Dialectical ‘both-and’ thinking is key to resolving paradox and integrating ideas in ways that avoid reduction of one idea to the other. In this talk, the history of such thinking in the West and East will be explored, including the Chinese yin-yang model, Hegel’s dialectical reasoning, Jung’s exploration of opposites within alchemy and the psyche, Erikson’s dialectics of psychological development, dialectical behaviour therapy, and both-and thinking in quantum physics. A dialectical model of the relationship between science and spirituality will be discussed.
Dr OLIVER ROBINSON is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich, and amateur philosopher with a particular passion for modern philosophies that have a spiritual and mystical edge. He is writing a book on the historical development of science and spirituality in the modern era, when he is not teaching and writing on matters of adult development psychology.
