The Other

If you think about the concept of knowledge, knowledge is possible only in relation to its opposite, i.e. ignorance.
The search for knowledge in itself implies binary notions. It's not really just a western thing, I don't know where you got this notion. Check the chinese ying yang concepts, they based all manner of inquiry on conceptualizing things in the world as being closer to one or the other principle. The fact that oppositions may be dialectically related had been explored multiple times in western philosophy, e.g. Eraclitus, Plato's Phaedo (first proof of immortality of the soul) way up to Hegel.
It seems to me a bit of a generalization to say that we are caught up in 'binary notions' - what do you mean exactly?

The other is v significant to what's known as the 'ethical turn' in philosophy. Levinas's concept of metaphysics is that our relationship/responsibility to the other is mediated by a third party which enforces the moral injunction of "thou shalt not kill". Although God doesn't necessarily factor into it, it's definitely this conception which deleuze is taking a poke at in the ATP chapter on faciality where he says that this transcendental blank face is the face of Christ. Basically it entails the production of a pacified other that doesn't reveal anything about the reality of "otherness"

Knowledge is not the same as things that are not knowledge, yes. But your
>knowledge is possible only in relation to its opposite, i.e. ignorance
is pulled from thin air. Which leads you to
>the search for knowledge in itself implies binary notions
also being grabbed out of thin air. Which leads to your
>the chinese ying yang concept
again, being pulled out of thin air, to say nothing of the implicit idea in yin/yang of a reciprocal relationship rather than a hierarchical one.

What do you recommend?

>Where there is a spectrum there is more and less of certain qualities
in the light spectrum, what qualities are there "more" or "less" of? below and above certain wavelengths the light becomes imperceptible, meaning you have "less" of the perceptual quality of light at both extremes. If you going to argue by analogy, at least be rigorously precise before attacking other people. is a far more sound argument than yours.

>why is western philosophy so caught up in binary notions?

The opposition and combination of the universe's two basic principles of yin and yang is a large part of Chinese philosophy, and is an important feature of Taoism, so is not only a western obsession.

>Saussure certainly didn't invent the tendency to binarise things, he merely adopted it.

What do you mean by this? Wasn't he a descriptivist? He just show the language as it is, even though he had discrepancies with the descriptivists in his time.

>reciprocal relationship rather than a hierarchical one.

Nit that guy but, what do you mean by this, doesn't a hierarchy have a reciprocal relationship with the dominated group ?

What's your example of a reciprocal relationship, could a society without a hierarchy system even exist or survive?

>He just show the language as it is, even though he had discrepancies with the descriptivists in his time.
Sure, but his description was that each unit of language is understood only in its relation to other units (a binary relationship), and never in isolation (i.e. language is a structure).

Reciprocation implies an equality between the two (e.g. man and woman), while hierarchy implies a privileging of one over another (e.g. man over woman, knowledge over ignorance, etc.), no?

>Reciprocation implies an equality between the two (e.g. man and woman), while hierarchy implies a privileging of one over another (e.g. man over woman, knowledge over ignorance, etc.), no?

the quality or state of being reciprocal : mutual dependence, action, or influence

a mutual exchange of privileges; specifically : a recognition by one of two countries or institutions of the validity of licenses or privileges granted by the other

Not sure if reciprocity implies equality, but it would be interesting a discussion about it.

>Language is a structure

Shit, I totally forget that, the opposition system. What do you study user? I've never saw a thread about Saussure io this board; it would be great to have more Veeky Forumsposting about linguistics. (Not including the Chomsky hate threatds)

ying and yang aren't opposed. taoism is a monist philosophy.

Yeah but from socrates their philosophy turns more binary like the one OP talks about

Lol holy shit you must really be taking a spectrum of something if you think that's a rigid or even remotely factual argument.

I did not make an argument from perception, you dirty little nominalist. The spectrum of light has two scales, one quantitative from fewer (non, or darkness, being the lower extreme point) to more (infinite or whatever the saturation point in, absolute light in other words, being the other extreme) photons displacing themselves through a volume of space. The other spectrum is related to the periods/frequencies of the photons, and is what in a manner of speaking causes the mentioned perceptions of colours (of course it's a very reductionist perspective, but it should illustrate your error well enough).

So what you're saying is there's a way of defining a "spectrum" that doesn't refer to quantative value or structural binaries?

Also, you explicitly wrote "more or less qualities", as if that isn't an oxymoron in itself. Qualities are not quantative, I presumed that'd be obvious but evident I've overestimated you.

Obviously, as I just detailed, quantitative values are used. Qualities are primary, and quantities are emergent. This is not a structuralist argument, thank you very much.

>Qualities are not quantative

A quality is not in its essential form quantitative, quantity and quality are however usually (that is to say, in the intelligible universe) co-dependent. Hence, it is not incorrect to say that a quantity is (an emergent) quality of something (a crowd, for example), nor that quality is quantitative as in there being more or less of a certain quality essentially defining that a derived quality, e.g. the quantity of the quality heat defining the quality of burning.

>knowledge is possible only in relation to its opposite, i.e. ignorance
is pulled from thin air. Which leads you to

It is not pulled out of thin air. The process of learning knowledge is possible only starting from a state of ignorance. I can learn something only if I do not know it. In this sense, knowledge and ignorance are related - and this is true for every concept. Good does not make sense without bad, right does not make sense without wrong. True does not make sense without false.

>the search for knowledge in itself implies binary notions
also being grabbed out of thin air. Which leads to your

If you read above, you see that I am right saying that the search for knowledge is based upon binary concepts - or at least upon two binary distinctions: knowledge/ignorance and true/false. There is no such thing as searching for knowledge without these, because the search for knowledge in itself is the passage from one of these concepts to its opposite (and vice-vicersa, since part of the search for knowledge is also the destruction of false beliefs).

>the chinese ying yang concept
again, being pulled out of thin air, to say nothing of the implicit idea in yin/yang of a reciprocal relationship rather than a hierarchical one.

The fact that opposites have a reciprocal relationship is what I have been saying from the beginning, and it is what you find in Heraclitus and in the first argument for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo, if you read it. The only one that is even remotely referring to hierarchies is Hegel - who does not put thesis and antithesis in a hierarchy, but rather claims that they can be reunited in a synthesis which is hierarchically superior (again, if you want to force the concept of hierarchy into the thing, which does not seem to be the case with Hegel)

It's called dialectic monism for a reason, though. The point is the complementarity of two opposite principles - it's not like the Neoplatonic One.