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observation of rocks and outcrops. The interplay of internal and external
sources—of theory informed by metaphor and observation constrained by
theory—marks any major movement in science. We can grasp the discovery
of deep time when we recognize the metaphors underlying several centuries
of debate as a common heritage of all people who have ever struggled with
such basic riddles as direction and immanence.
On Dichotomy
Any scholar immersed in the details of an intricate problem will tell you that
its richness cannot be abstracted as a dichotomy, a conflict between two
opposing interpretations. Yet, for reasons that I do not begin to understand,
the human mind loves to dichotomize—at least in our culture, but probably
more generally, as structuralist analyses of non-Western systems have
demonstrated. We can extend our own tradition at least to the famous
aphorism of Diogenes Laertius: "Protagoras asserted that there were two
sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other."
I used to rail against these simplifications, but now feel that another strategy
for pluralism might be more successful. I despair of persuading people to
drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we
might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more
appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All
dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing
axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper
intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of
thought.
The problem is not so much that we are driven to dichotomy, but that we
impose incorrect or misleading divisions by two upon the world's
complexity. The inadequacy of some dichotomies rests upon their
anachronism. Darwin, for example, built such a prominent watershed that we
tend to impose the conventional dichotomy
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