Paradigm Explorer 2018/2
Palintonos Harmonia: The alchemy of opposites Oliver Robinson
The idea that the tension generated by the juxtaposition of opposites is somehow central to human existence stretches right back to the to the roots of Western and Eastern thought. Heraclitus, one of the Pre-Socratic philosophers of Ancient Greece, referred to this idea using the lovely phrase palintonos harmonia (counter-stretched harmony). He pointed out that wherever one finds a tension of opposites one also finds a unity; hot and cold are opposed yet are part of one continuum. The same with night and day. More of one means less of the other, and yet they can only exist together as one. Heraclitus suggested that this kind of tension sustains the cosmos and is an expression of its paradoxical nature as both unity and multiplicity. In Chinese philosophy, the play of opposites is central to yin yang theory. Yin and yang represent two power-principles that are different yet utterly interconnected. Yin is yielding, covert, dark and flowing. Yang is active, agentic, overt, light and hard. Together they create a two-part whole. Harmony and health is found in their relative balance. Illness and pathology in physical, mental or social forms occurs from too much of one or the other. Everything contains is opposite, and too much of anything can bring a loss of balance. As well as the realm of ideas that Heraclitus and the Chinese philosophers explored, harmony in music and art is produced by the juxtaposition of two or more contrasting things that come together to forge a higher unity. Perhaps the clearest expression of this is in colour theory, where complementary colours are those that are opposite on the colour wheel, as shown in Figure 1. By juxtaposing complementary colours in a painting or design, such as red and green, one creates a visual balance and harmony. In the Middle Ages, Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464) continued the philosophical exploration of palintonos harmonia by suggesting that the nature of the divine is best understand as a coincidentia oppositorum – that which contains opposites and thus transcends them. He wrote: “When we attempted to see Him beyond being and not-being, we were unable to understand how He could be visible. For He is beyond everything plural, beyond every limit and all unlimitedness; He is completely everywhere and not at all anywhere; He is of every form and of no form, alike; He is completely ineffable; in all things He is all things, in nothing He is nothing, and in Him all things and nothing are Himself; He is wholly and indivisibly present in any given thing (no matter how small) and, at the same time, is present in no thing at all.� De Possest 74
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