| The Tetrad |  |
|---|---|
| Systemic Attribute: | Activity |
| Term Designation: | Source |
| Term Characters: Motivational | Ground/Goal |
| Term Characters: Operational | Direction/Instrument |
First order connectivities: Interplays
The tetrad is concerned with the change of order. This is exemplified in everyday situations such as that of cooking where raw foodstuffs become a meal. It is exemplified in the activity of the mind, when perceptions are transformed into understanding. Such activities are flexible, orderly and intentional. In mathematics, specification of order requires four terms. We say that ordering activities proceed from four sources.
We simplify by grouping the four terms into two pairs, one concerned with the why (motivational) and the other with the how (operational). Thus each activity arises from an actual ground and has an ideal or goal. Since the activity is intentional and operative, it has direction and an instrument.
In human affairs, we can distinguish two kinds of motivational source, corresponding to ground and goal: need and aspiration. The operational sources can always be grouped according to the two kinds, direction and instrument; the former cognitive and theoretical, the latter involved and practical. Each of the six interplays has a specific interpretation. These have proved useful in understanding the scientific activity.
An extract from The Tetrad a work in progress by Anthony Blake.
References for the Tetrad:
Pythagoras (582-496 BCE)
Pythagorean Aspects of Music
http://www.musicpsyche.org/Journal/mp3-SPhillips.htm
Pre-Socratic
Elemental: The Four Elements From Ancient Greek Science and Philosophy to Ancient Sites Poetry copyright 1998 by Tracy Marks (Torrey Philemon)
http://www.webwinds.com/thalassa/elemental.htm
Plato (427- 347 BCE)
Four kinds of cognition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_divided_line_of_Plato
Theosophical
http://www.experiencefestival.com/tetraktys
Amerindian
Four directions
http://www.marquette.edu/library/neh/eltsosie/resource/dire-color-mountain.htm
Rene Guenon (1886-1951)
THE TETRACTYS and the SQUARE of FOUR
http://www.vermontel.net/~vtsophia/SYM101b.htm
Jung (1875-1961)
Quaternio
http://www.symbolism.org/writing/books/spc/duality/page2.html
Model of consciousness
http://www.zyworld.com/DrBernardSButler/Jungs%20Model.htm
Arthur Young (1905-1995)
The Reflexive Universe
http://www.arthuryoung.com/the2exc.html
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)
Nature and the Tetrad
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss5/1_5art7.htm
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (1901-1981)
Hysterical Academies: Lacan's Theory of the Four Discourses
http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/Articles/McMahon/McMahon.html
A. J. Greimas (1917-1992)
Semiotic Square
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/narratology/modules/greimassquaremainframe.html
W. McWhinney
Plurality of world views
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/RevSoc/archive/volume9/number2/9-2g.htm
Modern - Hillar
Qubit
http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com/Dissertation%202/7.0%20Qubit.htm
Links to the Compendium: