(1990).

International Review of Psycho-Analysis, 17:425-431

Bi-Logic in Psychoanalysis and Other Disciplines an Introduction

Eric Rayner and Gerald Wooster
Presented here is a collection of papers read at a small informal conference, held at the Institute of Psycho-Analysis in London in June 1988, to celebrate the eightieth birthday of Professor Ignacio MatteBlanco. About thirty people, who were especially interested in his ideas on bi-logic, gathered from half a dozen countries to get to know him, each other and their work. With no prior intention to make it so, the result was a collection of papers coming from a remarkable wide spectrum of intellectual disciplines: psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, theology, political philosophy, linguistics, mathematics, and logic. This is the more striking because Matte-Blanco's thinking,being a blend of classical psychoanalysis and mathematical logic, is at first sight esoteric and forbidding. Although widely known in Italy, he has hardly been heard of elsewhere, let alone understood. We have been wondering about this paradox, why should this work be so little known yet gain the keen interest of a few people widely spaced in cultural backgrounds? We two writers set about asking this question of ourselves, why had we got so interested? The apparent intellectual clarity of the logic was certainly attractive. But this alone would not have sustained two psychoanalysts who spend their days working clinically. One answer was practical; once the initial incomprehension had been overcome, and we began to use Matte-Blanco within our ordinary analytic reverie, some aspects of thinking about patients seemed easier. In short, it seems that it makes borderline-psychotic levels of thought more comprehensible. It soon becomes apparent that Matte-Blanco's thinking about psychoanalysis in terms of different logical forms, bi-logic he calls it, is a conceptual horizon-shift, but in no way does it replace classical psychoanalytic theory. Being about how, in principle, the individual knows things, Matte-Blanco is essentially meta-psychological. However, this does not supersede the topographical, dynamic and structural points of view; it adds a new mode whereby the logical form of mental processes may be understood. It would be impossible to practise psychoanalysis based on bi-logic alone; Matte-Blanco is quite clear about this. But, once grasped, it adds a new dimension to our thinking. There is something else that has gripped us about bi-logic; this is Matte-Blanco's new theoretical vision about emotionality. It is odd for this to come from mathematical logic, yet both of us recall the excitement of finding out about this strange way of conceiving about affects, which after all are at the centre of analytic work. It was this reason more than any other that convinced each of us, independently, that it was worth taking trouble with bi-logic. The wide range of papers collected together here suggests that one of the major uses of bi-logic may well be through this approach to emotionalityto act as a bridge between psychoanalytic forms of theory and those of other disciplines. It could be said that mankind consciously lives in a mono-logical world; here bodies of knowledge then tend to be divided into those that are logically disciplined, like the biological and physical sciences, and those that are seemingly not. In this latter rag-bag would be deposited the social sciences, the arts, theology, metaphysics and, to many of course, psychoanalysis. We now know that it is quite possible

(MS. received May 1990) Copyright Institute of Psycho-Analysis, London, 1990

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to conceive of more than one system of logical rules at a time; each system can have its own axioms and can operate in combinations with systems which have otheraxioms. Matte-Blanco thinks this is just what happens in the unconscious. If the unconscious has its own logical forms, then crude dichotomization, into that which is logical and that which is not, becomes redundant. Psychoanalysis would then be less easily discardable into the logically suspect rag-bag, and some other suspect bodies of knowledge might follow suit. How has Matte-Blanco come to be this potential bridger of disciplines? A Chilean by birth, he qualified in medicine in Santiago and went on to become a professor of physiology but soon became absorbed by psychoanalysis and decided to train in it. In the mid-nineteen thirties there were not many places to do this and he chose London. While attending the Institute of Psycho-Analysis here he also trained at the Institute of Psychiatry. In 1940 he moved to New York; it was here that his interest in

mathematical logic took fire and he attended Courant's seminars for several years. Returning to Chile he was appointed Professor of Psychiatry at Santiago University and was the major founder of the Chilean Psychoanalytic Society. In the early nineteen sixties, wanting to throw off his heavy administrative burdens, he moved to Rome where he had been offered a non-administrative professorship. He has been there for twenty-five years now. It is in Italy and also parts of South America that he is best known; there is a scattering of enthusiasts, such as in Britain, throughout other parts of the world, but he seems hardly known in North America. He is a Member of the British, Chilean and Italian Psychoanalytic Societies. His major work in English is contained in two books: The Unconscious as Infinite Sets(1975) and Thinking, Feeling and Being(1988). Anyone wishing to master bi-logical thinking about psychoanalysis must tackle these. But they are formidable at first sight. There are brief introductions (Rayner, 1981) ; (also Rayner & Tuckett, in Matte-Blanco, 1988). When starting to try and grasp bi-logic there is usually an initial period of feeling in danger of going slightly mad and being exasperated by this, but when the basic ideas are grasped Matte-Blanco's thinking is not difficult even to non-mathematical minds. We cannot give an adequate summary of his ideas here, but the papers that follow repeatedly allude to his work and will make incomplete sense if the reader has no inkling of what he is about. So here is a very brief indication of the ideas that lie behind bi-logic. About thirty years ago Matte-Blanco was puzzling about Freud's (1900), (1915) specifications of the main characteristics of the unconscious. These were, in particular: displacement, condensation, timelessness, absence of negation and replacement of external by internal reality. Freud had made it plain that these did not obey the ordinary rules of logic. But, argued Matte-Blanco, they must obey some rules for unconscious processes are, at least some of the time, understandable. Understanding would be impossible with no rules; what were they? The next step is best taken by thinking in a general everyday way. Every waking moment, as we go about our business, the mind, be it animal or human, is continuously subliminally classifying. Managing the objects of the environment requires constant acts of recognition, without this everything would have to be learnt anew all the time. This 'same again' experience must involve classificatory activity. Thus any classification involves the registration of a sameness or identity. But relating to the world around also entails discriminating the relationships between the subject and objects and between objects themselves. Without such discrimination of difference relations it would not be possible to negotiate the environment. In summary so far, we are always classifying and this entails the registration of sameness, of identities or homogeneity, and also discrimination of difference relations. Matte-Blanco actually uses a more logically analytic mode of notation. He distinguishes two forms of relation, instead of 'sameness' he uses the term symmetry and instead of difference relation he uses asymmetry. What precisely do these terms mean? The fundamental axis of Matte-Blanco's proposal is as follows: A logically asymmetrical relationship is one whose converse is not identical to it. Some examples will make this clear. A is to the left of B has the converse B is to the right of A. A is after B has the converse B is before A.
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A is eating B has the converse B is being eaten by A. Here all the converses are not identical to the originally proposed relationship, they are thus logically asymmetrical relations. This sort of discrimination is, of course, essential to recognition of, and thought about, the external world. The idea of 'external', for instance, is logically asymmetrical since it has the converse 'internal'. Some perceived relations are, however, logically symmetrical. A symmetrical relation is one whose converse is identical to it. Here are some examples: A is near B has the converse B is near A. A is touching B has the converse B is touching A. A is in synchrony with B has the converse B is in synchrony with A. Note that with a proposition about symmetrical relations its subject and object are reversible. Using these concepts, Matte-Blanco now makes two hypotheses which are as follows: 1. Ordinary logical thought, which is primarily scientific logic about the physical world, must entertain propositions about asymmetrical relations. Here the mind must be able to conceive of relations whose converses are not identical to them. In such asymmetrical logical thought, since recognition is essential, sameness or symmetry must be registerable, but only in strict

coherence with the discrimination of difference relations. The functioning of this logic is virtually synonymous with what psychoanalysts call Secondary Process. 2. The unconscious, however, often treats the converse of a relation as identical to it when ordinary conscious logic would discriminate asymmetry. It may treat asymmetrical relations as symmetrical. This very simple proposal is the keystone of Matte-Blanco's work. This mixing of symmetrical relations with asymmetrical is called bi-logic by Matte-Blanco. The unconscious is thus not a-logical, it is bi-logical. The apparently inappropriate mixing or 'insertion' of symmetrical into asymmetrical relations is called symmetrization and needs further explanation. As we have said, at first sight the reader is likely to find that contemplation of this is distinctly odd, even mad. This point is made by Matte-Blanco himself; he started his work with the study of schizophrenic thought and takes pains to show that this grossly uses symmetrized logic when asymmetrical is appropriate to the conscious sane mind. Here are a few examples: let us first make a proposition using asymmetrical logic, say that 'A is giving something good to B'. Continuing with ordinary logic, which uses asymmetry, we would conclude 'B is being given something good by A'. But if, after the initial discrimination, we slip into a symmetrization, we say 'A is giving something good to B so B is giving something good to A'. Ordinarily this is not a very logical conclusion but affective experiences like this are most common. Here the subject and object might be more or less undifferentiated so that there is a diffuse feeling akin to 'goodness is happening'. Fond lovers will speak of this with such phrases as 'it's good between us'. A similar symmetrization would be 'A is devouring B so B is devouring A'. This is common for unhappy lovers, who might say of each other inother words 'we can't help devouring each other'. In these examples the result of the symmetrization is that subject and object tend to be fused, merged or reversible. Consider next the conception of a time relation. In ordinary logic we discriminate say 'event B follows event A', we would then recognize that 'A precedes B'. Here the converse is not identical to the original relation so it is asymmetrical. But, if a symmetrization intervenes after the initial discrimination, we go 'B follows A so A follows B'. Here succession is not distinguished, so there is no awareness of time sequence, time as we know it disappears. An exactly similar form of symmetrization can be applied tospace relations, so that they can disappear. Next, take the notion of an object and its parts. The conception of a whole object (A) and part of it (B) involves a space or time relation between them such that Aincludes B while B is included in A. This of course uses asymmetrical logic. But when symmetry intervenes the conception goes 'A includes B so B includes A'. Thus, in so far as symmetry rules, whole objects are experienced as identical to their parts. This might seem a pointless exercise, but it is often observable in emotional experiences both in analytic practice and ordinary life. It is usual, in
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sexual thoughts for instance, to recognize that the penis is a part of the body in a certain location. But in dreams, and in psychosis even at the conscious level, it is quite common to experience that penis, whole body and self are undifferentiated, identical or interchangeable. In muted form it is common enough in neurosis, as when a patient complains that his whole body or mind feels like an ejaculating penis. It is common also in insults and swearing, for instance, 'he is a prickor arseor tit'. The equation of part and whole can occur not only with specific objects but also with regard to the wholes and parts of classes. We will not spell out here the symmetrizations that can take place in the operation of classification; however it is easy to notice that we often engross ourselves in such logic in both pathological and normal circumstances. De Gaulle, for instance, did just this in his well known phrase 'La France, c'est moi'. This may not be logical but is definitely not meaningless. More commonplace is emotional prejudice, such as the thought 'Oh, must be a bad driver, it's a woman'. Here an individual driver is equated with two classes, women and bad drivers, and the two classes are also equated. Symmetrization has swept aside the use of such asymmetries as the perception that some women at least are not bad drivers. Dramatic play essentially involves symmetrization: thus to be convincing an actor must at some level suspend disbelief, he must be Hamlet. Or, a child may lie on the beach lapped by waves and declaim 'I am a stone'. As he is playing he must know he is not a stone, but in the game he is one. Such play can move into poetic metaphor, 'a stone she was cast on the shore of life'. Summarizing again so far. Matte-Blanco suggests that mental activity specified as unconscious is distinguished by insertions of symmetrization, or registrations of sameness, which would seem inappropriate to our conscious discriminating logical minds. Unconscious processes, together with

emotional ones, as we shall explain shortly, do usually contain ordinary logical relations but they are mixed with symmetrizations which seem strange or inappropriate. We think it would be right to say that Matte-Blanco considers his most fundamental contribution to be the demonstration that Freud's main characteristics of the unconscious (condensation, displacement, timelessness etc.) can be understood in terms of symmetrization of ordinary logical thought (MatteBlanco, 1975). Matte-Blanco's vision of unconscious processes as being vicissitudes of the basic classificatory activities of the human mind is not by any means completely new. Freud himself was clear that symbols of unconscious material bore essential similarity to the things they symbolized; Jones and Ferenczi likewise pointed out this basis of similarity. But it has been Matte-Blanco who has systematically pursued this line of investigation with a thoroughness that is original and which breaks new conceptual ground. Bi-logic replaces virtually nothing in psychoanalytic theory, and analysis can be practised perfectly well without it. But, when mastered, bi-logical thinking in terms of symmetrization is economical. For instance, no one item of Freud's characteristics of the unconscious is contradicted, but their listing, comparison and systematic memorization becomes redundant. Bi-logical conceptualization has a general applicability so that it turns up in all sorts of unlikely places, as this varied collection of papers attests. Its very generality may become a drawback; such concepts as symmetry and asymmetry could easily become terms to explain everything and hence nothing. It is too new for this to have happened yet. By the use of bi-logic, different levels of mental functioning can be discriminated, each of which contains a different proportion of symmetrization. Likewise differentpatterns of interweaving of symmetrical with asymmetrical logic can create different forms of unconscious process. This can be detected in the communication of different emotional states. More specifically for the clinician, different defence mechanisms can be shown to have differently interwoven bi-logical patterns of this kind. The investigation of these questions about the interweaving of asymmetry and symmetry has been the main task of Matte-Blanco's latest book in English (1988). The reader will find this alluded to in various papers here. Matte-Blanco has a way of entitling each pattern by a codeword which contains a reminder of the nature of the pattern, such strange names as Alassi, Simassi
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or Tridim thus appear. We cannot explain these now but they do have a meaning. Moving now to the forms of thought that occur in feelings and emotions. It will be recalled that, when symmetrization rules within an act of classification, there is no discrimination between members of the class, nor sense of difference between parts of the class and the whole of it. A member of, or subclass of, a class is only known as identical to the whole class. The subtlety of a sense of similarity then disappears into sameness. This seems to be happening all the time at emotional levels of thought. We noted it in such experiences as being in love, and in sexual arousal when equating penis, whole body and whole self could occur. We also saw it when de Gaulle said he was France, and when all women were bad drivers. A little reflection seems to suggest that symmetrization is occurring in any strong emotion. Going on thinking in this part equals whole vein, Matte-Blanco remembered something odd and interesting discovered by mathematicians concerned with set theory. For our purposes we can think of a set as a collection of any sort, a class is thus a set. He asked the question 'In mathematics, when is a subset equivalent to (i.e. has as many elements as) the whole set?' The answer is: 'Only when the set is infinite.' By an infinite set we simply mean one where the counting of its elements does not come to an end, even conceptually, there is no limit to the counting. An example will make this oddity more comprehensible. Take the set of all whole numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. This is an infinite set. Now take a part of this set, the sub-set all even numbers, say. This subset is also infinite. So for every whole number there corresponds one and only one even number. For instance 1 corresponds to 2, 2 corresponds to 4, 3 to 6 and so on ad infinitum. Thus the total of even numbers and whole numbers are both the same, infinite, in spite of the fact that the total of whole numbers includes odd numbers as well! This whole-part equivalence is a paradox which characterizes infinite sets but not finite ones. Matte-Blanco concluded that mathematical infinite sets behave in a way which is similar to what happens to parts and wholes when symmetrization occurs, they are bi-logical structures or systems. The logical consistency of Matte-Blanco's mathematical argument about infinity (1975), (1988) has, in fact, been questioned by not a few mathematicians. Even if he is proved wrong here, there can be no doubt that he has still done something new, for he has introduced the concept of infinity and infinite experiences into psychoanalytic thinking, and this does not rest upon mathematical rigour. Once alerted to infinite experiences one cannot help being struck by many signs of infinity in things every patient brings

to analysis. For instance, omniscient clearly has an infinite basis. An omniscient notion contains the idea 'I can know everything that it is possible to know' or 'there is no limit to my knowing'. Omnipotence likewise involves an infinity 'I can do all conceivable things'. Impotence also can at root be seen as 'I cannot do everything conceivable'. In idealization, too, the self or an object is endowed with infinite wonderfulenss. Whatever the link between the mathematics of counting and psychological experience may be, there can be little doubt that ideas of infinity are present any day in all of us. These can be recognized most easily in feeling states and this suggests that emotions generally can be examined, in their cognitive aspects, under a similar light. Consider a few extreme states, for instance being in love. It would carry no impact for a lover to express his feelings by saying 'I am in love with you for only a finite time in a specific location'. Rather, the true passionate lover experiences that his love is as good as timeless and no matter where the lover might be. At its height the loved one's beauty is all beauty and the lover's love is boundless. Infinites are ruling, parts tend to be identical to wholes, time and space stand still. Idealization with its sense of infinity dominates being in love. In extreme fear one is not afraid of a specific limited robber or murderer but of the essence of an omnipresent unknowable threat. Any specific sound or sight is an embodiment of the threat. Take grief; this is a result of an experience in time, of loss. Thus at the start grief involves asymmetrical logic, but at its height it irradiates, everything good can be felt as lost for all eternity. All these brief descriptions of extreme emotional states display qualities of irradiation and maximalization; also time and space tend to disappear. If the assumption is then made that
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extreme emotions are contained as nuclei in any feeling, then we may conclude as follows: In their cognitive aspects all affects contain elements of infinite experiences, these involve symmetrization as we have seen. Both affects and unconscious processes thus involve infinities. As far as we know this conclusion is new. It is hoped that the reader will now be able to enjoy the papers read at the conference. We start with clinical papers utilizing bi-logic: the first, by Jordan from Chile, is based on a psychoanalytic case study. It is concerned with the inside and outside of the body images of self and mother, the fusions and confusions that can take place between them and how these can be well understood with the aid of the concept of symmetrization. By chance the next paper has a similar theme, it is about limited aim psychotherapies carried out at St George's Hospital, London. Like Jordan's, it is concerned with patients who confused themselves with their bodies which were then confused with their mothers. The authors, Wooster, Hutchinson & Evans, stress how women during pregnancy and the puerperium may be particularly prone to such confusion where there is a symmetrization of self and object of mother and young child. This naturally may have consequences carrying over to the next generation. The next paper, by Jimenez, a Chilean psychoanalyst working in Germany, is theoretically psychoanalytic rather than clinical. It summarizes Freud's theory of dreamformation and shows how Matte-Blanco extends this. According to him the manifest content is more than mere distortion, it is a means of representing in simple three-dimensional visual images the vast complex multidimensionality of unconscious data. Now we move to other disciplines. Skelton, a logician from Dublin, provides a short historical overview of the logic of generalization utilized in psychoanalytic and psychiatric thinking. It needs no special knowledge to be easily followed. He views symmetrization in a slightly different light from Matte-Blanco; he sees it as involving essentially a reversibility of subject and object in mental activity so that a form of 'predicate thinking' occurs. He shows that others, from Freud and Jones onward, particularly von Domarus in Germany and Calvin Hall in America, had been searching in the same directions as Matte-Blanco, and often years before him. This naturally does not diminish Matte-Blanco's proposal, for, when an important new form of idea is in the air, several workers often independently come up with similar concepts. The next paper, by Mordant, a mathematician from London, may probably only have full impact upon those familiar with Matte-Blanco. However it is a centrally important contribution. Readers of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis may remember a debate on its letter pages during the midnineteen eighties between Skelton and Matte-Blanco. Skelton had examined Matte-Blanco's theoretical propositions with rigour and demonstrated that one basic aspect of the theory contradicted another part. This had the consequence that any and every conceivable conclusion could follow from the theory. It would thus be meaningless. Mordant agrees with Skelton in this stricture but shows how the contradiction

can be resolved leaving Matte-Blanco's central proposals intact. Both protagonists have heard this paper and, we think, basically agree with it. Maw, a linguistician fromd London University, provides something essentially new, this is a brief but detailed study of language structures, Swahili in this case, showing how bi-logic operates here. She shows how subject-object symmetrizations, predicate thinking in Skelton's terms, can occur differently in different languages. Maw's paper points up how psychoanalysts have on the whole neglected linguistics, and we can begin to see how we are the poorer for this. Bomford, once a mathematician and now an anglican priest and theologian from London, gives a most unusual paper. The general characteristics of God, as conceived by Christians throughout the ages, are compared with the characteristics of the unconscious as conceived by Freud. Using a bilogical analysis he shows their similarities. A final paper, by Etchegoyen & Ahumada, both psychoanalysts from Argentina, was not given at our Weekend Conference but is included for its relevance to the subject. Following the lead of Margaret Arden (1984) some time ago,
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they compare bio-logic with bi-logic. Gregory Bateson showed, in his studies of the logic of animal communication, that activity such as bird calls were actions on a part-equals-whole basis. This form of communication also goes on in any human emotional gesture. The writers then argue that such gestures are experienced by a recipient in a symmetrized or infinite way. This is particularly how an analyst receives the emotional gestures of a patient. It will be noticed that there was no contribution from a biologist, physiologist or, most centrally, a neurologist. Yet we have been wondering whether symmetry and asymmetry might link up with the functioning of the cerebral hemispheres. It has recently been suggested that the left, or dominant, hemisphere organizes discriminationasymmetrical relations that is. On the other hand, the right, or subdominant, is concerned with resonances and empathic functioning, which involves symmetrical relations.

REFERENCES
ARDEN, M. 1984 Infinite sets and double binds Int. J. Psychoanal. 65:443-452 [] FREUD, S. 1900 The interpretation of dreams S.E. 4 & 5 [] FREUD, S. 1915 The unconscious S.E. 14 [] MATTE-BLANCO, I. 1975 The Unconscious as Infinite Sets London: Duckworth. MATTE-BLANCO, I. 1988 Thinking, Feeling and Being London and New York: Routledge and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. [] RAYNER, E. H. 1981 Infinite experiences Int. J. Psychoanal. 62:403-412 []

SUMMARY
The innovative features of Matte-Blanco's contribution are very briefly pointed out. This is followed by a simple explanatory introduction to basic concepts in bi-logical theory. It is hoped that this will make the following papers understandable to a reader who has no acquaintance with the subject. Finally the main features of the subsequent papers are portrayed. These papers come from a remarkably wide variety of disciplines.
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]

Rayner, E. and Wooster, G. (1990). Bi-Logic in Psychoanalysis and Other Disciplines an Introduction. Int. Rev. Psycho-Anal., 17:425-431