Tag: Dialectical Thinking

In this article, Jan De Visch reviews experiences he has made as a Critical Facilitator when working with teams in organizations (see his work at www.connecttransform.be). Jan's gift of deep thinking makes him a very good listener who can intervene in team conversations because he "hears" and "understands" their thought form structure in the sense of DTF, Laske's Dialectical Thought Form Framework (2008). Based on his consulting experience combining both social-emotional and cognitive interventions, Jan is presently building an App in the domain of performance review centered on defining team roles realistically, in line with strategic objectives. He expands such reviews into deep thinking dialogues involving, first, a 'problem owner', and then an entire team, all of whom are changed in the process of reflection he triggers in them. Many managers conceive of thinking as a kind of 'information processing', believing that better thinking consists merely of deleting logical errors. Jan's blog shows that that view of thinking is very limited, and why. JDV - How do you teach managers to think V3   Read More...

In this blog, I draw conclusions from two previous blogs, found at and , both focused on teaching and learning dialectical thinking. I show that teaching dialectical thinking needs to address, and draw practical conclusions from, the distinction between 'thinking' and 'cognition', seen as counter-movements between the four moments of dialectic, CPRT, in the sense of Bhaskar's MELD. I trace DTF dialectical thinking back to Plato's Socrates, respectfully acknowledging Hannah Ahrendt's tremendous insight into 'the thinking ego' as remaining 'absent', which she owes to her  deep knowledge of Greek philosophy transferred to reading I. Kant's work. I tend to think that Roy Bhaskar would have been pleased to have his MELD epistemologically elucidated as happens in this blog. On Letting Thinking Appear   Read More...

In this blog, I problematize the question of how to teach dialectical thinking effectively in a world experienced as 'VUCA'. Specifically, I summarize my experience with teaching DTF at the Interdevelopmental Institute, with a focus on educating Critical Facilitators. Thought Form Theories def Read More...

There is, at the present time, an enormous lack of complex thinkers in the world, especially thinkers who are also doers and have the power to address the predicaments we are presently in as a species. So the idea that it is worthwhile to acquire complex holistic thinking abilities is a natural one for anybody who is a reflective practitioner. I have long written about the fallacies of logical thinking, and its rather pernicious limits. But that rather negative message is not really negative enough. There is also an enormous lack of teachers of complex thinking in the world, and that is big cultural issue, not to speak of the growing denial of the relevance of science. Since what we call 'thinking' precedes 'doing', that lack is truly of staggering importance. In this blog, I describe in some detail counter-measures that can be taken, positively speaking, for the sake of educating dialectically savvy critical facilitators who can act as teachers of  those who have fallen victim to fallacies that logical thinking embodies (such as that A can never be B). I do so by describing in some detail what a cognitive case study is, what kinds of effort it requires,... Read More...

In this blog, I  point to the de-totalization of human consciousness that is presently  state of the art in research in adult development. This de-totalization occurs on account of the absence of research on the way in which the social-emotional capability, shed light on by Loevinger and Kegan, intrinsically relates to the cognitive capability researched by Basseches, Commons, and Bhaskar, as well as myself. This de-totalization shows the stark limits of present research in adult development. It reflects a broken humanism as we experience it every day now. Is there a Bridge Between ED and CD Read More...

My colleague and friend Jan De Visch has recently made enormous strides toward a 'dialogically savvy app', -- an app that triggers deep and critical thinking in order to foster dynamic collaboration. The app is accompanied by the Re-Thinking Game, an implementation of DTF, the Dialectical Thought Form Framework. DTF is an ideal framework for preparing yourself to become a Critical Facilitator because it enables a learner to acquire the skill of 'building complexity' with clients, a process by which clients become aware of the 'terrible simplification' they perform on the real world by way of logical thinking. Jan is an graduate of the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) where he learned to think in terms of the moments of dialectic and their thought forms (see the many blogs on this computer to learn more). Below, have a look at what Jan has to say about the difference between conventional and critical facilitation (facilitation based on critical thinking). In Jan's and my definition, the difference between a conventional facilitator and a 'critical facilitator' is the following: A facilitator functions from a 'participant perspective.' He looks at an organizational system as an outsider and intervenes in it to achieve certain objectives. S(he) is... Read More...