Dialectics of Father and Son Thesis

Because the father sees his death as attached to the coming to life of the son, the son's life is also representative, or so the author claims, of the father's return to life, and even his immortality. The logical leaps required to make this claim are legion. First, it must be assumed that the father sees his son's life as a continuation of his own because the son's life caused (through requiring sacrifice) the father's death. This is akin to saying that if a car runs over and kills a cat, the car -- as the agent of death -- somehow takes on the life of the cat. The coincidence of causation is not enough, to most minds, to imply a continual relationship of the sort ascribed to fathers and sons here. The author of this tract goes even further, though, not only asserting that this relationship will be automatically perceived by the father, but that it actually exists, without offering a shred of metaphysical argument beyond referring to Plato. He then emphasizes that the individuals that make up a relationship -- in this case, the father and the son -- are not real, but rather that only the invisible relationship itself is. The question of how the relationship can exist without individuals to share it is not really addressed.The idea that the relationship defines the individual more than vice versa is not new, but it has never seemed incredibly rational, either -- no one is a member of only one relationship; even at a specific moment we are sons/daughters, mothers/father, lovers, students, teachers, philosophers, employees, etc., etc., etc. Though the immortality and divinity attributed to relationships here is nice, it is hardly the result of a logical train of thought.

Many modern dialectics take the same self-affirming approach seen here, rather than the skepticism found in Renaissance and even Socratic philosophies. This skepticism was a much more productive way of going about things; having to prove things by constantly doubting them is more difficult, certainly, but only because it demands more rigor when claiming something as truth. Dialectics are only effective when employed with a measure of doubt;, which is not the case here......