Towards A New Axial Vision
* Book: A Complex Integral Realist Perspective. Towards A New Axial Vision. By Paul Marshall. Routledge, 2016
Description
"This book sketches the contours of a vision that moves beyond the dominant paradigm or worldview that underlies and governs modernity (and postmodernity). It does so by drawing on the remarkable leap in human consciousness that occurred during the Axial Age and on a cross-pollination of what are arguably the three most comprehensive integrative metatheories available today: Complex thought, integral theory and critical realism – i.e. a complex integral realism. By deploying the three integrative metatheories this book recounts how the seeds of a number of biases within the Western tradition – analytical over dialectical, epistemology over ontology, presence over absence and exterior over interior – were first sown in axial Greece, later consolidated in European modernity and then challenged throughout the 20th century. It then discusses the remedies provided by the three integrative philosophies, remedies that have paved the way for a new vision.
Outlining a ‘new axial vision’ for the twenty-first century which integrates the best of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity within a complex integral realist framework, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Axial Age, critical realism, integral theory and complex thought. It will also appeal to those interested in a possible integration of the insights and knowledge gleaned by science, spirituality and philosophy."
Contents
Part I: Axiality in pre-modernity
1. The Axial Age: First Flowering of a New Vision
2. Axial Greece: Sowing the Seeds of Four Biases
3. Interregnum: Axiality between the Axial Age and Modernity
Part II: Modernity and the Four Biases
4. Modernity: New Shift in Consciousness and Consolidation of the Biases
5. Challenging the Biases: Undermining the Old Vision
6. Remedying the Biases: Paving the Way for a New VisionPart III: Contours of a New Axial Vision
7. Contours I: A New Axial Cosmovision (or ‘Creation Story’)
8. Contours II: A New Axial Cognition and Ethics
9. Contours III: A New Axial Spirituality and Praxis
More information
- an initative by the author: New Axial Vision
"This website is centered around a new axial vision, a new vision of ourselves and the world forged from an integration of the best of the Axial Age, the contemplative core of the axial religions, the findings of modern science and a synthesis of the strengths of the three most comprehensive integrative philosophies or metatheories available today: complex thought, integral theory and critical realism /metarealism. This vision is described in much greater detail in the book Towards a New Axial Vision. It also focuses on a more practical application of this vision, which is aided by the incorporation of modern therapy and psychotherapy and embodied in our Foundational Programme, Axial 2.0: From Ego to Soul. This programme and project emerged out of the personal, academic and professional experience of its founders, Paul Marshall, PhD and Montserrat Voltes."