Intellectual Vacuum
Today, there is an intellectual
climate similar to the intellectual vacuum that Marx filled in the middle of the 19th century at the time of the
collapse of feudalism throughout Europe. The Kantian and Hegelian grand philosophical systems that mirrored moribund
feudalist and nascent capitalist intellectual longings were being called into question. Kant had produced a critical
analysis of the structure and types of human cognitive abilities, defined the regulative and constructive principles of cognition,
and described the relationship between content and form.
Before Kant, Descartes' initial methodological
principle was to subject all things to doubt in order to ascertain sound and reliable authentic knowledge. Descartes
also developed the rules by which rationalistic methodologies were fashioned by demanding that only propositions that are
clearly and distinctly comprehensible can be accepted as fact or true. Before Descartes, Galileo and Newton ascertained
scientific knowledge by synthesizing the deductive and the inductive methods based on planned, systematic and reliable mental
and practical experimentation. Earlier, Aristotle assumed that the object of true knowledge was universal and therefore
applied the method of investigating individual empirical elements as to understand the universal. He also, among other
things, established the rules of inference and proof, outlined the role of induction and deduction in ascertaining the truth,
and provided a methodologically significant discussion of categories as the organizing elements of cognition.
Even
earlier, Socrates, who gave priority to dialogical elements of thought via induction, saw the essential definition of concepts
as a method of perfecting the art of living and in the process achieving virtue, and therefore his logical operation were
influence by his ethical and moral aims. Socrates stood on the works of the Greek Sophists such as Protagoras who established
rules of reasoning, essential proof, and the role of symbols and languages as a means of cognition, research, and cognitive
activity aimed at acquiring knowledge by reliable means.
Before ancient Greece, KMTic researchers
in what is now called Egypt over 5543 years ago, established the method of cross paralleled process-orientation via a battle
of opposites, transitions from quantity to quality, regression before the leap forward, and the transformation or metamorphosis's
of the phenomena. In short, the epistemological, and historical roots of scientific research methods and theory run
deep into an African past. Kmtic cosmology is founded on four divine pairs representing the opposing principles of nature
that are supposed to be at the origin of things: Kuk and Kuket- the primordial darkness and its opposite: darkness and light.
Nun and Nunet- the primordial waters and their opposite: matter and nothingness. Heh and Hehet- spatial infinity and its opposite:
the infinite and finite, the unlimited and the limited. Amon and Amonet-the hidden and the visible, the nomenon and
the phenomenon. Niaou and Niaouet-emptiness and its opposite: the void and the replete matter (later). One can
see how the universe can be constructed from these notions, which will also become the basis of Western philosophy and particularly
of dialectical thought. The struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which
is being born and that which is dying, between that which is developing and that which is disappearing constitutes the internal
content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative
changes, the regression before the leap forward into the new, and the ultimate rebirth in higher form and content.
Ancient KMT regarded as important primarily not that which at the given moment seemed to be durable and yet is already
beginning to die away, but that which was being born, arising, battling for existence, that which was nascent and new, even
though because of its embryonic stages of development it appeared fragile, tender, clumsy and not durable. The
old, the moribund, the dying had its place in the unity also. It would struggle for its existence as the moribund and
evil Set struggled against the youthful and good Heru. But it would ultimately lose and take on a complementary role
in nourishing the fragile new through its higher stages of development until even the new became the old. The process
of development is not a simple process of growth where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes. There
is a period of regression, a stage of decay and utter rotting of the general cross-paralleled process. The stage is
crucial in the rebirth cycle of that which has reached the threshold of death.
The birth-death-rebirth cycle
in KMTic thought is at the core of its reincarnating belief structure in regard to matter and to spirit. The process
of development is not a haphazardly blind movement in circles; it is not a simple repetition of what has already occurred
(history never identically repeats itself). To the contrary, it is an onward and upward spiraling methodical ascendancy,
ever improving, ever taking one step backwards for every two steps forward; it is a transition from an old qualitative state
to a new qualitative state. There is evolution and devolution; revolution and counter-revolution; forward progress and backward
regression. Nothing is promised. Processes win out because they fit themselves in struggle or are bequeathed favorable
conditions at birth and thereby carryout their historical roles in the process of the unity and battle of opposites.
As philosophy emerged and the problems of accumulating and transmitting accurate scientific experience necessitated
formalized concepts and formulae, research methods and theory became an essential element of cognition and came to be viewed
as a system of rules and standard for intellectual and logical inquiry. The epoch in history which today
ushed in the 21st century is much different from the epoch that ushered in capitalism and the 19th century.
As the Industrial Revolution necessitated the scientific developments of that epoch, the Scientific and Technological Revolution
(STR) has necessitated advanced scientific developments in the epoch of the 21st century. Historically, the
global revolution in science technology emerged in embryo as a technical formation in the early 1970's and
solidified as an embryo. Each mental image of the world system is and remains in actual fact limited, objectively by the historical
conditions and subjectively by the physical and mental constitution of its originator.
