'Yellow False Positive'--is this another way to describe the Post/Trans Fallacy; e.g., when one thinks that s/he has identified the C-0-G of another as being in second tier because of the charismatic characteristics, etc., on display by the party in question?

Schalk: Is it better to say something and be corrected and live with the shame of having been wrong, or to say nothing and always retain the ability to insinuate that we have been right all along?

A Paraphrase of the above:

Is it better to have tried and failed or to have remained secure within one's cocoon, never having tried anything at all?

Maybe one sign-post pointing to a 2nd tier life-condition is having the ability to admit when one is wrong, regardless of the degree to which one might be right.  Life would be pretty boring if everything you said or did was perfect.  Who on earth can rightfully judge the other as imperfect when in the flux and flow of every moment we are all in the process of realizing "the great perfection"?  Learning from indiscretion can be the break-through into a new and vibrant stage that opens into a larger perspective - a perspective that can now recognize itself perhaps for the first time.

Thanks, Ambo, for correlating this thread with the other.  It is an opportunity for true dialectic that is not afraid to ask those questions the answers to which for some might be obvious, while for many of us will only lead to larger questions.

 

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The yoga of light and sound is really only one event. It's the frequency of their vibrations that is different.

Fangsz, this Guru-Pandit discussion between Cohen and Wilber relates somewhat to the topic we were discussing ... the uneven development between cognition and center of gravity.

Ralph, I do not remember your having recommended that book before, but it sounds interesting.  I would say that the pattern I'm referring to certainly isn't universal, but I've come across it enough at least to have noticed it.  I also just think these dynamics are worth noting and understanding, given the sorts of objections that are sometimes made to Integral by postmodern critics.

Best wishes,

B.

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Hi - I've been liking as this conversation continues into "inclusion" and other related circumstances and micro-tangents. I want to say more, myself, but haven't felt in a settled place to do so this week. I look forward to thinking about and riffing more on the subject with you.

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Ambo Suno

just yesterday i happened to come across the article 'the academic emergence of integral theory' by mark forman and sean esbjorn-hargens, and posted at integralworld.net. i think it is especially relevant to the discussion you've initiated with this thread, balder, so i want to take some time to digest it further before saying anything more here.

also, the next issue of aqal journal (jitp) is slated to come out soon, with a concluding article by mark edwards called "Where Is the Method to Our Integral Madness? An Outline for an Integral Meta-Studies", which should be highly interesting as well as relevant to this thread.

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Balder,

With much appreciation I have enjoyed reading the Banerji review of Halbfass's book, "India and Europe."  After reading over this review, I believe that I now have a better understanding of the background from which some of the Indian national political scene was based.  His references to Hegel as the initiator of the modern "Age of the World-Picture" resonates with my own view that not only is there a "Neo-Hindu" model from which some if not much of the Indian nationalistic tendencies are drawn, but this also seems to point to something I had written in response to Witz78 regarding the first time in world history that the symbol of the spiral had been used by a philosopher to represent human spiritual evolution. 

Banerji's review and the book itself could be the topic for another in-depth thread related to this already fascinating discussion on integral theory.  One excerpt from the review might help to focus some of the questions that might be a launching pad.

"It is not difficult to extrapolate a strident German nationalism from the Hegelian historical teleology. Since the Zeitgeist had supposedly  found its culmination in Hegel's Germany, the political alignment of Germany with a world-dominating stance was but a step away.  In the  Indian context, Ronald Inden and others have shown how the eternal, apolitical and spiritual India of Hegel found its way into the  Orientalist myth and therefrom into the self-imaging of early Indian nationalism. What is not so clearly worked out by these thinkers are the  theoretical consequences of the politicization of the apolitical that this implies. What form of nationalism would arise from this marriage  of contraries? What manner of power would it exert over the ideological terrain of world politics? Inden and others were more concerned with  the denial of democratic self-determination that the Hegelian structure and its Orientalist descendants have imposed on India's self-imaging.  However, with the rise of Hindu politics in modern India, attention has been focussed with greater intensity on the phenomenon of  Neo-Hinduism and its political consequences, particularly as it formulated itself at its inception in early Indian nationalism."

Thanks for sharing this perspective.

Jon

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The yoga of light and sound is really only one event. It's the frequency of their vibrations that is different.

Yes, Ralph I liked that too, and to appropriately shoehorn it further into the topic of this thread, I think that Sean and Mark did, by their respectful tones, invite a little more inclusion and a little less polarization to Integral World and Frank.

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Ambo Suno

Hi, Jon,

I also think Banerji's review is quite interesting -- and raises questions and issues which are as relevant to Wilberian Integralism as they are to Aurobindian (I believe Banerji posted his article on an Aurobindo site).  I haven't read Halbfass' book; I only became aware of it through discussions on a different forum.  But Banerji's review in itself provides a lot of food for thought.  If you start a new thread, I'll join you over there.

Best wishes,

Balder

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

exactly! ambo.

inclusiveness is clearly for just about all of us an important value, yet none of us, it seems to me, has worked out what might be called the paradigm for going about it. not ken wilber. not anyone else anyone wants to nominate.

in my enthusiasm for integral/wilber i admit i've done a bad job of it. the todorovic paper was an early example. when i saw what bad science it was, i couldn't help but reject it. coming back to it now, i realize that, nevertheless, it has distinct value that needs to be recognized, although i still don't quite know how to go about it.

the integralworld article by mark forman and sean esbjorn-hargens is an excellent exemplar in that respect for me. it responds to the criticisms from integralworld, both those it would agree with and those it wouldn't, in a way that encourages further dialogue, imo.

as you can imagine i like what sean and mark are saying and doing much more than frank, including both his lead-up and follow-up articles. but i'm no longer simply dismissing him as i tended to do in the past.

i'm espectially interested in what that other mark, mark edwards, will have to say in the paper about to appear in issue 2 of aqal journal and at the conference a few weeks from now. my impression is that he wants to work with ken wilber and colleagues, but without sacrificing his own autonomy. he and wilber actually worked out a modus operandi for doing just that in their three part IN dialogues from two years back, namely, that he would use the term quadrivia rather than quadrants to describe his work on social holons. a simple distinction that enabled them to continue working, while in disagreement, toward possible future agreements and integrations.

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I picked up Steve McIntosh's Integral Consciousness recently and noted that he also shares concerns about religious “inclusivism.”  He argues that Integral Theory, to succeed, should limit itself to being a philosophy, rather than trying to empirically describe a universal spiritual reality through the use of “broad science.” 

“…as integral philosophy works out the metaphysics that will frame its worldview in the twenty-first century, it must decide how and where spirit fits in.  In this endeavor, integral philosophy has essentially three options: under what I'll call Option 1 it can incline toward science and declare that the realities of spirit are empirically discoverable and that integral philosophy can serve as a kind of spiritual science; under Option 2 it can incline toward religion by associating itself with a particular religion and by declaring the teachings of that religion to be essentially right; or under Option 3 it can carefully situate itself in between science and religion by recognizing that spirit is real, but that science is too objectivistic and religion is too subjectivistic for either of these institutions to be given the final word on spiritual reality.”

And later on in the chapter, he writes…

“Wilber is admirably attempting to harmonize science and spirituality by seeking a broadly empirical 'trans-path path' that can unite the various approaches of the great wisdom traditions.  But because, as William James discovered early on, spirit consistently shows itself to be elusive to empirical investigation, Wilber's quest for a trans-path path cannot produce a credible spirituality; it can only pretend to do so by effectively exalting and privileging one of the previously existing paths.  Thus by seeking to connect integral philosophy to spirituality through Option 1, Wilber ends up with an approach that looks very much like Option 2.”

McIntosh supports Option 3 as the best way forward for an Integral philosophy which recognizes the reality of spirit and the validity of spiritual experience, but which does not claim to be in possession (at this point) of an empirical map of universal spiritual reality.  I haven't read the chapter yet in which he discusses Option 3 in detail, but I'll read it soon and will write more at that time.

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

That's an interesting post, Bruce. Bruce in navy; McIntosh in purple.

He argues that Integral Theory, to succeed, should limit itself to being a philosophy, rather than trying to empirically describe a universal spiritual reality through the use of “broad science.” 

It sounds like McIntosh is saying that integral shouldn't integrate zone #6 perspectives (or perhaps he really means zone #2 when he says "empirical," or both). That wouldn't be very integral, would it?

Option 1 it can incline toward science and declare that the realities of spirit are empirically discoverable and that integral philosophy can serve as a kind of spiritual science.

By this he seems to mean Orange.

Option 2 it can incline toward religion by associating itself with a particular religion and by declaring the teachings of that religion to be essentially right.

As he's stated this it could only mean Amber.

Option 3 it can carefully situate itself in between science and religion by recognizing that spirit is real, but that science is too objectivistic and religion is too subjectivistic for either of these institutions to be given the final word on spiritual reality.

Isn't this exactly what Wilber has done, particularly with Integral Methodological Pluralism and the Myth of the Given?

But because, as William James discovered early on, spirit consistently shows itself to be elusive to empirical investigation, Wilber's quest for a trans-path path cannot produce a credible spirituality.

He seems to be setting up a straw man here when he characterizes Wilber's approach as "empirical." Ken continually says things like "We don't know how people evolve." What AQAL does--and all that Ken has ever claimed for it, I believe--is offer a better map than the one that came before, a map that will one day be supplanted by a better map.

 It can only pretend to do so by effectively exalting and privileging one of the previously existing paths.

Does he say which path has been privileged? The nondual paths? I wonder if what McIntosh might be objecting to are global structures, a hierarchy, which pegs certain religions or certain sects at a certain type and level. If I'm not mistaken, McIntosh himself emphasizes a second-face of God approach (Christian? In a review here Terry Patten says he champions the second-face of God approach, and I believe I read something about that elsewhere as well.) I think from a spiritual-practice point of view, this criticism could have a little validity since Ken doesn't say much about the second-face of God so that he can be taken seriously in academia, but I don't know that the model itself favors the other perspectives (or that it would serve integral for Ken to talk about the second-face of God perspective more, though I would personally like to hear all his ideas about it).

 

David

First off, David, I have to apologize -- I've given you so little of McIntosh's argument, I'm sure it's hard to know exactly what he's saying here.  He doesn't mean something nearly as clumsy as you've taken it to be.  When I get home today, I'll have more time to respond in depth.  For now, I'll just say that he believes Wilber's model privileges Vedanta and Vajrayana, and that's what he means when he says that Wilber's approach ends up looking like Option 2.

I have a number of qualms about McIntosh's argument, but I wanted to share it because he is at least raising the issue of inclusivism here, in his own way.  I also wanted to read his chapter on Option 3 to see exactly how what he is proposing differs from what Wilber is doing.  (My argument was not that Integral or Wilber-V was inclusivist, but that inclusivist dynamics sometimes do show up in Integral discussions....)

In his Integral model, he is not suggesting that any of the zones be left out; but he is saying that perhaps Integral should limit itself to making a "place" for religious and scientific disciplines within its overall integral map, without making a definitive statement about what the upper reaches of Spirit look like.  Rather, at this point in our evolution, he believes it makes more sense to leave room for multiple interpretations...

I'll write more later -- and I'll give more of my own opinions after I've read that next chapter....

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Greetings Balder:

Is another way of expressing McIntosh's point "Integral would do well to stop making affirmative statements about the upper reach of spiritual reality using terms that require some acceptance of or familiarity with Eastern Spirituality?" That is, it would do well to do this if it would hope to reach a broader audience with AQAL theory and the like?

The upper reaches of Spirit would be the domain where word signfications tend to be the most difficult, right? That is, how do you even talk about it to begin with?

In my case, I have always found the negative approach to vector me best in describing whatever spiritual events I have meanered through. That is, I set out statement after statement of "what does not correctly point at" what I have experienced, and a wonderful remainder-type pointing emerges.

The time may be ripe to start clarifying what Integral is up to. Does it seek to present a map and useful classifications that serve as working hypotheses for humans who are trying to make sense and order of experience and knowledge? Knowing of course, that the map and the classifications are ... not the thing. Hypotheses that we can work with as we engage in the practice of performing injunctions?

Or does it seek to make affirmative statements about how things work, such that we can assume things work that way?

Or a little of both?

Someone on Integral World, Visser maybe, suggested that Integral is best understood as a "movement." A movement will not concern itself with rebuttals and critiques ... as long as the movement continues forward.

I am thinking that McIntosh's suggestion supports this notion that Integral is a movement, a movement that, to be effective tomorrow over a broader range of terrain, needs to strip itself of truth-assertions that are founded on an affinity for eastern inner exploration.

balder:

In his Integral model, he is not suggesting that any of the zones be left out;

to be fair to you, balder, we need to recognize you may not have read the entire book yet, because mcintosh quite explicitly says towards the end that, for human holons, the LR, i.e. zones 7 and 8, can be dispensed with, and he proceeds to do just that.

of course, he is free to construct his own map of the kosmos, and i think his has definite appeal, but with serious problems as well. isn't religion, considered as an institution, anchored in the LR? for both good and bad?

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Ralph, that's correct -- I haven't finished the book yet.  I haven't even given it a straight read through yet; I'm skimming through it and hopping around in it as I consider whether or not I'll use it for a class.  But in what I've read so far, I haven't seen him recommend leaving out any zones.  I'll get back to you once I've read the section you referenced. 

I definitely agree with you that religion, as an institution, is anchored in the LR; I see religion, in fact, as the LR expression or manifestation of spirituality.

Looking through the book, I have seen a chart where he has three interlocking circles, each containing three interlocking circles within themselves, and I believe this is his alternative to the four quadrants.  So, it makes sense that he is leaving out two zones, even while he is possibly adding some granularity in another way.  But like I said, I'll read more and then get back to you.

Concerning the segment I referenced, though, he was not recommending leaving out any particular zones.  He wasn't saying that empiricism be done away with, not by a long shot.  But he was casting doubt on just how amenable to empirical verification certain spiritual / metaphysical constructs are.

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

Ambo -

It may be worthwhile, in the context of the concerns of this blog as well as the concerns of nondual spirituality, to take a closer look at our presuppositions about knowledge - what is its nature, how is it generated or realized? What is involved in map-based, instrumental or technological knowledge?

Without minimizing all of the above concerns as to which view is more Truthful, it seems like we completly miss the point.  We are taking a stand that their would be some form of communication that would include all other opinions or validate all other ideals.  As if somehow we could approach knowledge with a "bottom line".  That just can't happen, Wisdom seems to sit silent and listen.  It seems to me that knowledge is only a question.  As long as we keep questioning our limited ideas the more we include, the more we embrace, the more we learn.  It's not so dissimilar to what is happening here, except we seem to be expecting the answer instead of embracing the question.  That certainly does not give us much to talk about but it does seem to open a lot more doors.  As soon as we start using words like "inclusivism" or "pluralism" or "exclusivism" we build a box, and with any box it is meant to hold something in or keep something out.  Forgive me if I missed the point...

Anne