diagram used as a model in describing other ideas as well:


Embelllished Dichotomy venn diagram

Venn math illustrations

Let me provide the script for the first image since translating mechanisms used by internet sources are unable to translate words on images, and math illustrations often speak for themselves since the language of math is generally universal:

Although Comte described human thought processing as proceeding along a 3-part trail, the middle part is interpreted by some to represent a transition, or overlap between two ideas which are often characterized as polar opposites dealing with mere faith on the one hand and experimental fact on the other.

Instead of describing three separate entities, some interpretations claim Comte was actually describing two ideas which thus represents the notion of an "embellished dichotomy" because the transition is cloaked, dressed, or cosmetically covered with a third item, like a piece of jewelry, hat, gloves, cane or tattoo being added to someone's appearance.

I must confess that although I have mentioned the idea of "embellished dichotomies" before, it was not until I watched the following youtube presentation that I feel prompted to provide an elaboration of the represented idea suggesting Comte's 3-part idea to be only two elements:


Comte's 3 stages viewed as 2

(Note: I had left a comment about the speaker representing what I describe as an embellished dichotomy and provided a link to this website in order to present multiple "threes" which are not being considered as part of the "Three being a Two", but my comment was removed. Very often when I raise an objection to those who think they have a grasp of the "three", my comments are removed or never show up because they are dismissed by some pre-review process.

In addition to Comte, let me provide a short reference about the usage of a suggested tripartite progressive order which preceded Comte, and may have had some influence on his own idea:

In terms of the tripartite ensemble of Mysticism- Rationalism- Empiricism; René Descartes is given credit by way of his "postulate of three classifications for our ideas when he says: "Among my ideas, some appear to be innate, some to be adventitious, and others to have been invented by me." Wikipedia: Rationalism (Rene Descartes

Three ancient Greek philosophers had a profound affect on later Sociological thinking: (Slide #s 6, 7, 8)

  1. Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.) formulated idea of the Socratic method is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.
  2. Plato (429?–347 B.C.E.) Plato was the first western philosopher who attempted a systematic study of society. Plato in republic and Aristotle in Politics dealt systematically with social institutions. They accepted state and society as synonymous and took the individual for granted. Plato could be said to be the first exponent of the organic theory in society and Aristotle subscribed to it too. Thus they accepted society as a unified system structured around division of labor and social inequality. Sociology guide: Plato
  3. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) He is noted as being a student and follower of Plato. Aristotle was more practical in his beliefs of government and society, whereas Plato was more idealistic and utopian. Aristotle and his students used the "Socratic method" to explore social issues, religion, politics, education the rights and duties of citizenship, and the relationship between the individual and the larger society. slide # 8

Note: Decades ago when I saw the "SPA" signs of health/exercise clubs, they stood as the initials for the idea that Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle who taught Alexander the Great. He had three major battles against the Persian Empire; those three battles were the battle of Granicus, the battle of Issus, and lastly the battle of Gaugamela. The Macedonian Conquest of Persia.

Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903) viewed societies as living organisms. In his First Principles, he describes three principles which regulate the universe: namely the Law of the Persistence of Force, the Law of the Instability of the Homogeneous and the Law of the Multiplicity of Effects.

Emile Durkheim 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917: Throughout his career, Durkheim was concerned primarily with three goals.

  1. First, to establish sociology as a new academic discipline.
  2. Second, to analyse how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things such as shared religious and ethnic background could no longer be assumed; to that end he wrote much about the effect of laws, religion, education and similar forces on society and social integration.
  3. Lastly, Durkheim was concerned with the practical implications of scientific knowledge.

The importance of social integration is expressed throughout Durkheim's work:


For if society lacks the unity that derives from the fact that the relationships between its parts are exactly regulated, that unity resulting from the harmonious articulation of its various functions assured by effective discipline and if, in addition, society lacks the unity based upon the commitment of men's wills to a common objective, then it is no more than a pile of sand that the least jolt or the slightest puff will suffice to scatter.

—Émile Durkheim-


And here's a comment the source for which escapes me at the moment:

They saw society in holistic terms and gave state the dominant role. Aristotle thought the origin of societies lay in human nature and its structure consisted of social groups in function. Their views presented the definition of society in terms of objective laws and historical processes.

Unfortunately, the word "Sociology" is often construed to mean a study of groups and not Society as an expressed element of human cognition. The "social" gets people bogged down in minutiae, against which many women strive to find self-help books to assist them in getting rid of the inclination to be bothered with little, small, insignificant things which create needless bothersome orientations which create distractions from reaching larger goals. The sensitivities of many women (but not just women) are often exhibited in their interest for subtleties of perception sometimes creating divergent paths of interest which some women claim are only accessible with a female psyche. In any respect, the study of Sociology... when subjected to the "little things" orientation of some females creates stumblings blocks of being able to see a larger picture.

It is of need to pay witness to the developmental roots of Sociological thought since there are numerous instances where ideological concepts become placed into various three-part ensembles such as the traditioned "Upper- Middle -Lower" classes that some view as three distinctions but others might well look at as a 3-in-1 entity involving transitional overlappings which produce dichotomies such as the rich versus poor, educated versus un-educated, villians versus workers, ("villains" or vilein/vilain were once contrasted with worker in older sociological thinking, because some villagers were seen as rabble rousers against the status quo... to give but one interpretation.)

The landed aristocracy (those at home in villas in the classical Latin sense of the word) dominating medieval society in the days of Middle English had all the power, politically and linguistically, and under their use of the word, the Middle English descendant of villanus meaning "villager" (a word styled as vilain or vilein) developed the meaning "a person of uncouth mind and manners." As the common equating of manners with morals gained in strength and currency, the connotations worsened, so that the modern word villain is no unpolished villager, but is instead (among other things) a deliberate scoundrel or criminal.

The History of the Word 'Villain'

Here is an expressed exercise of the "Embellished Dichotomy" idea put into practice. One must laugh at the effort to reach a third position by way of using a contrasting dichotomy which makes the scheme yet another dichotomy!

  • Middle-range theory (sociology) Middle-range theory, developed by Robert K. Merton (4 July 1910 – 23 February 2003), is an approach to sociological theorizing aimed at integrating theory and empirical research. It is currently the de facto dominant approach to sociological theory construction, especially in the United States. Middle-range theory starts with an empirical phenomenon (as opposed to a broad abstract entity like the social system) and abstracts from it to create general statements that can be verified by data. This approach stands in contrast to the earlier "grand" theorizing of social theory, such as functionalism and many conflict theories. Raymond Boudon has argued that "middle-range" theory is the same concept that most other sciences simply call "theory".
  • Wikipedia: Sociology Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and the German theorist Max Weber (1864–1920) are typically cited as the three principal architects of sociology.
  • Social Groups: Dyad and Triad & In-Groups and Out-Groups
    • Dichotomy: In and Out social group (examples without suggested transitional placements between, thus giving a primary- secondary- tertiary)
      • Us versus Them
      • Comrade versus enemy
      • Franchised versus Disenfrachised
      • Belong versus Outcast
      • Togetherness versus Aloneness
    1. Trichotomy: (includes a "two")
    2. Dyad social group
    3. Triad social group
    4. Beyond the three social group

The study of triads and dyads (Sociology) was pioneered by German sociologist Georg Simmel (1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) at the end of the nineteenth century.

As we see in the labeled counting system of primitive peoples developing words for quantities, there is a word for One, a word for Two, and anything beyond the Two is labeled many, much, more or even a few. Nonetheless, this is a three-ensemble related to human cognition. Each successive quantity can be viewed as an embellishment of the lesser quantity before it, like the doubling of cells during cellular development. We might suggest that cells are trying to grow beyond their repeating two's programming, yet can only achieve an embellishment in the form of differentiation along another line of development for some other physiological function that also uses an "embellished dichotomy" formula. Something is preventing the repetition from going beyond itself to establish an actual "three", and then when it does under the current environmental/social/physical conditions, it results in a trisomy... or mutation that is not very viable as as self-sufficient organism. While there are polysomic events, the idea of stunted growth or development is understood by a mention of the trisomic condition.

In the early years of anthropology, the prevailing view of anthropologists and other scholars was that culture generally develops (or evolves) in a uniform and progressive manner. The Evolutionists, building upon the success of Darwin’s theory of evolution, but not drawing much inspiration from his central contribution of the concept of natural selection, sought to track the development of culture through time. Just as species were thought to evolve into increasing complex forms, so too were cultures thought to progress from simple to complex states. Initially it was thought by many scholars that most societies pass through the same or similar series of stages to arrive, ultimately, at a common end. Change was thought to originate principally from within the culture, so development was thought to be internally determined.

The evolutionary progression of societies had been accepted by some since the Enlightenment. Both French and Scottish social and moral philosophers were using evolutionary schemes during the 18th century. Among these was Montesquieu, who proposed an evolutionary scheme consisting of three stages:

  1. Hunting or savagery
  2. Herding or barbarism
  3. Civilization

To the above let us add a bit of history of the French Revolution which came to inspire Auguste Comte's ideas:

- The Old Regime – society before the revolution was basically divided into three estates based on class and rank (to which let us also pay tribute to the three divisions of social labor in the Middle Ages (customarily divided into Early, High and late) which preceded this, which were Apprentice- Journeyman- Master):

  1. Church – clergy which owned 10% of the land, paid no tax
  2. Nobles – 2% of the population, owned 20% of the land, 70% of wealth
  3. Third Estate – everyone else

French Revolution

It was the 3rd estate which came to comprise the three divisions of Radicals- Moderates- Conservatives as the French Revolution got more fully under way, and used the tripartite slogan of "Liberty- Fraternity- Equality"; coming to refer to each other as "citizen" as a means of enfranchising themselves as a person who mattered and could not be degraded nor humiliated by the other two estates of Clergy and Nobles.

This tripartite division became very popular among the 19th century social theorists, with figures such as Tylor and Morgan adopting one or another version of this scheme (Seymour-Smith 1986:105).

Social Evolutionism by Heather Long and Kelly Chakov

This is an extremely important distinction for philosophy, because it not only describes an actual occurrence of what is taking place in human thinking, it also describes how the thought processing is emerging as a representation of itself and how that imaged self can be misinterpreted to the point of obscuring the presence of an underlying developmental theme taking place none-the-less... along a three-patterned path, just as we find having occurred in the usage of a triplet code in DNA and three fundamental atomic particles in physics; not to mention a myriad of circumstances in other biological, sociological, historical and linguistic venues which are not customarily taken into consideration when a person intuitively describes what they think is actually a "two" though someone else is using a "three"-part reference. Their intuition needs to be elaborately explained in the larger context of what they are actually identifying.

This is the labeling used for a Categorical Syllogism: Major premise- Minor premise- Conclusion According to a google originated wikipedia preface for syllogism while using google and typing in "major premise, minor premise, conclusion" as one's sought for topic, this three-part ensembled is defined as:

Each of the premises has one term in common with the conclusion:


  1. In a major premise, this is the major term (i.e., the predicate of the conclusion).
  2. In a minor premise, this is the minor term (i.e., the subject of the conclusion).

Are we thus describing an embellished dichotomy masquerading as a trichotomy that never actually achieves an actual three-part independence or growth, because the mindset behind its development and continued usage is an expression of a stunted growth that has merely mutated into different forms of elaboration to give the impression of an achieved trichotomy that does not and can never exist because it is logistically bad code? Is it just another model of the rock- paper- scissors ensemble which stumbles over itself like the three stooges?

Hence, let us ask if they must be related in order to form a three-part structure such as this (idea of a syllogism), or can they be unrelated as one might generalize by using the three-part ensemble of "Asians- Africans- Caucasians", though each of these terms can be related in various ways, even when there has been much fighting amongst them. If we say they must be related, then are we describing non-separate entities and have come upon a practice of embellishment? Whereas this page is about the idea of embellished dichotomies, we can also include notions of embellished singularities and embellished triples, etc.

Some ideas that might otherwise represent and actual three-part representation may be caught up being in an inebriated "under the influence" state of environmental circumstances that created conditions of stunted growth in ideas, along with other permutations akin to the biological idea of mutation, which I believe to be transitioning towards a 3-in-1 coalescence, and there is nothing humanity can do about it, except for perhaps leave the planet, the solar system, and the galaxy, which would necessarily entail the development of a different type of species because of the havoc space travel will have on genetics.

In a discussion of philosophy as the primary topic of consideration, that is when advancing a tripartite configuration such as the syllogism, I should also provide some examples of "twoness", as a means of providing an account of how often and varied a dichotomous mindset comes into play while attempting to provide some third valuation, of which need to be contrasted with alternatives if existing:

  • Double-consciousness is a concept in social philosophy referring, originally, to a source of inward "twoness" putatively experienced by African-Americans because of their racialized oppression and disvaluation in a white-dominated society.
  • Triple Consciousness: The Reimagination of Black Female Identities in Contemporary American Culture (by Nahum Welang) Abstract: My article underscores the intermediate existence of black American women between race and gender by stressing the role white patriarchy and black hypermasculinity play in the marginalisation of black female voices and the prioritisation of white women’s interests within and beyond mainstream feminist spaces. In order to legitimise this intermediate existence of black women, my article develops the triple consciousness theory (TCT).
  • The doctrine (or principle) of double effect is often invoked to explain the permissibility of an action that causes a serious harm, such as the death of a human being, as a side effect of promoting some good end. According to the principle of double effect, sometimes it is permissible to cause a harm as a side effect (or "double effect") of bringing about a good result even though it would not be permissible to cause such a harm as a means to bringing about the same good end.
  • The Doctrine of Triple Effect from Chapters 1 & 4 of Intricate Ethics (2007) by Frances Kamm ... Because of this third type of relation between an act and its effects—acting because the effects will occur, though not intending that they occur—it might be more inclusive to adopt what I call the Doctrine of Triple Effect (DTE).
  • In the philosophy of mind, double-aspect theory is the view that the mental and the physical are two aspects of, or perspectives on, the same substance. It is also called dual-aspect monism. The theory's relationship to neutral monism is ill-defined, but one proffered distinction says that whereas neutral monism allows the context of a given group of neutral elements to determine whether the group is mental, physical, both, or neither, double-aspect theory requires the mental and the physical to be inseparable and mutually irreducible (though distinct).

Triple-aspect monism: physiological, mental unconscious and conscious aspects of brain activity. (by Pereira A Jr)

Abstract: Brain activity contains three fundamental aspects:

  1. The physiological aspect, covering all kinds of processes that involve matter and/or energy;
  2. The mental unconscious aspect, consisting of dynamical patterns (i.e., frequency, amplitude and phase-modulated waves) embodied in neural activity. These patterns are variously operated (transmitted, stored, combined, matched, amplified, erased, etc), forming cognitive and emotional unconscious processes.
  3. The mental conscious aspect, consisting of feelings experienced in the first-person perspective and cognitive functions grounded in feelings, as memory formation, selection of the focus of attention, voluntary behavior, aesthetical appraisal and ethical judgment.

Triple-aspect monism (TAM) is a philosophical theory that provides a model of the relation of the three aspects. Spatially distributed neuronal dendritic potentials generate amplitude-modulated waveforms transmitted to the extracellular medium and adjacent astrocytes, prompting the formation of large waves in the astrocyte network, which are claimed to both integrate distributed information and instantiate feelings. According to the valence of the feeling, the large wave feeds back on neuronal synapses, modulating (reinforcing or depressing) cognitive and behavioral functions.


  • Neutral monism is a monistic metaphysics. It holds that ultimate reality is all of one kind. To this extent neutral monism is in agreement with the more familiar versions of monism: idealism and materialism. What distinguishes neutral monism from its monistic rivals is the claim that the intrinsic nature of ultimate reality is neither mental nor physical. This negative claim also captures the idea of neutrality: being intrinsically neither mental nor physical in nature ultimate reality is said to be neutral between the two.
  • Double-truth theory, in philosophy, the view that religion and philosophy, as separate sources of knowledge, might arrive at contradictory truths without detriment to either—a position attributed to Averroës and the Latin Averroists. Perhaps neither Averroës, a Muslim philosopher, nor the Christian Scholastics influenced by his philosophy actually held such a theory. Averroës did believe in freeing philosophy from religion but held that truths of reason might also be expressed symbolically in religion. Where reconciliation seemed impossible, some of his followers gave authority to reason, others to faith.

The three most widely accepted contemporary theories of truth are:

  1. The Correspondence Theory;
  2. The Semantic Theory of Tarski and Davidson;
  3. The Deflation Theory of Frege and Ramsey.

The two competing theories are:

  1. The Coherence Theory
  2. The Pragmatic Theory

On the topic of the double as seen in some literary accounts, only a few need be offered as an example of dichotomies which by way of the literary account of time, place, characters, language, events..., comes to embellish the underlying dichotomy:

Along with the idea of "Embellished Dichotomies" let us note those who have thought they are inventively trail blazing in their efforts to surpass the typical dichotomous viewpoint, such as: Transcending Dichotomies in History and Religion by C. T. MCintire

ABSTRACT

At first glance, to speak of "history and religion" presents no problem. We merely identify two items to discuss in the same study. We quickly discover, however, that since at least the twentieth century the pair "history and religion" has tended to operate as a dichotomy. Within the dominant traditions of discourse originating in Europe, over many centuries, the verbal pair "history and religion" became a dichotomy encoded as the dichotomy "secular and religious," signifying the opposition "not religious and religious." This dichotomy does not usually appear alone, but commonly comes associated with other dichotomies whose terms align with either history or religion. The short list of associated dichotomies includes: temporal and spiritual, natural and supernatural, reason and faith, public and private, social and personal, scientific and theological, objective and subjective, rational and emotional, and modern and medieval. The opposing parts come gendered as masculine and feminine. Usage of the dichotomies creates tensions with practitioners of virtually all religions in all regions of the world. Rigorous and consistent users of the dichotomies misunderstand the character of religions as ways of life, fail to account for the persistence and revival of religion in the twenty-first century, and overlook the intrinsic manner in which history manifests religion and religion manifests history. The defective outcomes prompt a number of constructive suggestions for transcending dichotomies in history and religion. These reflections on dichotomies refer to several varieties of Christianity, the emergence of the secular option, and the imagined triumph of Hindu dharma.


Let us also take into consideration, though multiple perspectives about which exist, concerning The Evolution of Transcendence by Gregory Gorelik, though the idea in this formulation may be little more than an embellished dichotomy itself.

Abstract

The transcendent experience, often described as an ego-dissolving encounter with something greater than one’s self, is cross-cultural and pan-historical. I present a model describing the evolution and function of various evolved modes of transcendence, such as group-directed transcendence, theory of mind (ToM)-evoking transcendence, aesthetic transcendence, and epistemic transcendence. I then discuss the vulnerability of these modes of transcendence to costly exploitation by selfish individuals who activate the transcendent state in others for their own reproductive benefit. In the ensuing section, I discuss the relationship between transcendence and human development across the lifespan, and conclude with some thoughts on the epistemic and ethical utility of transcendence.

...There is something to be said for occasionally shutting off all of the distractions that bombard the individual in modern society. From the automatic siphoning of one’s attention to radio and satellite signals, to the everyday commitments to one’s family, friends, and society at large, our environments are overflowing with manipulative influences. By engaging in meditation or some other transcendence-inducing practice, perhaps individuals can avoid being swayed by toothpaste advertisements and political propaganda (note Davidson and Lutz’s 2008, discussion of meditation’s efficacy in promoting attention and reducing distraction). As recounted by Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy (1970/1945; pp. 125–146), mystics from a variety of religious traditions and historical epochs were skeptical of the power of language and reason to communicate certain truths that can only be revealed by a direct encounter with what Buddhists call tathata or "suchness." I would counter that the apparent opposition between reason and more intuitive forms of knowing is a false dichotomy. Assuming that the ability to reason was selected because it enabled our ancestors to win arguments, the utility of transcendent experiences may be their capacity to dissolve illusory arguments, words, and appearances. Such a dissolving effect may, in turn, prepare the mind for the acceptance of better, more truthful forms of knowledge, be it in the form of non-exploitative arguments or experiences of suchness. Alongside self-correcting institutions based on peer review and the dialectic process, perhaps transcendent states might help us to drill down to some deeper truth hidden beneath the veneer of our evolutionarily limited everyday sensory experience. The revelations derived from such transcendent states should not be viewed as substitutes for evidence and reason, but as forms of knowledge that complement reason by clearing the fallacious residue surrounding it and supplement it by revealing states of consciousness beyond the humdrum of everyday experience. For example, the self-dissolving aspect of transcendence is supported by neuroscientific and psychological research on the absence of an encapsulated, unitary self (Kurzban 2010). The multidimensional nature of psychological selfhood, discovered by ancient mystics and contemplatives, is therefore a more accurate model of the mind than the Cartesian dualism still influencing academic philosophy (Dennett 1991, pp. 101–138).


it should be noted that the idea of "transcending the dichotomy" is an often used term to describe viewpoints where numerous conflicting (as opposed to harmonious complementarity) dichotomies are named. For example: Transcending the dichotomy of/in:


Principle of bivalance

In logic, the semantic principle (or law) of bivalence states that every declarative sentence expressing a proposition (of a theory under inspection) has exactly one truth value, either true or false. A logic satisfying this principle is called a two-valued logic or bivalent logic.

In formal logic, the principle of bivalence becomes a property that a semantics may or may not possess. It is not the same as the law of excluded middle, however, and a semantics may satisfy that law without being bivalent.

The principle of bivalence is studied in philosophical logic to address the question of which natural-language statements have a well-defined truth value. Sentences which predict events in the future, and sentences which seem open to interpretation, are particularly difficult for philosophers who hold that the principle of bivalence applies to all declarative natural-language statements. Many-valued logics formalize ideas that a realistic characterization of the notion of consequence requires the admissibility of premises which, owing to vagueness, temporal or quantum indeterminacy, or reference-failure, cannot be considered classically bivalent. Reference failures can also be addressed by free logics.

The principle of bivalence is related to the law of excluded middle though the latter is a syntactic expression of the language of a logic of the form "P ∨ ¬P". The difference between the principle and the law is important because there are logics which validate the law but which do not validate the principle. For example, the three-valued Logic of Paradox (LP) (Paraconsistent Logic) validates the law of excluded middle, but not the law of non-contradiction, ¬(P ∧ ¬P), and its intended semantics is not bivalent. In classical two-valued logic both the law of excluded middle and the law of non-contradiction hold.

Many modern logic programming systems replace the law of the excluded middle with the concept of negation as failure. The programmer may wish to add the law of the excluded middle by explicitly asserting it as true; however, it is not assumed a priori.

The intended semantics of classical logic is bivalent, but this is not true of every semantics for classical logic. In Boolean-valued semantics (for classical propositional logic), the truth values are the elements of an arbitrary Boolean algebra, "true" corresponds to the maximal element of the algebra, and "false" corresponds to the minimal element. Intermediate elements of the algebra correspond to truth values other than "true" and "false". The principle of bivalence holds only when the Boolean algebra is taken to be the two-element algebra, which has no intermediate elements.

Assigning Boolean semantics to classical predicate calculus requires that the model be a complete Boolean algebra because the universal quantifier maps to the infimum operation, and the existential quantifier maps to the supremum; this is called a Boolean-valued model. All finite Boolean algebras are complete.


Also see: Bivalence, Excluded Middle and Non Contradiction by Jean-Yves Béziau

  • Double Negation In propositional logic, double negation is the theorem that states that "If a statement is true, then it is not the case that the statement is not true."

Double Negative:

A double negative is a grammatical construction occurring when two forms of negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives affirm each other are said to have negative concord or emphatic negation. Portuguese, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Neapolitan, Italian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Afrikaans, Hebrew, Ukrainian, and some dialects of English, such as African-American Vernacular English, are examples of negative-concord languages, while Latin and German do not have negative concord. It is cross-linguistically observed that negative-concord languages are more common than those without.


Example: "I haven't never owed nothing to no one."


  • Triple Negation We define the logical connective negation and prove that a triple negated proposition implies a single negated proposition.
  • Realism Versus Idealism by Mike Christison: At some point in time you have probably been taught that there is a difference between a realist and an idealist. There are two chief understandings of this perceived dichotomy. The common usage is a description of human behavior, often seen an explanation for political decisions. This is dependent upon the second philosophical usage, however, which largely denotes an epistemic stance. My argument is that the philosophical version is a false dichotomy, and as a result, the common version is not a very useful mental construct.
  • Doppelgänger A doppelgänger), literally "double-goer") is a non-biologically related look-alike or double of a living person, sometimes portrayed as a ghostly or paranormal phenomenon and usually seen as a harbinger of bad luck. Other traditions and stories equate a doppelgänger with an evil twin. In modern times, the term twin stranger is occasionally used. The word "doppelgänger" is often used in a more general and neutral sense, and in slang, to describe any person who physically resembles another person.
  • Three faces of Eve A triple ganger representation?

In psychology, we find multiple dichotomies and must review this in terms of a recurring instance of Persistent Dichotomies representing the sane, and those dichotomous profiles of what some may term insanity (depending on the era of occurrence), while others may refer to in terms which make allowance for characteristics that are not common, at least to their knowledge and experience. Such dichotomies are:

  • Bipolar Disorder Bipolar disorder, also known as manic/depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.
  • Medical Definition Of Split Personality Split personality: Multiple personality disorder, is a neurosis in which the personality becomes dissociated into two or more distinct parts each of which becomes dominant and controls behavior from time to time to the exclusion of the other parts.
  • Schizophrenia: "Splitting of the Mind" Revisited Paul Eugen Bleuler coined the term "schizophrenia" to capture the fragmentation and disintegration of the mind and behavior as the essence of the disorder. The splitting of thoughts, feelings, and actions was duly noted, but very few studies over the past century have addressed how and why these functions are dissociated in schizophrenia. Despite the robust evidence for the influence of emotion on cognition and vice versa), the nature of these interactions and their role in psychotic symptoms are not clearly elucidated.


Origination date: Monday, December 2nd, 2019... 5:47 AM
Initial Posting: Monday, December 16th, 2019... 12:42 PM

Your Questions, Comments or Additional Information are welcomed:
Herb O. Buckland
herbobuckland@hotmail.com