More Triangulation
I have always been a fan of quadrants, but today I want to talk about triangles. Above is a triangle I found at the substack explorations.ph. I think it is a useful way of thinking about how different people approach the world. I consider myself to be rooted in the “Philosopher” corner, so I am sometimes confused by the ways that “Citizens” and “Kings” act.
So I want to add my own little twist to the triangle, as below.
Here I emphasize the connections between the corners. Citizens and Kings are comfortable operating in the social realm. Kings and Philosophers are comfortable operating in the natural realm. Philosophers and Citizens are comfortable operating in the moral realm.
Each of these realms can be understood as having two sides. Social relations are characterized by cooperation/submission (citizen) and competition/domination (king). The moral realm is characterized by truth (philosopher) and love (citizen). The material realm is characterized by competence/technology (king) and comprehension/science(philosopher).
Now for another, the rhetorical triangle:
The similarity should be pretty obvious. When you are making an argument, it can be useful to speak or write in a way that appeals to different kinds of people (and different sides of each person). This triangle is, perhaps, the oldest of them all, coming originally from Aristotle.
Now let’s consider one more triangle you should recognize: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
The King understands basic needs and psychological needs (although esteem more than belonging/love). The Citizen understands psychological needs and self-fulfillment needs. The Philosopher understands basic needs and self-actualization needs. Sometimes philosophers ignore/deny basic needs, but they spend a lot of time think about the relationship between mind and body.
Of course, this triangle has a different orientation that the triangles above…perhaps the top and bottom of the hierarchy ought to be connected somehow?
What about a religious one?
Okay, so what about the analogy of Father/King - Son/Citizen - Spirit/Philosopher? Sounds plausible.
Then what about this one?
King/Father/Creator, okay. Citizen/Son/Well-wisher, fine.
But Philosopher/Spirit/Destroyer? Is all of our beautiful harmony broken or is the Philosopher spirit also the Destroyer in some sense? I am not ruling it out but I don’t want to stretch the analogy too far.
But what about this one?
Can we connect Father/Synthesis → Son/Thesis → Spirit/Antithesis? It almost seems like the dialectic triangle is more like the Hindu triangle. So maybe the Philosopher really is the destroyer/antithesis.
If you came up with this all by yourself I'm very impressed. Several very interesting frameworks. Also I think you were right on target with the possibility of equating the philosopher to the destroyer. See the last post on my substack. Skepticism is the very core of philosophy, going all the way back to Socrates, and skepticism also destroys a lot of the myths which are required by the other two points of the triangle.
I think the other two points often acted to destroy philosophy, so it's not a one sided (one-pointed?) contest. But I would argue that one of the aspects of late modernity is that while we've long been comfortable with the idea that power and unity are somewhat nebulous, that's not the case with truth. People are far more comfortable with the existence of absolute truth than they are are with the existence of absolute power or absolute unity.
So many insights here from one single perennial theme, I love how you've made the connections. Its power of lies in its simplicity - once you see the connections it seems obvious but I've played around with the rhetorical devices triangle for a few years now and have never thought of connecting it with social dynamics or the holy trinity. Thanks for the insight.