A Gateway to The Life of The Mind

I derive from the great American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce the idea of thinking in threes. Thinking in threes is a liberating and easy way of moving beyond the inherent conflict of binary thinking. To think in threes, start with any reality - an idea, a sense, an image, anything. The reality or sign is always the first stage of thinking in threes. The second stage of thinking in threes is whatever blunt truth your reality bumps up against. Blunt truth in thinking in threes can be conscious or spontaneous. If your goal is to live a good life, you might submit your reality to the blunt truths of ethics. Inevitably, any reality that comes up will bump into something that modifies it. If you fancy a color, a name modifies it. If you fancy freedom, it encounters conditions. In binary thinking, the second stage of thought is the end. Binary thinking is either-or. My way or the highway. One or two. A or B. Binary thinking is very useful but it is utterly limited as a philosophy of life. To enjoy a good and conscious life, thought must enter a third stage. The third stage is revolutionary. It is where consideration turns into constructive action. When we fail to enter the third stage of thinking, we become literally thoughtless. Cain's reality was envy. Its referent was Abel. The thoughtless result was murder. All binary thinking runs the risk of doing serious violence. When one thinks in threes, one can consciously apply ethics in the second stage. One can frame an action that is consistent with ethics. The third stage of thinking in threes is a conscious translation of a general reality into a specific action. Ideally, this action will be informed by ethical values and the result would be what tends toward truth and beauty. Whatever your philosophy may be, thinking threes is a sensible starting point. It avoids the sort of binary conflict that is almost the default in much politics and culture. It makes one critical and even iconoclastic in society. It is not an occasion for pride. It is rather the process of becoming mindful. This becoming is one gateway to the life of the mind.