Illuminism is based on dialectical thinking, so it's crucial for those who seek to understand the religion of the Illuminati to first understand the nature of dialectics. Dialectical logic - based on the synthesis of opposites and the resolution of contradictions - is usually contrasted with Aristotelian logic, which is analytical rather than synthetic, and is based on highlighting and emphasizing contradictions.
Aristotelian logic is centred on two key concepts: the Principle of Non-Contradiction and the Principle of Excluded Middle.
Bertrand Russell asserted that there are three "Laws of Thought":
1. Law of Identity: 'Whatever is, is.'
2. Law of Non-Contradiction: 'Nothing can both be and not be.' (For example, it cannot both be raining and not raining.)
3. Law of Excluded Middle: 'Everything must either be or not be.' (For example, it is either raining or it is not.)
Simple-minded people are fixated on such Laws, but they are in fact the Laws of Being and they themselves are contradicted by the Laws of Becoming. Aristotelian logic, the bedrock of Western thinking, lends itself to reductive, analytical thinking - in breaking everything down, and separating it from everything else. But this is an illusion. The universe, as Eastern thinking has always emphasized, is an interconnected whole. The type of logic that best deals with "becoming" rather than "being" is dialectical logic.
The Illuminist Heraclitus is known as the father of dialectical thinking. His type of thinking reached its apex in the philosophy of another great Illuminist, Hegel. Dialectical thinking is all about synthesis, about unifying opposites. The key idea of Hegelian dialectics is that everything contains a fundamental inner, implicit contradiction that will lead to the contradiction eventually being explicitly expressed. Thus when it is raining, the implicit contradiction that it will stop raining is already starting to manifest itself, and, in due course, the rain will indeed stop. There will be a time during the transition between raining and not raining when the distinction between the two states cannot be clearly drawn. Aristotelian logic emphasizes the separate phases of the process, while dialectical logic emphasizes the interconnectedness of the apparent contradictions - they are part of an ongoing process of becoming rather than separate types of being.
