To be contrarian, I think you’re only portraying a subset of possible outcomes. We might say the following fits:
Kantian Deontological Ethics (all men are oblidged to) > Positivist Ethics (ethics don’t exist as anything more than preference) > Modern Liberal Ethics (ethics exist as preference but preferences are important survival tools that can lead us to objective ethics),
But the truth is I don’t see a necessary triad in any of this because there is no original position. In my example, we would find that Kantian Dialectical Ethics consumed prior theories or objects and, in fact, I think we could say that about most of your examples. Popper might argue that a dialectic is merely consuming the prior creation (a la Popper)… the process could continue for infinity until one approaches a complete model (assuming some discipline is in the mix).
Another thought: in reality arguments occur in multiple dimensions (real decisions often evaluate economic, political, health, legal and safety outcomes).. other dimensions canthrow off the pattern of contrarianism when there are trade-offs that need to be made. In that sense the contrarian model presented is rather simple.
All of that being said, I’m a little meta-meta-contrarian too… I like the analysis you’ve presented because the analogy seems to work as a simple cartoon explanation for hipsters. =)
Could it be that the entire history of philosophy and its “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” recurring structure is an instance of this? Not to mention other liberal arts, and the development of the cycles of fashion.
To be contrarian, I think you’re only portraying a subset of possible outcomes. We might say the following fits:
Kantian Deontological Ethics (all men are oblidged to) > Positivist Ethics (ethics don’t exist as anything more than preference) > Modern Liberal Ethics (ethics exist as preference but preferences are important survival tools that can lead us to objective ethics),
But the truth is I don’t see a necessary triad in any of this because there is no original position. In my example, we would find that Kantian Dialectical Ethics consumed prior theories or objects and, in fact, I think we could say that about most of your examples. Popper might argue that a dialectic is merely consuming the prior creation (a la Popper)… the process could continue for infinity until one approaches a complete model (assuming some discipline is in the mix).
Another thought: in reality arguments occur in multiple dimensions (real decisions often evaluate economic, political, health, legal and safety outcomes).. other dimensions canthrow off the pattern of contrarianism when there are trade-offs that need to be made. In that sense the contrarian model presented is rather simple.
All of that being said, I’m a little meta-meta-contrarian too… I like the analysis you’ve presented because the analogy seems to work as a simple cartoon explanation for hipsters. =)
For ethics, I think it’s more like (Divine Command/intuitionism)/(subjectivism/nihilism)/(other systems of objective morality).
Could it be that the entire history of philosophy and its “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” recurring structure is an instance of this? Not to mention other liberal arts, and the development of the cycles of fashion.