Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue (Ontological Explorations) (Ontological Explorations

by Roy Bhaskar (Editor), Sean Esbjörn-Hargens (Editor), Nicholas Hedlund (Editor)

Metatheory for the 21st Century is one of the many exciting results of over four years of in-depth engagement between two communities of critical realism and integral theory. Building on its origins at a symposium in Luxembourg in 2010, this book examines the points of connection and divergence between critical realism and integral theory, arguably two of the most comprehensive and sophisticated contemporary metatheories. The Luxembourg symposium and the four more that followed explored the possibilities for their cross-pollination, culminating in five positions on their potential for integration, and began the process of fashioning a whole new evolutionary trajectory for both integral theory and critical realism. The contributors to this book bring together critical realism and integral theory in order to explore the potential of this collaboration for the advancement of both. Highlighting the ways in which these metatheories can transform scholarship and address the most pressing global issues of the 21st century, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of metatheory, philosophy, social theory, critical realism, integral theory and current affairs more generally.

Genres: Philosophy

358 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 2013

About the author

Roy Bhaskar (born May 15, 1944) is a British philosopher, best known as the initiator of the philosophical movement of Critical Realism.

Bhaskar was born in Teddington, London, the elder of two brothers. His Indian father and English mother were Theosophists.[1]

In 1963 Bhaskar began attending Balliol College, Oxford on a scholarship to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Having graduated with first class honours in 1966, he began work on a Ph.D. thesis about the relevance of economic theory for under-developed countries. This research led him to the philosophy of social science and then the philosophy of science. In the course of this Rom Harré became his supervisor.

Reviews

[Eugene Pustoshkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished reading the full volume Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century (will probably read its companion, or at least attempt to). There were some bright experiences for me in reading the book and some frustrations, as always in life. In overall, while I retain my right to be critical, I do appreciate everyone’s efforts—even when I strongly disagree with the strategic turn of events.

Returning to the bright side, I was really happy to encounter the article by Michael Schwarz (Chapter 6, “After Integral gets real: On meta-critical chiasma of CR and IT”). In addition to Zak Stein’s brilliant article (of which I had written before—and which responded the most to my intuitions of what an integral and transpersonally-embodied philo-Sophia writings could look like) and Roger Walsh’s Foreword (quotes from which I promised to share but didn’t), what Schwarz writes I have the most resonance with.

As for Sean Esbjorn-Hargens’ own article (Chapter 3), I recognize it is indeed a feat of metatheoretical pattern-recognition, yet I wish it had more specific illustrations of pragmatic grounding. I have a lot of respect for Sean, and I think he saw more depth in the occasion than he was able to convey in his text.

I also read Tom Murray’s article with great interest, although I think the term embodied realism can find a better philosophical enactment than the source that Tom chose (Lakoff and Johnson). I wasn’t impressed by the quotations from this particular flavor of “embodied realism,” even though the title itself is potentially very promising.

Of course, I understand that [what I see as] this traffic jamming of IT with CR and CT historically happened—as a fact—via embodied activities of specific activists (scholars-practitioners) and there is no going back now. It was a nice try, but dissatisfaction resulted, at least to me. Although Ken Wilber’s brilliant response to CR was a great text in itself, which will be a treasure for many decades.

(My primary takeaway from this whole thing is CR’s stratification of ontological objects into the layers of the Real, the Actual, and the Empirical; but I would change the term “the Real” to something else, because for a nondualist everything is equally absolutely real and unreal, but what’s called “the Real” is not THE Real. Ironically, the whole CR–IT debate showed me how important the discovery of the inseparability of epistemology × methodology × ontology is; many of arguments by Critical Realists or others who oppose wilber-5 kind of performatively prove to me that this interwoven triad is quintessential.)

I accept that others have a different view of that trajectory, they would disagree with me and are actually satisfied with how the things turned out. I, however, stand by my somewhat critical evaluations—including my critical diagnostics of some ingrained scientisms and (implicit and in some examples quite explicit) scientistic ontologies visible in various big-picture views and enactments (whether they, I mean these scientistic ontologies, masquerade themselves under the labels of “naturalism” or “physicalism” or “scientific-ism” or what else) that I learned of when studying materials of this excellent course. (To leave the beast of this sneaky little scientism not taken care of and not re-cognized means to regress to pre-transpersonal and pre-Wilber and pre-postnonclassical era.)

And I return to some of my preliminary notes that I made in some posts. I think that Integral—call it Integral Meta-Vision or Integral Meta-Theoria [Meta-Contemplation] or Integral Philosophy [philo-Sophia]—is so much more than the enactment of the metatheorizing trope that is exhibited in some instances of this course.

Integral is not simply a theory, even a metatheory, or even an integral life practice. It is a living unitive thought-vision-feeling, a comprehensive and psychoactively, culturoactively and socioactively transformative philosophy (as the love of Wisdom as a sort of Divine emanation) which appears as a developed and developmental form of evolutionary nonduality (or paradvaita—supreme nondualism—which sees not just unity-in-diversity, but also recognizes diversity-as-unity and is able to transcend and include and, if needed, negate [while integrating] even the most dualistic epistemico-ontological views), a sort of pulsating beingness and doingness which is to be embraced as lively embodied and continuous creative enactment, stemming from the heart of the Kosmos which connects with our own hearts (and manifests as them) through the invisible thread of interwovenness and continuity of radical interplay of existence.


* * *

I don’t have time to extract all the numerous quotes and highlights, but here are a couple of remarkable quotes from Michael Schwarz’s article “After Integral gets real: On meta-critical chiasma of CR and IT”:

“IT in its turn has approached this question not as did Heidegger – who attempted a twisting free from the metaphysical tradition so as to inaugurate another beginning that clears attunement to being – but as a mega-phenomenology of experience and actuality coupled with methodologically gleaned generalizing orientations about manifestation’s tendency to evolve. Spirit, as Conscious Nothingness, births manifestation as Its own kosmic Play and through this Play strives for Self-recognition. Having from the start gotten lost in the game and forgotten its own Supreme Identity, Spirit evolves into forms of manifestation that have requisite capacity to serve as the site of Self-recollection, humans being one of these sites.” (p. 237)

“CR-inspired views have tended to interpret this assertion as an instance of the epistemic fallacy, that all is relative to the knowing subject. I suggest instead that this phrase is most compacted and complex, animated by senses of Sat-Chit-Ananda, Lila, and the primordiality of perspectives (the latter a yet to be unpacked notion in IT having a philosophical ancestry that includes Leibniz). Some of the resonant senses of this phrase include:

(1) actuals cannot escape their relativity or relationality as co-dependent arising, as they always already interdependently coexist, echoing Buddhist philosophical views;

(2) perspectives are elemental of actualities, the one True Self sees through each and every sentient being with which it is nondual, the display of the Kosmos relative to a given monadic perspective; only God sees, but God has no God’s-eye view, instead possessing infinite perspectives on Herself;

(3) all three holonic values – ground, intrinsic, extrinsic (Wilber, 2000, pp. 543–547) – are always already in play, such that all is equally an expression of ground value as seamlessly divine and sacred (“absolute”); while at the same time there are senses of better and worse (“relative”). The phrase “absolutely relative” is not then an expression of a strong or fatal commitment to the epistemic fallacy, but is a compacted speculative view of the Kosmos – God seeing Herself immanently from countless angles in an endless dance of evolving creative play.” (p. 241)

And at least one quote from Roger Walsh’s Foreword:

“. . . effective metatheories of human nature and behavior will perform at least ten major beneficial functions:

1 They will include and integrate multiple perspectives and disciplines, thus providing a fruitful metaperspective.

2 Effective metatheories will embrace epistemological pluralism, and employ epistemologies and methodologies appropriate to each discipline and domain.

3 They will encompass the ever growing complexity of scientific, social, global, and ecological systems.

4 Fruitful metatheories of human nature will include a developmental dimension. This will allow them to incorporate the vitally important findings of developmental psychology, which recognize different levels of adult psychological maturity. For example, there are enormous differences in the cognitive capacities, processes, and worldview of someone at the concrete operational level of cognitive development, as opposed to someone at the more mature post-formal operational level. Likewise, in ethics, there are enormous differences in the values and attitudes of people at conventional and postconventional levels. For example, at the conventional “maintaining norms” schema level, whatever “God” or the law says is unreflectively assumed to be true and sacrosanct. However, for people at the postconventional schema level, values are open to questioning and evaluation (Thoma, 2006). I emphasize this developmental dimension for five crucial reasons:

• Once adult development is recognized, then it becomes apparent that conventional “normality” is not the ceiling of developmental possibilities, and that postconventional potentials await us.

• The recognition of postconventional potentials can encourage us to foster them individually and collectively (Walsh, 2014).

• A developmental perspective enables us to make sense of many contemporary challenges – such as cultural conflicts over issues such as abortion, racism, and feminism – which reflect usually unrecognized developmental differences.

• The significance of psychological development is often underappreciated, even in sophisticated metatheories such as critical realism and complex thought.

• Metatheorizing may require postconventional and post-formal levels of cognition such as James Baldwin’s aesthetic imagination and theoretical intuition, Aurobindo’s higher mind and intuitive mind, Edgar Morin’s complex thought, and Ken Wilber’s vision-logic.

5 Full metatheories will include religion without inappropriately pathologizing it or reductionistically dismissing it (Wilber, 2006). By employing a developmental perspective they will recognize the enormous differences between, for example, conventional religion – which centers on believing a narrative – and postconventional (or better transconventional) religion, which centers on psychological and contemplative practices for producing healing, transformation, and maturation.

6 Corrective metatheories will counter the recurrent tendencies – which seem to be part of our psychological make-up – to fall into inappropriate oversimplification, reductionism, and mistaking the part for the whole.

7 Metatheories can also serve a eudaimonic function that helps us reflect more effectively on the nature of a good life, and ways in which it can be fostered.

8 Socially valuable metatheories will offer tools and perspectives that foster effective social and political critiques. Specifically, these theories will help social analysts unveil inefficiencies, injustices, and pathologies built into our social and political systems, and offer in their stead constructive alternatives.

9 A crucial function for contemporary metatheories is to address the great social, global, and ecological crises of our time. Our species and our planet are imperiled, and effective metatheories can help us navigate these perils to avert the very real prospect of ecological and civilizational collapse.

10 Finally, helpful metatheories will help us recognize and explore both individual and collective potentials and thereby foster them so as to support individual, social, and global flourishing. Only in this way can we mature – individually out of our conventional limitations, and collectively out of what is probably our evolutionary adolescence – into the further reaches of human possibilities (Elgin, 2000).” (pp. xvi– xviii)

I read this book as a part of attending Sean Esbjorn-Hargens’ Varieties of Integral online course. I am grateful to Sean for this wonderful course which expanded my understanding even though at times I disagreed with some parts of some approaches explored in the course.