Maltese Physician
Takes on the
Greek Gang of
Three: A Review
of Edward de
Bono’s Theories
and Publications
Matt Jolly
University of Advancing Technology
9
At the root of vertical
thinking is the rigid system
of thinking that was defined
and employed by Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle.
In the introduction to his text I Am Right—You
Are Wrong, Dr. Edward de Bono announces the
impending arrival of a new Renaissance. “The
last Renaissance,” he explains, “was clearly
based on the re-discovery of ancient Greek
(about 400 BC) thinking habits” (1990, p. 3).
The next wave, accordingly, will place greater
emphasis on creative, perception-based
thinking, exploration, construction, design and
the future (1990, p. 26-27). In his first book,
New Think (also published as The Use of Lateral
Thinking), Edward de Bono coined the term
lateral thinking, a concept that is central to his
“new Renaissance,” and one that permeates
almost all of his 62 publications (1968). By way
of defining the term, de Bono contrasts lateral
thinking with traditional (vertical, classical)
thinking. He suggests that at the root of
vertical thinking is the rigid system of thinking
that was defined and employed by Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle (whom he routinely refers
to as the “Greek gang of three”). De Bono
rejects many of the assumptions inherent in
Cerebral Space, by Dawn Lee
10
classical thought, including the notion of
universally accepted objective truth,
argument as a tool for discovering truth (i.e.,
dialectic or the Socratic method, and
rhetoric) and the binary structures that are
foundational to logic (winner/loser,
right/wrong, true/false) and which posit
argument as adversarial. De Bono sees these
ancient structures inelegantly practiced in
many contemporary forums for social
discourse: in courtrooms and legislative bodies,
in classrooms (as teaching methods), in homes
(as parenting methods), in the pages of
scientific journals and in the op-ed sections of
newspapers the world over.
Classical Thought
The structures of many contemporary means of
discovering knowledge have their roots in the
dialectical approach to philosophy. Bertrand
Russell defines dialectic as “the method of
seeking knowledge by question and answer”
(p. 92). For example, a lawyer in a trial engages
in a dialectic with a witness when he examines
the witness on the stand. The aim of the
dialectic is to expose—or reason toward—the
truth. Similarly, a teacher might direct a
discussion by asking a series of carefully
tailored leading questions that result in the
students’ “discovery” of the subject matter.
Dialectic is the primary mode of knowing that
is reflected in Plato’s record of the Socratic
dialogues. While the dialectical approach
certainly existed before Socrates, he was
the first to hone it as the sole means for
discovering truth.
The self-avowed myth of Socrates (as it is
recorded by Plato) was that he received from
the Oracle of Delphi the instruction that there
was no one wiser than himself. Considering
himself completely lacking in wisdom, he spent
his life in pursuit of someone who was wiser.
Eventually Socrates had offended so many
powerful men—by reducing their “wisdom”
to logical inconsistencies—that they tried
him for godlessness and the corruption of
youth. Plato’s Apology documents Socrates’
explanation of his dialectical approach to the
jury that sentenced him:
I go about the world… and search, and
make enquiry into the wisdom of any one,
whether citizen or stranger, who appears
to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in
vindication of the oracle I show him that
he is not wise; and my occupation quite
consumes me (1999a, p. 17).
In each of the dialogues recorded by Plato, the
process is fairly parallel: Socrates interrogates
each of his adversaries (including politicians,
poets and artisans) until he bumps up against
some inconsistency in their position. He then
deconstructs that position in such a way that
the audience is convinced that the other
speaker lacks sufficient wisdom.
Maltese Physician Takes on the Greek Gang of Three: A Review of
Edward de Bono’s Theories and Publications
While the dialectical method of Plato and
Socrates relied on reason and questioning,
Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, forged a concrete
connection between “the true” and another
form of discourse: rhetoric. In On Rhetoric,
Aristotle provides perhaps the clearest
articulation (by an ancient Greek) of those
foundational assumptions of classical thinking
that de Bono resists: “[R]hetoric is useful [first]
because the true and the just are by nature
stronger than their opposites… None of the
other arts reasons in opposite directions;
dialectic and rhetoric alone do this, for both are
equally concerned with opposites” (pp. 33-34).
As opposed to the dialectical approach of
Socrates, where an admittedly pompous
person was badgered by a series of questions
designed to expose or deconstruct that
victim’s flawed logic, the Aristotelian approach
to truth presents us with a veritable battle
between opposing positions, where truth and
justice are the likeliest victors because they are
naturally easier to support and defend. In our
courtroom example, dialectic exists in the
examination and cross-examination of the
witnesses, and rhetoric exists where the
plaintiff’s lawyer and the defendant’s lawyer
are engaged in the larger debate over the
suit, the outcome—the truth—of which is
ultimately determined by the strength of
their arguments.
Aristotle is also generally regarded as the
founder of formal logic. His greatest
contribution to this field was his development
of the syllogism, a form of logical argument
that presents two truths (premises) from which
a third truth can be derived. The most famous
example of a syllogism is as follows:
Premise 1: All men are mortal
Premise 2: Socrates is a man
Conclusion:Therefore Socrates is mortal.
This approach to truth-making is almost
algebraic in its construction. De Bono aptly
describes this logic as the process of managing
the tools “yes” and “no.” So long as the syllogism
is sound and we say “yes” to the first two
premises, then we are required to agree with
the conclusion.
The paragraphs above have briefly introduced
dialectic, rhetoric and the binary, adversarial
system that underpins each. De Bono’s third
concern in relation to these classical models
for thinking is their dependence on
objective truth:
.. humans have a natural disposition to the
true and to a large extent hit on the truth;
thus an ability to aim at commonly held
opinions is a characteristic of one who has
a similar ability to regard the truth…
(Aristotle, pp. 33-34).
Embedded in this passage is the conviction that
“the true” is a fixed, shared and innate quality of
humankind. As a pupil of Plato, it’s likely that
Aristotle received this notion of the good from
his teacher. In The Republic, Plato makes a clear
delineation between the subjective truth and
objective truth:
… those who see the many beautiful, and
who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor
can follow any guide who points the way
thither; who see the many just, and not
absolute justice, and the like—such
persons can be said to have opinion, but
not knowledge… But those who see the
absolute and eternal and immutable may
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Embedded in this passage is the
conviction that “the true” is an
innate quality of humankind.
be said to know, and not to have opinion
only (1999b, 135).
He goes on to argue, in “Book IX,” that the
world of the senses exists only as an imitation
of the singular, true form that was created by
God. For this section, Plato uses bed-making as
an example, demonstrating that there is a
singular form, made by God, that possesses
what we might call bedness, and all other beds
are created in imitation of this singular and
perfect form. To possess knowledge is to have
knowledge of that ultimate form, and not the
imitations of it which belong to the false world
of our senses (1999b, pp. 219-24).
Edward de Bono’s Response to
Classical Thinking
Throughout Edward de Bono’s prolific career,
he has repeatedly distinguished his approach
to thinking from those classical structures
outlined above—what he alternately refers
to as “vertical thinking” (1970), “old think”
(1972), “table-top logic” (1990a), “rock logic”
(1990b) and “judgment-based thinking”
(2000). In New Think, de Bono announces his
departure from traditional logical forms:
Vertical thinking has always been the only
respectable type of thinking. In its ultimate
form as logic it is the recommended ideal
towards which all minds are urged to
strive… If you were to take a set of toy
blocks and build them upwards, each
block resting firmly and squarely on
the block below it, you would have
an illustration of vertical thinking.
With lateral thinking the blocks are
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process of rain falling on a field: as it falls,
the rain, in conjunction with gravity, erodes
the landscape, resulting in the organization of
the runoff into streams and pools (1969, p. 60).
Similarly, as we encounter new information,
our brain directs and organizes the data into
familiar paths. The effect of this system is that
humans come to rely on established, reinforced
beliefs and assumptions. Logic, then, is capable
of nothing more than the directing of data into
pre-established and accepted channels of
knowing. If we compare this cognitive model to
Aristotle’s rigid logic of the syllogism, we
find that in both cases new ideas can only
develop out of old ones—in Aristotle’s logical
system, we must present two accepted truths
(all men are mortal, Socrates is a man) in order
to arrive at a new truth (Socrates is mortal).At
the same time, the very chemistry of our
brains reinforces this thinking by relying on
pre-existing patterns in order to make sense
of new data. De Bono recognizes that
To a large extent, de Bono sees the the self-organizing nature of the brain
is a powerful tool for defining and
logical structures as a manifestation understanding experience; however,
he argues that it is also a significant
barrier to the discovery of new ideas.
of the electrical and chemical
functioning of the brain.
scattered around… the pattern that may
eventually emerge can be as useful as the
vertical structure (1968, pp.13-14).
To a large extent, de Bono sees the logical
structure as a manifestation of the electrical
and chemical functioning of the brain. In his
The Mechanism of Mind (1969), de Bono
introduces a model of the brain that explains
this connection. The book relies largely on
inductive reasoning, examples and metaphors
to demonstrate how the human brain
functions as a self-organizing information
system. As opposed to a passive system, where
the organizational surface simply receives
information (a metal-framed filing cabinet is a
good example), a self-organizing system is one
where both data and the surface that stores it
exist in a reinforcing, fluctuating relationship.
He compares the functioning of the brain to the
In his 1945 History of Western Philosophy,
Bertrand Russell laments that “through
Plato’s influence, most subsequent philosophy
has been bound by the limitations resulting
from this [dialectic] method,” concluding that
“the dialectic method… tends to promote
logical consistency, and is in this way useful.
But it is quite unavailing when the object is to
discover new facts” (pp. 92-93). In I Am Right—
You Are Wrong, de Bono describes argument as
“the basis of our search for truth and the basis
of our adversarial system in science, law and
politics” (1990a, p. 5). It is the binary logic of
classical argumentation that de Bono most
sweepingly rejects as counter-productive:
Dichotomies impose a false and sharp
(knife edge discrimination) polarization on
the world and allow no middle ground or
spectrum… It is not difficult to see how
this tradition in thinking has led to
persecutions, wars, conflicts etc.When we
add this to our beliefs in dialectic,
Maltese Physician Takes on the Greek Gang of Three: A Review of
Edward de Bono’s Theories and Publications
of truth: game truth, experience truth
and belief truth. The first of these is
concerned with the rules that govern
systems—he includes in this category
mathematics and logic. The second of
these is concerned with truths that are
discovered through living, and these
most directly correlate to the sensory
world that Plato treated as an illusion or
imitation of ideal forms. De Bono
describes belief truth (the one most
closely related to Plato’s ideal forms) as
the truth “held most strongly even
though the basis for it is the weakest.”
He correlates “stereotypes, prejudices,
discriminations, persecutions, and so
on” with this kind of truth. “Whatever
the actual situation,” he argues, “belief
truth interprets [the data] to support
that belief system” (2000, p.74).
argument and evolutionary clash we
end up with a thinking system that is
almost designed to create problems
(1990a, p. 197).
As our natural system of thinking—the system
that is routine and is reinforced through the
self-organizing system of the brain—relies on
clear and distinct binary relationships, we
approach discourse as a conflict where there
will inevitably be a winner and a loser, a right
position and a wrong one.
Edward de Bono’s
Applied Theories
Throughout his publishing and speaking
career, Edward de Bono has always
chosen the path of future-oriented,
solutions-based thinking over the scholarly
models of analysis, deconstruction, definition
and problematization. His rejection of those
academic modes manifests in subtle and overt
ways. In the conclusion to Six Thinking Hats, he
writes that “the biggest enemy of thinking is
complexity, for that leads to confusion.” The
book Practical Thinking suggests that successful
communicators should limit the level of
detail and complexity that they engage in when
confronting a problem as that complexity
relates to their needs and outcomes—a
scientific understanding of the microwave, for
example, is hardly required in order to warm
De Bono further disagrees with those
classical notions of Platonic truth. “Where
[argument] breaks down,” he asserts, “is in He writes that, “the biggest enemy
the assumption that perceptions and
values are common, universal, permanent of thinking is complexity, for that
or even agreed” (1990a, p. 5). de Bono
admits that “[t]o challenge the allleads to confusion.”
embracing sufficiency of truth is sheer
cheek… But to challenge our treatment of up a frozen burrito. On a more fundamental
truth,” he argues, “is not to recommend level, he sees the scholarly forum as having
untruth but to explore that treatment” (2000, broken down in the Renaissance: “Scholarship
p.74). He goes on to distinguish different kinds
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Most of de Bono’s work, by extension, focuses
on developing the applications for his ideas.
These applications include detailed techniques
for lateral thinking outlined in Lateral Thinking:
Creativity Step by Step (1970), techniques for use
of his “provocation operation” (Po) in Po: A
Device for Successful Thinking (1972), discourse
strategies outlined in Six Thinking Hats (1985),
design thinking strategies presented in New
Thinking for the New Millennium (2000) and
lesson plans for his Cognitive Research Trust,
or CoRT. Each of these texts works in some
way to overcome the obstacles that de Bono
sees inherent in the thinking systems that we
inherited from the ancient Greeks.
seeing the problem anew, using singular entry
points as a way of refocusing energy and using
random word generation in order to discover
new aspects of the problem (1970).
Each of the techniques listed above functions to
direct the mind away from the primary
direction of thought and onto side paths—they
force the mind to move laterally away from
logical, obvious conclusions. De Bono classifies
these techniques into three categories:
challenges, where the path to the natural
conclusion is purposefully blocked; concepts,
where a thinker deliberately stops forward
movement in order to explore possible paths;
and Po, which introduces some concept for
consideration that falls outside of the realm of
the question—this could come in the form of a
random word, an inversion of the idea, etc.
Detail from Got Bono on the Brain, by Lisa Stefani
was perfectly acceptable at the time [of the
Renaissance],” he argues, but “[t]oday it is much
less appropriate, because we can get much
more by looking forward than by looking
backward” (1990a, p. 24). De Bono sees much
more purpose in creating new ideas, the logic
of which can be reconstituted once the solution
is complete. He argues that many significant
advances in science, medicine and technology
have been arrived at through accident, intuition
and association.
For instance, in Lateral Thinking, de Bono
identifies the steps we need to take in order
to overcome the roadblock of judgment
thinking—that mode of thought that is
reinforced through the functioning of our brain
as a self-organizing system. Lateral thinking,
then, is an intentional mess. It is a technique
that requires a purposeful willingness
to disorder the subject matter, to interrupt
and challenge those logical assumptions
that will likely only create ordered systems
of analysis rather than new ideas. These
steps include (among others) challenging
assumptions, suspending judgment, inviting We need some strategies for
random stimulation and allowing for
fractionation (the reorganization of a forcing our thinking to jump paths.
problem’s structure). Some techniques that
he presents include the reversal method (where De Bono explains that, because our thinking
a thinker starts with some small known naturally falls into routine paths, we need some
aspect of the problem and follows that small strategies for forcing our thinking to jump
part out until it encompasses the whole), paths, to depart from the routine motions and
brainstorming, using analogies as a way of therefore encounter problems in ways that we
Maltese Physician Takes on the Greek Gang of Three: A Review of
Edward de Bono’s Theories and Publications
haven’t previously imagined.This leaping of the
mind from a known path to an unknown path
requires an interruption of the velocity of our
ideas. By provoking new conceptualizations of
the problems, we can then conceive new,
unanticipated solutions. Where vertical
thinking rests squarely on logic, de Bono’s
lateral thinking rests on provocation.
While the above approaches to thinking
function to counteract the force of traditional
thought structures, they have only tangentially
approached De Bono’s concern for the
adversarial nature of most contemporary
discourse. De Bono identifies the dualistic
underpinnings of logic as the cause of our
adversarial approach. One solution to this
binary system is to apply de Bono’s Six Thinking
Hats to problem solving. Instead of falling into
the trap of embodying the judgment-driven
assumptions that argument necessitates right
and wrong, good and bad, winner and loser,
which we are programmatically inclined
towards, de Bono urges any person involved in
a dialogue to participate in each possible
position as it relates to the subject being
discussed. De Bono theorizes six distinct
approaches to problem-solving and assigns
them a representative color: information
(white), feelings (red), caution (black),
optimism (yellow), creativity (green) and
overview (blue). He suggests that, in most
cases, we confuse emotion with optimism, or
caution with overview—it all gets jumbled up
so that the group can’t identify what sort of
information it is receiving. The six hats
approach forces all group members to
participate in each stage simultaneously. Not
only does this approach necessitate the
inclusion of all perspectives, it also validates
each approach and encourages empathy among
participants as each is forced to examine the
problem from the others’ perspectives.
In the opening pages of Po, de Bono observed
that “[t]here are few things which unite hippies
and big-business corporations, painters and
mathematicians. The need for new ideas does
just this” (p. 4). By that time, de Bono had
already begun to attract a fair amount of
attention to himself and his “new ideas,” having
published three well-received texts that would
prove foundational to the further development
of his theories on thinking and creativity: The
Mechanism of Mind, Lateral Thinking,and Practical
Thinking. Over thirty years later, his
observation proves to have been an apt
prediction of the sort of career that the Maltese
physician would enjoy. A search through a
global news database revealed de Bono’s
increasing (and increasingly varied) involvement
with government leaders, commercial
businesses, educational institutions, student
groups and cricket teams—Australian coach
John Buchanan has given de Bono a certain level
of credit for the team’s 2003 World Cup
victory (Independent, p. 41). The de Bono
Group’s official webpage lists over seventy
companies and institutions that are currently
using his course materials, including companies
as large as Microsoft and AT&T, the New York
Times and the US Marine Corps, and the
Defense Intelligence Agency (2005).While this
list is impressive, it is more impressive to
consider the impact that Edward de Bono might
have on what he refers to as the software of the
brain, that foundational, unimpeachable notion
of human logic.
References
Aristotle (1991). On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse
(G. A. Kennedy, Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press.
de Bono, E. (1968). New Think. New York: Harper and Row.
de Bono, E. (1969). The Mechanism of Mind. New York:
Harper and Row.
de Bono, E. (1970). Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by
Step. New York: Harper and Row.
de Bono, E. (1972). Po: A Device for Successful Thinking.
New York: Harper and Row.
de Bono, E. (1985). Six Thinking Hats. New York: Harper and Row.
de Bono, E. (1990). I Am Right—You Are Wrong: From
Here to the New Renaissance: From Rock Logic to Water
Logic. New York: Penguin Books.
de Bono, E. (1992a). Serious Creativity: Using the Power of
Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas. New York: Harper
and Row.
de Bono, E. (2000). New Thinking for the New Millennium.
Beverly Hills, CA: New Millennium Press.
de Bono Group, The (2005). What We Do. Retrieved April
28, 2005, from The de Bono Group website:
http://www.debonogroup.com/what_we_do.htm.
Living review life etc: Mind think yourself gorgeous; the
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man who gave us lateral thinking now says he can make you
beautiful (2004, May 30). Independent on Sunday, First
Edition, Features, 41.
Plato (1999a). Apology (B. Jowett, Trans.). Retrieved April
25, 2005, from Project Gutenberg Web site:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1656.
Plato (1999b). The Republic (B. Jowett, Trans.). Retrieved
April 25, 2005, from Project Gutenberg Web site:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1497.
Russell, B. (1945). A History of Western Philosophy. New
York: Simon and Schuster.
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