Little misunderstanding: Concept of ‘the middle ground’
Meso level reasoning has prehistoric roots. It is manifested in shamanic traditions thousands of years before being introduced to Western civilisation (Pont, 2004). Heraclitus of Ephesus (in the fifth century BCE) placed humans on the intermediate level between gods and apes because he thought that humans had some characteristics of both.[1] For Aristotle, man is the link between matter and spirit (in Sedláček, 2011). Ironically, Pythagoreans themselves saw their mission in organising a temple or a city as a mesocosm isomorphic to the macro order of the universe (Fossa, 2011). In Plato’s ideal state, a polis is a mesocosm that operates as the intermediate level between the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the individual (Pont, 2004). Buddhism developed the philosophy of a middle path between extremes by logically affirming a formal procedure for avoiding absolute claims or reference to anything eternal or absolute.[2]
The concept of meso arose in modern social sciences rather late and remained marginal to the mainstream. The theory of evolution applied the meso level in the explanation of its core tenet, the selection phase as a middle stage between variation, and retention. Systems theory also possesses characteristics that correlate with the fundamental idea of meso (Andersson, 2003), with relations as the intermediate components of a system belonging equally to the parts and to the whole. Giddens (1989) identified a social field of the radical middle because it involves unbridgeable oppositions but nevertheless remains non-exclusionary in relation to incommensurable domains of social complexity.
The mesoscopic reasoning in complex conditions is different from several other concepts of the middle. It first enthusiastically distances itself from Merton’s (1968) concept of ‘a middle range’, which holds that in complex conditions we can aim only at understanding limited topics which are never about broad, abstract entities such as ‘society’ or a ‘social system’ (Geels, 2007). Instead, the meso concept is an essentially synthesising idea that is foundational for framing discussions about holistic matters in contemporary societies.
Neither is meso the same as a compromise, a middle point between extremes. To reach a compromise, protagonists need to sacrifice something from their primary concerns as a prerequisite for achieving even minimal unity at a higher level. On the other hand, meso does not seek to compromise core concerns, but only identify the peripheral overlap between them — meso is not singular balancing point between oppositions but a field with rich topography of situational, non-antagonist conflicts and synergies.
Moreover, meso is not the same as the middle way in Buddhist philosophy, developed to free an individual from the chain of cause and effect that stand behind everyday suffering, until recognising illusions due to not seeing ‘absence of essence’ as their foundation. The middle way philosophy aims to eliminate everything illusionary, while mesoscopic reasoning embraces illusions as the only medium through which truth can speak to us, even though only in distorted messages. While the Middle way philosophy leads to the realisation of an ultimate goal of human existence, to reach freedom from illusions, mesoscopic reasoning is aiming merely to attain provisional goals of vaguely bridging the contradictions of existence in given conditions.
Finally, meso is not the same as the golden middle between the rational and the irrational. The ‘golden ratio’ or divine proportion, stemming from the ancient tradition of sacred geometry, is the mathematical expression of a specific harmonious pattern of organisation that is present in nature and often applied in the arts (two quantities are in a golden ratio when the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one). The harmony of the golden ratio results from an asymmetrical balance between the rational and the irrational. The idea of asymmetrical harmony transcends the Pythagorean idea of symmetrical harmony. The case nevertheless remains that the golden ratio is a ratio. Meso is different since it works with incommensurable categories.
Knowing what mesoscopic complexity is not can be helpful only for introduction into positive explanation. We wish to inqire mesoscopic reasoning in its foundational triadic Peircean frame, and to ask what essentially awards it radical intermediary potential that is so suggestively missing from conventional concepts of complexity. To think in mesoscopic way, one first needs to acknowledge two independent poles of existence (Dopfer, 2013). These can be explained integrally only by special categories of thirdness that stay between opposites so they can involve part of both. These categories are bi-modal with a hybrid content, so they can peripherally translate between opposites in a non-exclusive manner, without interfering into their primary oppositions. As a result, mesoscopic reasoning can explain deep oppositions in co-existence without contradictions (Flores-Camacho et al., 2007). Socio-economic development, for instance, is a bi-modal mesoscopic category, which translates antagonistic conflict between economic and social domain into triadic relation.
As an artefact of thirdness, meso level reasoning puts forward the ‘doctrine of the middle’ (Malthus, in Cremaschi, Dascal, 1996). It discloses no generality about inquired issues and lays no principal claims to any reality beyond itself (Olshewsky, 1996). Mesoscopic reasoning is only a bridging principle, an intermediator or medium, that is, paraphrasing James (2002), similar to a corridor in a hotel lobby, leading to many different rooms or theories or universals, each branching away and opening to its own independent niche.
Middle level reasoning calls for ‘exercising common sense, self-restraint and moderation’ (Craiutu, 2016). Principle of moderation is not the opposite of the firmness and clarity; it is not meant as rest in indecision, weakness, opportunism and cowardice but in positive way, like Plato as the virtue that allows us to control or temper our passions, emotions and so it is ‘proper only to noble and courageous minds’ (Edmund Burke in Craiutu, 2016). Craiutu who devoted his delightful book to this question claims that moderates are aware not only of the relative validity of all others’ but also of their own convictions and of imperfect knowledge and information. Moderates in turn ‘refuse to define one single best way and do not seek to find a definitive solution to intractable problems’ but accept only explanations that arise from correlation between partial views. Craiutu reminds that Aristotle defined virtue as a mean between extremes, since it preserves order and freedom in society. Yet since the mean is never one-dimensional, we must always evaluate the situation in context from the middle, as moderates. Only in this manner, Thomas Aquinas argued that moderate and temperate truths can coincide with what is good. In moderation ‘we are most likely to meet with truth and certainty’ (David Hume in Craiutu, 2016).
[1] Wikipedia, #Heraclitus, I 2015.
[2] It is especially noteworthy that the Philosophy of the middle path as a mesoscopic construct does not apply the triadic but the four-cornered method of argument, rendered as tetralemma (x is a; is not-a; both is a and is not-a; neither is a nor is not not-a; Braitstein, 2004). This logical ‘mismatch in numbers’, if observed from the Peircean perspective, probably deserves further methodological investigation with the prime aim to learn about different paths leading to mesoscopic goal in philosophies of East and West — the inspiration otherwise ignited by Kitarō Nishida (1870–1945) of the Kyoto School of philosophy and followers already hundred years ago (more recently especially via philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida).
From a book “Complex Society: In the Middle of a Middle World” (Radej, Golobič; Vernon Press, 2021), Short/Long presentation, Reviews: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/social-complexity-complex-society-middle-world-bojan-bojan-radej/?published=t
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