Gendlin’s most important idea
Background of the Idea
The most important idea common to Gendlin’s new and old philosophical masterpieces, “A Process Model” and “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning,” is “Neither arbitrary nor logical.”
It is just my point that a process differs both from arbitrariness and from logic. (Gendlin, 1997/2018, p. 47)
Experienced meaning is not determined by logical relationships, but does not function arbitrarily. (Gendlin, 1962/1997, p. 140; bold added)
In considering the seemingly contradictory properties of being neither arbitrary nor logical at the same time, I refer to the following passage from Dilthey's work, which has been the most significant influence on Gendlin:
I must seek out an expression that can occur in time and is not distorted from without. Instrumental music is one such expression. However it may have originated, it presents a sequence in which the creator can survey its temporal nexus from one formation to another. Here we see a tendency that is directed, an action reaching out for fulfillment, an advance of psychic activity itself, a being conditioned by the past and yet the containment of various possibilities, an explication that is at the same time creative. (Dilthey, 2002, pp. 251-2; cf. 1927, pp. 231-2 [GS VII, 231-2]; bold added)
The correspondence is shown below in the order in which they were aligned:
Development of the Idea
Please refer to the blog post below for the specific application and development of Gendlin’s ideas in “A Process Model.”
Neither arbitrary nor logical｜Hideo TANAKA
References
Dilthey, W. (2002). The formation of the historical world in the human sciences (edited by R. A. Makkreel, & F. Rodi) (Selected works / Wilhelm Dilthey, Vol. 3). Princeton University Press. Originally published as Dilthey, W. (1927). Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7) [abbriviated as GS VII]. B.G.Teubner.
Gendlin, E. T. (1962/1997). Experiencing and the creation of meaning: a philosophical and psychological approach to the subjective (Paper ed.). Northwestern University Press.
Gendlin, E. T. (1997/2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.
Tanaka, H. (2024, October). Neither arbitrary nor logical.