The Error of Fear and the Dialectic

In the study of philosophy, or really any human endeavor, error is bound to crop up and in the pursuit truth a fear of error is developed. In the human body fear can trigger one of three responses: fight, flight, or freeze. Insofar as it pertains to academics fear causes a freeze of sorts. When confronted with the possibility of error one sets up criteria, methods, and meticulously error-checks oneself. These things of course are naturally conducive to discovering truth, but when the fear of error becomes too strong, what were once useful tools bog one down and become an obstacle for finding truth. One then finds Oneself in an intellectual freeze of sorts, where each truth is gained at a painstakingly slow pace, and the value of such a slow progression could be questioned.

Hegel is aware of how the fear of error can become a hindrance, and addresses it in his introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit; “Meanwhile, if the fear of falling into error sets up a mistrust of Science, which in the absence of such scruples gets on with the work itself, and actually cognizes something, it is hard to see why we should not turn round and mistrust this very mistrust. Should we not be concerned as to whether this fear of error is not just the error itself?” This seems to be sound reasoning. If the fear of error becomes a greater obstacle than actually erring, than perhaps the fear of error is the greater error.

Hegel’s views on the fear of error stems from his foundational philosophy of the dialectic. In a system where truth is like scaffolding, one truth built on the next to find yet another, an overlooked error at the base of the structure would taint everything built upon it. Hegel’s dialectic differs from this scaffold like system of philosophy in that errant ideas are integral. In the dialectic two ideas come into conflict, they are broken down and a synthesis of the two is created. It is this process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis which is the whole truth.

Philosophers are often accused of being esoteric and that they work only in the abstract with ideas that cannot affect the practical world. As to the accusation of being esoteric I can only respond that everyone posses reason, and so philosophy is inaccessible only insofar as reason has not been cultivated and practiced in an individual. To the second accusation I completely disagree, as Hegel comments it is the science which allows all other sciences. Something such as the dialectic when understood, can make changes in the practical. Hegel offers that the dialectic is a way in which to view history, and in looking back through the lens of the dialectic we should glean truth which we can apply to the present.

The understanding of the error of the fear of error through the dialectic has a myriad of practical applications. One such practical application is policy making in the government. Currently we have two main parties in American politics, one party will try to enact some policy and the opposing party will counter it resulting in gridlock. Both parties are convinced that should the other get its way the world will come to an abrupt end. Both parties are so fearful of error that anything that is enacted is so mitigated a compromise that it hardly resembles what it started out to be and accomplishes very little. If American politics freed itself from this paralyzing fear of error true progress would be much more rapid.