Systematc Thinking - An Introduction to the Conscious Cultivation of Your Ordering Practice
You can already think systematically – you do it daily when organizing your desk, planning your day, understanding complex problems.
This text makes the unconscious ordering structures conscious and cultivates them into method. It does not develop a theory "about" systematic thinking, but performs systematic thinking in the reading itself.
The Three Universal Dimensions
Part I: Elementary Ordering Operations (Chapters 1-5)
- Recognizing relevance (the four dimensions)
- Creating order (the five universal ordering logics)
- Seeing connections, thinking through problems, surveying the whole
Part II: The Three Dimensions of Systematic Thinking (Chapters 6-14)
- Subjective dimension: Judging, inferring, forming concepts
- Objective dimension: Understanding mechanisms, processes, organisms
- Absolute dimension: The idea of the true, of the good, systematic thinking about systematic thinking
Part III: Meta-reflection and Limits (Chapters 15-17)
- Philosophical traditions as dialogue partners
- One's own dead ends as learning opportunities
- Alternative ways of thinking as corrective
What Makes It Special
The text overcomes the false alternative between theoretical depth and practical applicability. It is both philosophically grounded (all structures are Hegelian) and immediately practical (every structure is experienced in one's own thinking process).
17 "liberating insights" mark breakthroughs in understanding systematic thinking.
Relation to Other Books
The Thinking text is the practical application of the Logic of Concept. What Hegel's Logic systematically grounds (especially in the chapters on the Concept) is cultivated here as method. The four basic operations (self-application, differentiation, sublation, recognition) are performative enactments of the logical structures.
- The Truth text performs the discovery of structures (Logic of Being and Essence)
- The Thinking text cultivates the methodical application (Logic of Concept)
Ideal after the Truth text – but can also be read independently.