Development through Alternation

3.10 Trialectics: a logic of the whole

Anthony Judge

Oscar Ichazo, founder of an internationally-active human development institute, formulates an interesting progression in the interpretation of the basic laws of logic. These are in sympathy with the arguments of the previous sections. The points he makes (146) can best be summarized by a table of the following kind:

Aristotle Dialectics: Trialectics:
____ Logic of change Logic of the whole
1. Law of identity
A = A
Quantity transformedinto qualitative change Developmental stages: pre-established points at which step change occurs (law of mutation)
2. Law of contradiction
A = B
Everything works in opposition to something else (law of opposition) Everything is the seed of its contrary, both elements contributing to each other in a cycle (law of circulation)
3. Law of excluded middle
A = A + B
Every process must deny itself if it is to continue; negation of negation

Everything attracted to either expansion or contraction (law of resonance)

Ichazo sees the dialectical reinterpretation of the Aristotelian version as having been the basic logic of the industrial revolution. He gives arguments from physics and biology for the need for the trialectic interpretation to explain developmental changes of a whole. The cyclic "resolution" of contradictions corresponds to the points of the previous sections. The question of resonance is discussed in later sections.