International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

The union of opposites to form a new element.

This concept, used by J. WARFIELD and H. SABELLI, originates in C.S. PEIRCE's "thirdness", implying a (semiotic) mediating third element, the symbol, in-between object and subject. This is very different from HEGEL's synthesis. PEIRCE's idea is thus expressed: "The logical postulate for explanation forbids the assumption of any absolute. That is, it calls for the introduction of thirdness" (in J. HOOPES, 1991, p.187).

Escaping from limited duality and resulting dichotomies, triadicity is a very simple combinatory algorithm, basic for any systemic construction, as it introduces the notion of multiple relationship, supplementary to merely dyadic linear ones.

E. SCHWARZ explicits triadicity as follows: "Any existing system, a bacteria for example, has two plus one aspects: Its anatomical physical structure…, the abstract non visible network of causal relations between its parts and processes, which is responsible for its functioning, and the cell itself as a complex whole, as a totality without which the parts would not work, would have no meaning. We believe that these three aspects: physical structures and fluxes in space and time; logical organizational networks of abstract relations; and existent totalities, have different ontological status, and correspond to deep universal categories…" (1994, p.758).

This leads to an "interactive, non-a (i.e. nonaristotelician in Korzybski's vocabulary) ternary, conjunctive logic, in which the interaction between two terms generates a third and new holistic term including, integrating, and of another nature than the two parents and the relation" (p.771).