So I summarized Wilber¡¯s view on the mind-body problem honing in especially on his version 3a and 3b–mind as interior, body as exterior, with 3a being the relative process Whiteheadian view and 3b being the Nondual view.
Within 3a however Wilber says that Whitehead¡¯s process philosophy suffered from a lack of dialogical (i.e. intersubjective, Lower Left in Quadrants) emphasis.
David Ray Griffin, arguably the world¡¯s foremost process philosopher (and a remarkable Christian theologian) and Wilber had an interesting back and forth over this claim (of the deficiency in Whitehead¡¯s thought) which is reproduced in the appendix to Wilber¡¯s Essay. [Long wondefully nerdy discussion to follow].
The difference boils down to how existents are related. For Whitehead the primary poles are concrescence and prehension. That is to say each moment is the sum of everything before plus this moment. So all objects are subjects-become-objects aka pan-psychism. Prehension specifies the way in which all beings (subjects and objects) through consciousness are prior to sensory experience/reflection cognizing one another. What Griffin calls a ¡°nonsensory sympathetic perception¡±.
Wilber agues that this view is easily open to critique from the postmodern interpretive schools of Continental European philosophy (Heidegger, Dilthey, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty), i.e. that this empiricist model of Whitehead assumes individuals who then relate to objects as opposed to subjects-in-society/linguistic construction interpreting objects in/via social-collective construction. What is called in the postmodern-ese ¡°monological¡±-ism: ¡°one view¡± as opposed to dialogical.
For Wilber:
Thus, even in Whitehead¡¯s notions of concrescence and prehensive unification, I do not detect a vivid understanding of strong intersubjectivity. Rather, using a merely Whiteheadian process philosophy, one must construct intersubjectivity (and true dialogical experience) from a repeated application of prehensive unifications and concrescences, all of which are to some degree after the fact. I believe this hampers Whiteheadian process philosophy from becoming a truly integral philosophy. By adopting a quadratic, instead of limited dialogical, approach, I am not denying Whitehead but enriching him.
Griffin criticizes this description of Whitehead as monological. Here is the correspondence between Wilber and Griffin on this point:
DG: ¡°My only real problem with your discussion of Whiteheadian process thought is your criticism of it as monological¡¦.Each occasion is internally influenced by EVERY prior occasion and exerts influence on EVERY future occasion¡¦. How much more relational could an ontology be? Indeed, some members of the camp refer to this as ¡®process-relational¡¯ thought. And some of us refer to this an ¡®ecological¡¯ view of the self¡¦.¡±
KW: ¡°You can be ecological and relational and still be monological. Traditional systems theory, for example, is a relational and ecological model, but it is entirely in third-person it-language (monological). Most ecological sciences are monological. Almost all Gaia theories are monological. And to the extent that some Whiteheadians talk about I-it prehensifications–even in relational and ecological terms–they are often stuck in monological modes.¡±
DG: ¡°Regarding monological: it is true that a Whiteheadian subject prehends only ¡®objects.¡¯ But this is by definition: whatever is prehended by a subject is by definition an object for that subject. It does not imply ¡®objectivity¡¯ in the (dualist) ontological sense¡¦. The objects of the elementary prehensions¡¦ are ¡®objects-that-had-been-subjects,¡¯ so that the prehension (or feeling) of them is a ¡®feeling of feelings.¡¯ So it seems very misleading to use the term monological¡¦.¡±
KW: ¡°Well, it¡¯s tricky. For me, the intersubjective space is the background out of which the subject arises and in which the subject prehends objects, and that background permeates the subject (even if it entered as object), and then henceforth, as the new subject creatively emerges, it emerges in part from this intersubjectivity, and thus intersubjectivity at that point first enters the subject as part of the subject, not as an object-that-was-once-subject. This intersubjectivity is thus truly dialogical, not monological. Analogous to, e.g., somebody at moral-stage 5 will have his thoughts all arise within that space, but that structure was never an object, but rather forms part of the structure in which the new subject arises moment to moment, and thus enters the subject as prehending subject, not as prehended object that was once subject.¡±
DG: ¡°I think I see your point–that what you call real dialogue involves a more [quadratic] view of the self. But given the subtlety of the distinction between this and Whitehead¡¯s view, it seems misleading to characterize it as ¡®monological.¡¯ Why not distinguish between two kinds of dialogical positions–call yours ¡®complete¡¯ and call Whitehead¡¯s ¡®partial.¡¯¡±
There¡¯s a lot there, trying to break it down and chunk.
Griffin begins by pointing that concretion and prehension is wildly different than traditional materialism and empiricism which assumes isolated (non-processual) entities that just bounce around and bump into one another. What Griffin calls a ¡°sensationist¡± epistemology.
Wilber grants this point (¡±it is relational¡±) and yet still wants to differentiate that this is not intersubjective in the truest sense. There are relations and interactions and objects that were prior subjects, but for Wilber the key point is that the intersubjective is a permanent feature of reality (quadratic all the way up and down). So the intersubjective is not that which arises first and foremost out of concretion and prehension however much deep relation granted is there, but rather what comes on the scene at any point of arrival of any manifestation in the universe. It is not just prehension that goes all the way down but communication and all beings communication in a language (if not vocalized or self-consciously) that itself is always already within a given community. Whether cells, insects, whales, or humans.
So Griffin concedes the point and makes an interesting observation about a complete dialogical versus a partial dialogical (which presumably would also include systems theory, ecological holistic views, etc.).
Clarity around this distinction could help make clear the different in integral thought between classical modernism (in Griffin¡¯s terminology) and its attendant materialism and sensationist epistemology and these other ¡°partial dialogical¡± ways. AQAL integral is still complete dialogic, but the others are partial. This would open a door to a fuller transcend and include understanding and appreciation of many of these ¡°green¡± epistemologies and worldviews/metaphysics.
When all gets labeled ¡°Flatland¡±, there is a theoretical purity and simplicity that is compelling and persuasive (and still fundamentally correct) but I¡¯m not sure politically and philosophically it is the best way forward.
I think it could allow for a much healthier inclusion of these elements and a deeper process-oriented sense to enter integral thought. Again it is there in Wilber¡¯s writings where a ¡°level¡± is really just a tendency to exist in a certain vector, fluid, open to change and modification, and recalling that intersubjective does always involve bodies (whether communication or ecological or both) as well as relations.
Otherwise there is a tendency for the AQAL system I find to become too static and blocky in its understanding by some and its application.
....................................
Do Critics Misrepresent My Position?
A Test Case from a Recent Academic Journal
Part IV
BORROWING
In perhaps the most embarrassing part of his attack on my work, de Quincey accuses me of subconsciously plagiarizing his work (although why he would want to claim that the model that he so aggressively attacks is actually his model is not made clear). As much as you want to see your critics fumble the ball when they are unfairly attacking you, this was just painful to watch.
In 1995 I published SES. The core of its argument, as de Quincey acknowledges, was a call to integrate "the Big Three"--the big three of art, morals, and science; or the Beautiful, the Good, and the True; or I, we, and it; or first-, second-, and third-person dimensions.[7]
Three years later, in 1998, de Quincey presented a paper that called for integrating first-, second-, and third-person approaches. He sent me this article in 1997. I told him I agreed with it, since it repeated my own model and my own conclusions.
In his JCS article, de Quincey suggests that, having read his paper, I unconsciously "borrowed" his call for integrating the Big Three. He says, "I was pleased to see Wilber subsequently emphasize what I was calling for: a comprehensive 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person approach to consciousness studies (which Wilber now calls the 1-2-3 of consciousness studies)." But, of course, I had been emphasizing that Big-Three approach starting with SES, as its many endnotes make perfectly clear, and this approach was repeated--including the call for a Big-Three approach to consciousness studies--in The Eye of Spirit, written in 1996 and published in 1997 (see the Collected Works, volume 7), all of which saw the light of day before de Quincey's paper began circulating.
In an endnote, de Quincey says, "I do want to state for the record that the call for a comprehensive 1, 2, 3 of consciousness studies was first presented in my Tucson paper in 1998." What evidence does he have for this, and how does he deal with the awkward fact that SES was out in 1995? De Quincey never answers or even addresses that, but he does say the evidence of my borrowing can be seen in the fact that I use two phrases in Integral Psychology that are similar to phrases found in his 1998 paper. These two phrases are "agree with each other" and "comprehensive theory."
This, as I said, is simply painful. I deeply appreciate that Christian wants to have his ideas acknowledged, and I am more than glad to point to him as a worthy comrade in the drive for an integral Big-Three approach to consciousness studies. I have a reputation for scrupulously giving credit where credit is due, as thousands of footnotes readily attest, but the suggestion that I got this idea from de Quincey just left me totally speechless (as it did every person I talked to about his article). But de Quincey is quite right about one thing: there is indeed some extensive, unconscious borrowing going on here.[8]
SUBTLE ENERGIES
In my own system, the "body/energy" component is the Upper-Right quadrant, and the "mind/consciousness" component is the Upper-Left quadrant. The integral model I am suggesting therefore explicitly includes a corresponding subtle energy at everylevel of consciousness across the entire spectrum (gross to subtle to causal, or matter to body to mind to soul to spirit). Critics have often missed this aspect of my model because the typical four-quadrant diagram shows only the gross body in the Upper-Right quadrant, but that is only a simplified summary of the full model presented in my overall work.
In the traditions, it is often said that these subtle energy fields exist in concentric spheres of increasing embrace. For example, the etheric field is said to extend a few inches from the physical body, surrounding and enveloping it; the astral energy field surrounds and envelops the etheric field and extends a foot or so; the thought field (or subtle body energy field) surrounds and envelops the astral and extends even further; and the causal energy field extends to formless infinity. Thus, each of these subtle energy fields is a holon (a whole that is part of a larger whole), and the entire holonic energy spectrum can be easily represented in the Upper-Right quadrant as a standard series of increasingly finer and wider concentric spheres (with each subtler energy field transcending and including its junior fields). Each subtle energy holon is the exterior or the Right-Hand component of the corresponding interior or Left-Hand consciousness. In short, all holons have four quadrants across the entire spectrum, gross to subtle to causal, and this includes both a "mind/consciousness" and a "body/energy" component.
De Quincey assures us that "subtle energies don't fit into any of the quadrants." On the contrary, those subtle-energy experts who are more familiar with my work, including Larry Dossey and Michael Murphy, have stated that an AQAL approach to these energies might be the closest approach we have to an integral theory of both consciousness and subtle energies.
CONCLUSION
We have seen that, of the ten or so major issues that de Quincey addresses in my work, he substantially misrepresents every one of them. I have in each of those cases given what de Quincey says, followed by direct quotes of mine showing what I actually said, and readers can see for themselves the jarring discrepancies.
Obviously, the question arises as to why this happens. I will set aside any personal or professional motivations of de Quincey's (I really don't know him), and instead focus on what seems to me the sufficient reason for such widespread misunderstanding of my work: the sheer volume of the material. I also have a tendency to write on two levels--the main text and the voluminous endnotes, and often my nuanced position is buried in the endnotes. There is also the fact that I constantly try to incorporate criticism into my work and alter my ideas based on responsible criticism--hence the four major phases of my work, with others surely to follow (thus, the idea that every time somebody criticizes me I claim that I am being misunderstood is ludicrous; if that were the case, I would never have presented any model beyond wilber-1. Even de Quincey acknowledges that "Wilber has a way of assimilating and accommodating the barbs of his critics"--a backhanded compliment for the fact that I greatly appreciate responsible criticism and do whatever I can to fix any problems with my presentation.) But this often means that somebody will give a blistering attack on, say, wilber-2, and that attack gets repeated by others who are trying to nudge me out of the picture, with the result that, as the editors of A Guide to Ken Wilber concluded, over 80% of the published and posted criticisms of my work are based on misrepresentations of it.
Keith Thompson offers what I think are two cogent criticisms of the way I write as contributing to this problem. I believe he is correct on both counts.
Having said all of that, do I find Wilber maddening? Yes. Surely not in all respects, but very much so in some. The annoying problem that I have found in attempting to criticize Wilber's work is that he often states his actual, detailed position on a topic in several obscure endnotes spread over several books (this is certainly true with his treatment of Whitehead; also his theory of semiotics, his actual stance on intersubjectivity, holography, etc.). Then, since in the main text of his books, he tries to be more popular, he often gives simplified, popularized, and therefore sometimes slightly misleading accounts of his real position. If you want to criticize him, criticize him for that! It has gotten tons of reviewers into real trouble, because they take his popularized statements at face value. Of course, Wilber's defenders then come back with the actual quotes about his real position, dug up from some obscure endnotes, and the reviewer looks like an idiot. This can be very exasperating, but still, it doesn't excuse critics misrepresenting his actual or more sophisticated position.
Speaking of Wilber's defenders: Shambhala is about to add a new feature to Wilber's domain of the Shambhala Web site. It's going to be called "Wilber Watch," and it's going to identify misrepresentations of Wilber's views. I told a friend who works at Shambhala that this seemed to me, well, a bit funny. He said in one sense he agreed... but then he forwarded to me many illustrations of said misrepresentations, and I was frankly amazed. Most involved egregious misreadings of Wilber's work, some of so studied in their mistaken conclusions that it was hard not to attribute bad faith to their promulgators. By the way, not a single one of said "misrepresentations" was simply a matter of the writer reaching different interpretations than Wilber. Ken has repeatedly said he has no problem whatever with anyone reaching different conclusions than his. I have watched many Integral Institute participants do that time and time again, sometimes quite vociferously disagreeing with Ken. Each and every time, Ken has nodded and said something like, "Fair difference of interpretation.... I can see how you reach that conclusion."
At the same time, Ken has a very keen eye for "different interpretations of the data" that are in fact little more than misreadings (willful or not) of his work. I don't blame Ken's "defenders" for wanting to identify these and hold them up to a wide audience. (Wilber's section of Shambhala has gotten more than a million hits already this year.) A really good and valid criticism, it seems to me, would not be to try to attack his position on a single issue (like philosophy of mind or intersubjectivity), but call him to task for never producing a definitive glossary. For work spread out like his, that is inexcusable. I think he or his students are working on one (last I heard it was 400 pages), but he really needs to be kicked in the ass for this.
Point taken. I have also decided that there is no real way out of this morass of misrepresentation unless I start teaching my material. De Quincey's article was the straw that broke this camel's back. It was so off the wall that I decided I really needed to take some sort of action.
Nor can I count on the editors at professional journals to help me out here (Bob Forman is a major exception), because they face the same difficulties as everybody else. The managing editor of JCS was sent a long email by Keith Thompson pointing out the many inaccuracies in de Quincey's article (portions of that email were reprinted above). The editor declined to do anything about it, or even to print Thompson's corrections. Nor did the editor show me de Quincey's article before it was published; nor did the editor offer me a chance to respond to these distortions. Again, I don't blame editors for this; I doubt that I would give much space to a whiney author who's always complaining "That's not what I said!"
The good news in all this is that it has spurred me to begin taking this material out in the world myself. This will also give people a chance to see me in the flesh, and thus decide if I am really the devil that their projections proclaim. (Of course, they might decide yes! But at least it will be based on real intersubjective impressions, not shadow projections.) I have already started doing this with Integral Institute, as Keith noted above, and we are starting a period in Integral Institute's history where this type of interaction will only be increasing.
Now it is true, as several have charged, that Wilber does not derive intersubjectivity solely from anything holographic. The reason, as he told me once, is that the holographic theory is based merely on the interpenetration of finite subjects and objects, and thus fails to also include the infinite (it includes the All but not also the One). So he refuses to use merely holographic theories to derive intersubjectivity, because that leaves out the unbounded infinite Spirit that is the actual ground of all four quadrants, including the intersubjective.
But he does say that on a given, finite, manifest level, the holons are holographic. He says this clearly and often in Eye to Eye. In fact, in the first edition of that book, he said "between levels, hierarchy, within levels, holarchy (meaning holographic)." Then he switched terminology in the second edition of Eye to Eye but kept the identical meaning: he chose "heterarchy" to mean "holographic interpenetration of each holon on a given level," since no holon was "higher or lower" than another, but all of them had "mutual interpenetration with equivalence." And he chose "holarchy" for between levels because Koestler had already established the usage for that word. But clearly, Wilber finds holons of similar depth are mutually interpenetrating and mutually co-creating and holographic. He repeats that standard formula in SES ("Within levels, heterarchy, between levels, holarchy"). He then talks about pathological heterarchy and pathological holarchy, etc. So he would definitely agree his theory is not merely holographic in any typical sense, because holography doesn't account for those aspects of holons that are nonequivalent and it doesn't account for the infinite. This is why he is often viewed as an opponent of the holographic paradigm (ask any of the more obsessive Wilberphobes at CIIS), but clearly that is only "half true."
[3] This is from The Eye of Spirit, second revised edition, CW7, note 12 for chapter 11:
The "impassable gulf" is simply another name for the subject/object dualism, which is the hallmark not of Descartes's error but of all manifestation, which Descartes simply happened to spot with unusual clarity. It is still with us, this gap, and it remains the mystery hidden in the heart of samsara, a mystery that absolutely refuses to yield its secrets to anything less than post-postconventional [or nondual] development.
I have repeatedly had people explain to me that the Cartesian dualism can be solved by simply understanding that . . . and they then tell me their solutions, which range from Gaia-centric theories to neutral monism to first-third person interactionism to systems theory [to Whitehead process philosophy]. I always respond, "So this means that you have overcome the subject-object dualism in your own case. This means that you directly realize that you are one with the entire Kosmos, and this nondual awareness persists through waking, dream, and deep sleep states. Is that right?" "Well, no, not really."
The [ultimate] solution to the subject-dualism is not found in thought, because thought itself is a product of this dualism, which itself is generated in the very roots of the causal realm and cannot be undone without consciously penetrating that realm. The causal knot or primordial self-contraction--the ahamkara--can only be uprooted when it is brought into consciousness and melted in the fires of pure awareness, which almost always requires profound contemplative/meditative training. The subject-object duality is the very form of the manifest world of maya--the very beginning of the four quadrants (subject and object divide into singular and plural forms)--and thus one can get "behind" or "under" this dualism only by immersion in the formless realm (cessation, nirvikalpa, ayn, nirvana), which acts to dissolve the self-contraction and release it into pure nondual awareness--at which point, the traditions (from Zen to Eckhart) agree, you indeed realize that you are one with the entire Kosmos, a nondual awareness that persists through waking, dream, and deep sleep states: you have finally undone the Cartesian dualism.
[4] As Nagarjuna demonstrated, the ultimate relation of subject and object cannot be stated in words but only realized with Enlightenment (satori). Any attempt to state the ultimate relation of subject and object by using relative words will fail. This relationship can be shown (with satori), but not said (without satori). This applies only to aspect #3b of the mind-body problem.
[5] See note 15 for chap. 14 in Integral Psychology, which also gives the endnotes in SES.
[6]Kindred Visions is still in the process of being edited and assembled. We had so many wonderful contributions we are at a loss as to how exactly to proceed. Most likely we will simply post all of them on Integral Institute's website once it is up and running. Stay tuned to Shambhala.com for more information.
[7] Technically, "we" is first-person plural, and "you" is second person. But I include first-person plural ("we") and second person ("you/Thou") as both being in the Lower-Left quadrant, which I refer to in general as "we." The reason I do so is that there is no second-person plural in English (which is why southerners have to say "you all" and northerners say "you guys"). In other words, when "we" is being done with respect, it implicitly includes an I-Thou relationship (I cannot truly understand thee unless WE share a set of common perceptions).
[8] And "for the record," I first used the phrase "the 1-2-3 of consciousness studies" in a conversation with Frances Vaughan and Roger Walsh in 1996. Roger had come up with what he called a "20-20" rule, which is that it would be great if funding organizations had a rule that at least 20% of funding had to go to research in each quadrant. This got us to talking about an upcoming talk that Frances was going to give, and we decided that she should call it "The 1-2-3 of Consciousness Studies," as a shorthand for the Big-Three approach of integrating first-, second-, and third-person approaches. I can't remember whether Frances or I first came up with that phrase--they can't remember, either--but we did agree she would call her talk by that title. Immediately thereafter I began using that phrase as another shorthand for the Big Three approach to consciousness. Two years later I made some of the endnotes in The Eye of Spirit the basis of an article in JCS with the title "An Integral Theory of Consciousness," which was written in 1996 and published in 1997--again, well before de Quincey's paper crossed my desk--and parts of which were actually published in the Noetic Sciences Review, where de Quincey works. The first printed use of the phrase "the 1-2-3 of consciousness studies" occurred in 1996 as I edited "An Integral Theory of Consciousness" for its eventual inclusion in volume 7 of the CW, where the phrase can be found in several places, such as p. 378. And then, with Integral Psychology, I used the phrase "the 1-2-3 of consciousness studies" as a chapter title--all of this in a type of homage to that conversation with Frances and Roger, and which I personally trace to Roger's "20-20" rule.
Appendix B: Intersubjective Nuances (by Sean Hargens)
Figure 1: Intersubjectivity as (Cultural) Context
Definition
The structures created by intersubjective meshworks, which are unavailable as an object. These structures are constitutive of the subject.
Examples
Structures include: Linguistic, ethical, cultural, aesthetics, and syntactic. [9]
Thinkers
Foucault, Derrida, Saussure, and Heidegger.
Figure 2: Intersubjectivity as Resonance
Definition
The degree of "mutual understanding" between two holons based on the degree in which depth and span-domains are shared and similar.
Divisions
Depth-Domain: The degree of depth (vertical axis) of the Kosmos represented. Worldspaces: Unconscious resonance between two subjects who share physical and/or emotional domains. Worldviews: Conscious resonance between two subjects who share a subjective level of psychological development.* Span-Domain: The amount of span or width (horizontal axis) of the Kosmos represented. Including: culture, language,
Thinkers
Gebser, Elgin, Schutz, Aurobindo, and Habermas
* See Figure 2.5 for the three dimensions within the concept "worldview."
Figure 2.5: Dimensions of a Worldview
Intersubjective
The cultural worldview resulting from the average level of development of any given culture at any time.
Subjective
The personal worldview resulting from the average level of development of an individual. Can either be in sync with the general culture, but can be both higher and lower then that.
Objective
The level of reality that an individual chooses to focus on with their subjective worldview.*
*This process results in a cartography of over two dozen worldviews.
Figure 3: Intersubjectivity as (Phenomenological) Space
Definition
The felt-experience of dimensions of intersubjectivity.
Divisions
Resonance: How one experiences the depth and span they share with other holons. Relationships: How one experiences relationship with other subjects. Spirit: How one experiences the ground of Being.
Thinkers
Husserl, Schutz, Grof, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Abram
*Recall, intersubjective structures are not available to felt-experience, rather this is refers to how one experiences their culture
Figure 4: Intersubjectivity as Relationships
Definition
The way we identify and have relationships with other subjects/objects.
Divisions
It-It: An objective subject in relationship with an objective object. I-It: A subject in relationship with an object. I-I: A subject in relationship with a subject. Solidarity: Relating to another subject because they mirror you (e.g., your values, creed, ethnicity, nationality, gender). Difference: Relating to another subject as a subject despite the fact that they are different from you in important ways.
Thinkers
Kegan, Irigaray, Benjamin, Buber and Whitehead
Figure 5: Intersubjectivity as Spirit
Definition
The transcendental quality to the relationship that allows for any dimension of intersubjectivity to manifest.
Divisions
All four dimensions: Context, resonance, space, and relationship.