Index
1. Presentation
2. Extract
3. Two conceptual
clarifications
4. Dialectic and atom
5. What is the cause of
economic and social behavior of human beings?
6. Hypothesis
7. What is the link or analogy that can be made between the
dialectic and behavior of the atom?
8. Conclusion
1. Presentation
This work is the second part of the essay entitled Is the atomic composition of matter which
determines the economic and social behavior of human groups? , published on
June 19, 2013.
2. Extract
The economic and social behavior of human beings and all the changes
that occur in nature can be explained by how atoms behave.
3. Two conceptual clarifications
For a better understanding of the subject must be distinguished two
concepts and two moments: a) the discovery of the atom by pre-Socratic
philosophers Leucippus and Democritus and b) The discovery of the dialectic
(contradiction) at two opposite
places of the world, China (Confucius) and Greece (Heraclitus) in parallel times, V and IV centuries BC
as it is explained in the next section.
4. Dialectic and atom
A fact that draws attention and is worth noting is that while
Confucius (551 BC-479 BC) in China and Heraclitus (535 BC-484-AC), in Greece,
gave the first steps towards the discovery of the dialectic (contradiction) as
the cause of all existence, at that time, in Greece, philosophers Leucippus and
Democritus (V-IV centuries BC) also gave the first steps towards the discovery
of the atom.
a. Dialectics
Confucius, the most influential philosopher of the Eastern world,
clearly understood the principle of dialectics and synthesized it in two
opposing elements, the yin and yang, that according to his philosophy give rise to everything in the
universe. The yin and yang represent
the earth and the sky, the female and the male, day and night, the addition and
subtraction, multiplication and division, health and illness, war and peace,
that is to say all pairs of opposites existing in the Nature.
In the Western world, the philosophers of Antiquity, Heraclitus,
Socrates (469 BC-399 BC), Plato (427 BC-347 BC) and Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
also knew the principle of the dialectic, i.e. the principle of contradiction,
the principle of opposites.
The intellectual and material progress achieved in Antiquity,
stopped during the long period obscurantist of the thousand years of the Middle
Ages (V to XV centuries) in Europe and just started a new cycle of progress in
the Modern Age (XV and XVI centuries), which begins with the discovery of
America in 1492, a period which brings The Renaissance of the arts and
sciences. In the Contemporary Age, which begins after the French Revolution in
1789, the Western world continued the process of change in science and in the
economic field; it is the time of the Industrial Revolution, which first stage
begun in 1750, a fact that will have a profound impact on the development of
politics, economics and applied sciences in the following centuries. New
studies on dialectical (Hegel) appear from that historical period.
At that time, it was the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel (1770-1831) who made the most progress in the study of dialectics
(contradiction), creating the concepts of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. But
it was the philosophers Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) and Karl Marx (1818-1883)
who studied with great interest the dialectical issue and found a practical
application to explain the change in nature, economy and society.
b. Atom
René Descartes (1596-1650) was interested in the work initiated by
the pre-Socratic Leucippus and Democritus and later Plato and Aristotle on the
atom, that Plato and Aristotle called monads. Descartes’ work in this field was
continued by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), who used the
same word, monads, which essentially was the atom and then by Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804). But it was in the 20th century when science was able to
decipher the mystery of the atom and develop their practical applications.
Scientists discovered that the atom is not only the least amount of matter in
all forms of life and the universe but that it has an immeasurable energy power
which is integrated by contradictory forces: positive, negative and neutral.
c. Actual implementation
From the consideration of the historical facts presented above, we
think that dialectic and atom are two ideas that have advanced in parallel over
time. Both ideas found in the 20th century a field for practice experimentation;
on the one hand, all the development achieved by atomic science and, on the
other, the application of dialectical concepts in the field of politics, with no
favorable results where was experienced: the communist nations. The dialectic was
used as intellectual argument to justify the imposition of communism in a part
of the world.
5. What is the cause of economic and social
behavior of human beings?
The link between the behavior of the atom and the causes of economic
and social behavior of human beings was never established.
Three thinkers, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Karl Marx (1818-1883)
and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) developed the three most influential theories to
explain the economic and social behavior of human beings; they are the theory
of natural selection, the theory of class struggle and the theory of survival
of the fittest, respectively.
The three theories have one thing in common: it is the survival
instinct and selfishness the main motivation of the human beings behavior. That
is to say that human feeling is determinant of the individual and collective
behavior of human beings.
But the most important question is, what, in turn, determines the
survival instinct and human selfishness?
6. Hypothesis
Human beings are made up of atoms and their economic and social
attitude repeat a behavior similar to that of the atoms. That explains the
constant struggle for survival, which develops in a contradictory manner.
7. What is the link or analogy can be made between the dialectic
(contradiction) and the behavior of the atom?
In the atom act three forces, two contradictory and one neutral: protons (+) electrons (-) and neutrons (0). The dialectic is neither
more nor less than a representation of how the atom acts, because the dialectic
discover the contradictory elements to reach a synthesis that then, in turn,
gives rise to a new infinite dialectical process.
Selfishness and the struggle for existence are rooted not in the feelings
that arise from the need and ambition. Selfishness
and the struggle for existence come from the basic structure of life, the atom,
which is a contradictory structure, as was shown in the previous section.
8. Conclusion
In its economic and social attitude humans beings repeat the same contradictory
behavior of the atom and that explains the process of constant struggle in
society.
If human beings are made up of atoms
and atoms have a determined behavior, we can suppose that the behavior of human
beings is influenced or determined by the behavior of the atoms.
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