Integral Reviews Postmodernism
* Article: Integral Re-views Postmodernism: The Way Out Is Through. By Gary P. Hampson. Integral Review: A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal For New Thought, Research, and Praxis, June 2007
[1]
Abstract
“In this article I re-evaluate the potential contribution of postmodernism to integral theory via integrally-derived perspectives. I identify a premature foreclosure: the underappreciation of postformal modes of thinking (cognitive development beyond Piaget's formal operations). I then enact certain forms of postformal reasoning in relation to integral theory. This includes an engagement with such perspectives as complexity theory, conceptual ecology, vision-logic, dialectics, genealogy, critical theory, and construct-awareness. A major theme concerns the dialectical relationship between reconstruction and deconstruction—partly explored through a developmental assessment of contra-indicative discourse by both Wilber and Derrida. Although the territory is complex, the relationship between current Wilberian theory and postmodernism is clearly problematised. I posit that a deeper engagement with postmodernism can lead to an autopoietic deepening of integral theory.”
Summary
"An integral re-viewing of the developmental wave of postmodernism can highlight the current undervaluation of thinking postformally. Postformal cognition can be enacted in relation to a variety of concerns and interests including integral theory itself. Integral theory thus contains the means to develop itself—a participatory autopoiesis. In this way, the manifold contributions that Wilber has offered to integral theory and its panoramic horizons can be enhanced and reconfigured. The AQAL model maps contextualism, dialectics, and complexity as postformal features. Integral theory could more reflexively enact such ways of reasoning. By more consciously participating in the ecology of postformal modalities—including thinking contextually, thinking dialectically, thinking critically and thinking complexly—AQAL could be reconfigured, and its metasystematic or paradigmatic geist could be appropriately furthered in service of the dialogic evolution of integral theory. This article has demonstrated a few uses of such postformal cognitive modes. Regard for all dimensions of embodiment and the metaphoric nature of theorising also need to be duly considered, whilst shadow-work can be fruitfully brought into the fabric of integral theory via the dialectics of deconstruction."
(https://www.integralworld.net/hampson.html)
Excerpts
(of the summary at [2])
Toward an Explicitly Dialectical Integral Theory
"Notions of construction and deconstruction as necessary adversaries can appropriately be seen to stem from an either/or mindset. Thinking dialectically, their relationship can fruitfully be rather understood as complexly interpenetrating. Deconstructive and reconstructive postmodernisms share one genealogy which itself has a dialectical underpinning. Hence contra-possibilities can be identified: that discourse under the mantle of deconstruction can be constructive and/or appropriate, whilst discourse under the guise of reconstruction can be destructive and/or inappropriate. Derrida's work should not be regarded as antipathetic to an integral approach. There is evidence regarding the maturity of Derrida's discourse; there is also evidence regarding a dissonance between the theoretic content of Wilberian theory and perspectives given toward that content by Wilber. Further research could be undertaken in these regards. Resultant conceptual bridges could further mutual understanding; and a greater, more cohesive (or paradoxically more stable) integral theory could result. Paradoxical thinking is associated with dialectical thinking. For instance, other parts of my life are not directly congruent with the sensibility expressed in this article. I sit with the paradox contained within the ecology of these different “lines.”
Toward an Explicitly Complex-Aware Integral Theory
"I have demonstrated a particular use of the complexity theory element, recursion—with respect to both content and nonduality in integral theory. Further research could be undertaken with regard to other elements of complexity theory such as emergence, bifurcation, hysterisis, sensitivity to initial conditions, indeterminacy, attractors, and dynamism. Both differences and similarities could be identified between different fractal scales of construction, such as the construction of theories and the construction of terms; both differences and similarities can be identified between different fractal scales of deconstruction, such as Derridean déconstruction and the deconstruction of the ego. A conceptual template based in part on complexity theory could facilitate an internally-congruent evolution of integral theory. Further research could explore, for example, in what appropriate ways pre- and trans- could be identified as distinct yet complexly interpenetrating."
Gary Hampson:
"A starting place to view a less adversarial relationship between integral and postmodern than that connoted by Wilber and some members of the integral community, is to consider their shared genealogy. Philosopher Arran Gare (2002) has done just that. He presents the following picture: As scientific materialism began to increase in societal power in late 18th Century Europe, a “postmodern” countertradition arose in the footsteps of Giambattista Vico and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Johann Herder led the way, identifying: suffering caused by abstractions; the need for self-realisation; an appreciation of cultural plurality; the importance of the particular, the sensory, the active; and a purposeful nature. This thread led—via Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—to Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Like Rudolf Steiner, Wilber (1995), and Jennifer Gidley (in press), Gare identifies Schelling as an inspiration, and a pivot in history. He highlights Schelling's dialectical method and also his understanding of that, that we are: an “unprethinkable Being” which precedes all thought and is presupposed by it. Gare then identifies a historical bifurcation stemming from Schelling. One branch leads to the poststructuralists (“poststructuralist postmodernism”), the other to a high-order quest for coherence (“cosmological postmodernism”). In addition to the dialectical nature of the philosophy that lies at the root of the two branches, the branches themselves can be seen as a dialectic between Schelling's alignment with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel on the one hand, and his critique of Hegel, on the other. The branch that proceeds from Schelling's critique of Hegel includes Friedrich Wilhelm Neitzsche, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault (largely influenced by Nietzsche), Jacques Derrida (largely influenced by Heidegger) and Gilles Deleuze (who retains more influence from Schelling than the others). Somewhat resonant with Roland Benedikter's (2005) seminal work on postmodern spirituality, Gare proffers that, “poststructuralists require Schelling's earlier philosophy or developments of it to sustain their arguments” (Gare, 2002). The branch which is more aligned to Hegel leads to Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead via Charles Peirce and also via Karl Ernst Von Baer's evolutionary theory of nature. Gare identifies this thread as a high-order quest for coherence. Such a quest for coherence is surely central for any integral theory. But surely a greater integral quest would be to attempt to respectfully honour both branches?"
(https://www.integralworld.net/hampson.html)
Reference: Gare, A. (2002). The roots of postmodernism: Schelling, process philosophy and poststructuralism. In C. Keller (Ed.), Process and difference: Between cosmological and poststructualist postmodernisms (pp. 31-53). Albany: State of New York University Press.
An Ecology of Integral Thinking
Gary Hampson:
"Integral—meaning, “of or pertaining to a whole”—entered the English vocabulary from the Latin, integer (via the French, intégral) in 1471. In terms of integral theory and correspondent developments, Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1914/1960) used the term to describe a type of knowledge or yoga, as published in The Life Divine. Unaware of Aurobindo's usage, Jean Gebser (1949/1985, p. xxix) began using the term (as a conjunct to aperspectival) in 1940, culminating in its usage in The Ever-Present Origin in 1949. Meanwhile, Haridas Chaudhuri carried the term through from Aurobindo and founded the California Institute of Integral Studies (C.I.I.S) (n.d.) in 1968. Michael Murphy also brought through Aurobindo's integral theory when he co-founded the Esalen Institute (2005) in 1962. He has since adopted the term integral with George Leonard, in their Integral Transformative Practice (2007). The most popular(ist) integral theorist—Ken Wilber (1997, 2000a, 2000c)—had started using the term by 1997 to describe both his own writing, and thence his institutional frameworks, such as the Integral Institute (2007) including Integral Naked. Global-outreach tertiary institute, Pacific Integral (n.d.), was founded in reference to this genealogical branch, as well as to William Torbert's work. Wilber's genealogical branch entered futures studies via Richard Slaughter (1998). Ervin László (2004) started foregrounding the term in relation to integral science in 2003, competitively using with the same turn of phrase as Wilber—An Integral Theory of Everything—in 2004. Global philosopher Ashok Gangadean (2006a) incorporates László's work among others, to form his own dialogical integral approach. Gidley acknowledges Gangadean as part of her quest to “integrate the integrals,” notably an exploration of connections between Gebser, Wilber and Rudolf Steiner, the latter of whom she identifies as an integral pioneer (Gidley & Hampson, 2005). Meanwhile, others have furthered representations of C.I.I.S.'s mission, including Robert McDermott, Richard Tarnas (see, for example, 1991), and Jorge Ferrer, the latter of whom has identified a participatory integral approach along with Marina Romero and Ramon Albareda (Ferrer et al., 2005), directors of Estel, a centre for personal growth and integral studies in Barcelona (Albareda, n.d.). In addition, William Irwin Thompson (2003)—whilst acknowledging Aurobindo and Steiner—has, for some decades, been running with Gebser's interpretation to foreground a certain artistry: integral performances that seek to generate new horizons; such alignment with creativity parallels both Bernie Neville's (1989) Gebserian and archetypal educational approach, and, substantively, Alfonso Montuori's (1997) interpretation of integral as a form of disciplined improvisation, via the generative metaphor of jazz. From this particular ecological perspective, there are six intertwined genealogical branches of integral: those aligned with Aurobindo, Gebser, Wilber, Gangadean, László and Steiner (in respective chronological order of first usage), among which there are varying degrees of commonality and contestation in various dimensions. As such, we may regard the above as an outline of some “semiotic attractors” within a (necessarily complex and dynamic) hermeneutic ecosystem.
In order to “effect an integration,” Gebser refers to three necessary qualities in regard to the other structures of consciousness (such as the mental/rational structure), namely: insight, maturity and balance. I posit that each of these can be fruitfully regarded as conceptual portals (linking philosophical and psychological dimensions) which can facilitate integral modes of engagement—thus linking Gebser's integral theory with Ferrer et al.'s participatory integral theory mentioned above. Moreover, insight, maturity and balance point to (or, perhaps, can be encapsulated as) the art of integrality. As Roy indicates, integration needs to be well-crafted: it needs to be artful; artful with a capital A.
When Wilber refers to Gebser's model, he often correctly identifies Gebser's structures of consciousnes. However, at other times, especially when he refers to Gebser in a context of other authors, and also notably in his more recent work, his text and charts are often substantively misleading (if one wishes to explore the particular territory rather than operate at the level of “orienting generalisations”). Consider the following indicative statement: “Jean Gebser [amongst others]…believe[s] that the general waves of evolution or unfoldment have included archaic, magic-tribal, mythic-traditional, modern-rational, postmodern-pluralistic—all of which together are often called "first-tier" waves—and integral-aperspectival—which is often called "second tier" (Wilber, 2006a, p. 5, emphasis in original).” This statement is incorrect. Gebser has not posited a postmodern-pluralistic stage. Unfortunately, Wilber reinforces this error in various charts and tables frequently propagated at face value by a significant proportion of the integral community. In an iconically glossy insert in Integral Spirituality (Wilber, 2006b, between pp. 68-69) for example, he identifies Gebser's “pluralistic” stage as corresponding with the Wilberian Green vMeme. In an exacerbation of the situation, he also associates Gebser with a “super-integral” developmental level. Such errors also occur in the Wilber-Combs Lattice, a key feature in Wilber's latest work (2006b, p. 90). Gebser only elucidated five structures: archaic, magic, mythic, mental and integral. No postmodern pluralism, no “super” marked-up integral. Gebser's understanding instead is that the integral structure follows on, as it were, directly from the mental-perspectival (modern) one and that it has various unique attributes or characteristics which infer a “translucence” of—a certain (re)opening up to—previous structures rather than the theoretic construction of further stages beyond integral."
(https://www.integralworld.net/hampson.html)
Deepening Vision-Logic
Gary Hampson:
"Vision-logic is a neat term (in both senses) as it creatively embraces a number of postformal features simultaneously, evoking a “magic synthesis” (Wilber, 2000a, p. 259, n. 27). Gidley (2006) indicates that academic research often privileges logic over imaginative vision and consequently does not achieve such a “psychoactive” outcome. It's perhaps also a quintessentially postformal term in that it is a neologism constituted by a dialectic between two contrasting formal concepts—vision and logic. It is thus variously analogous to William Stern's (1938) unitas multiplex, Benedikter's (2005) productive void, Goethe's delicate empiricism (Seamon, 1998), Foucault's (2003) epistemologico-political, Dewey's (1919/2004) end-in-view, Bussey's (2006) critical spirituality, Gangadean's (1993) meditative reason, Steiner's (1910/1983) spiritual science, and also, perhaps—in more condensed or expanded forms—to Derrida's différance (as dialectic between difference and deference), Gebser's (1949/1985) integral-aperspectival, Hafiz's God in drag (1999) and Zhuangzi's (n.d.) Transformation of Things (as exemplified by Zhuangzi's dialectical narrative regarding a person's dream that they were a butterfly, in question with an alternate understanding that the butterfly was dreaming the person). The term is inherently “unstable” from a formal perspective, but paradoxically generative and vitalising from a postformal perspective in that it can facilitate a spark of cognitive transformation in the reader if the context of the reader is such that the concept is sufficiently trusted and given space to internally reside, so to speak.
A characterisation might be to assign logic the role of Wilberian horizontal translation, the “flatland” of the plan view of ex-plan-ation; and, conversely, vision the role of Wilberian vertical transformation by means of identifying the (Erotic) creativity inherent in the image of imag-ination (see Wilber, 1995, pp. 59-61). From this perspective, the neologism is metaphorically holonic which adds to its generativity. Meanwhile, from a dialectically-oriented mode of cognition, vision-logic can deepen into a plurality of vision-logics (a plurality still encompassed by the term as genus). This could include such domains as: [a] Visions and versions of different logics—including: many-valued logics (Malinowski, 1993), including fuzzy logic (Novák, 1989; Zadeh, Klir, & Yuan, 1996), and the related: fuzziology & social fuzziology (Dimitrov & Hodge, 2002), and vagueness (Williamson, 1994), [and] dialectical logic (Adorno, 1990; Ilyenkov, 1977); [b] The logic of different visions—the rectitude of plural imaginations—including (post)modern imaginations (Kearney, 1998), the embodied imagination (Johnson, 1992), the theoretic imagination (Weick, 1989), the scientific imagination (Holton, 1998), the geometrical imagination (Hilbert & Cohn-Vossen, 1952), the sociological imagination (Mills, 1959/2000), [and] the philosophy of imagination (Warnock, 1976)."
(https://www.integralworld.net/hampson.html)