© Rodney H. Clarken 2004 1 Integral Psychology 3 Part Two: From Premodern to Modern Dr. Rodney H. Clarken Director of Field Experiences and Professor School

© Rodney H. Clarken 2004 1

Integral Psychology 3Part Two: From Premodern to Modern

Dr. Rodney H. ClarkenDirector of Field Experiences and Professor

School of Education

Northern Michigan University


This presentation is my attempt to summarize

• Part Two “PATH: From Premodern to Modern” (chapters 5-7, pp. 57-85) of Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology, (published in 2000 by Shambhala, Boston). Parts were taken from Waves, Streams, States, and Self--A Summary of My Psychological Model (Or, Outline of An Integral Psychology). See http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/psych_model/psych_model1.cfm/


This presentation can be viewed alone,

• but recommend that viewers read the related chapters in Integral Psychology either before or after viewing for a more complete and in depth understanding, as I am only presenting my limited understanding in a way that I think will be helpful to students of this material.

• Also, if you have not viewed the first two presentations, Integral Psychology 1 and 2, you may wish to do so first.


Premodernity’s gifts

• The great systems of spirituality: Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, indigenous religions

• The great nest of being: matter, body, mind, soul and spirit


Premodernity’s downside

• Objective scientific investigation of reality limited and hampered, partly by religious and cultural constraints and superstitions

• Did not differentiate the value spheres of being and knowing which limited expression and development


Modernity’s gifts

• Scientific method, investigation and discoveries

• Differentiated the value spheres of art, morals and science so they could each pursue their own truths and make great advances

• Rights, freedom, justice, equality,


Modernity’s downside

• Scientific materialism reduced all reality to “its” or objective matter

• Disenchantment of the world

• Oppression and domination

• Art, morals and science dissociated, fragmented and alienated


Reconciling Premodern and Modern

• Combining the strengths of “religious” premodernity and “scientific” modernity while eliminating their weaknesses

• Religious and scientific truth should be in harmony, otherwise leads to superstition and meaninglessness


Modernity’s legacy

• Science sought to destroy the superstitions that had crept into religions

• As religion had oppressed and constrained science, science did the same to religion

• Science became scientism and denounced all other worldviews


Modernity and the West

• The West is first major civilization ever to claim reality was material

• Promoted the worldview of scientific materialism, imperialism, colonialism, empiricism, reductionism that reduced all interiors to exteriors


Quadrants

• anything can be looked at from four perspectives: from the inside or from the outside, and in the singular or the plural

• Inside/Interior Outside/Exterior

• Singular/Individual Plural/Collective


For example, consciousness, the singular perspective

• From the singular inside, first-person, phenomenal view, described in "I" language, we can see various feelings, hopes, fears, sensations, and perceptions

• From the singular outside, third-person, objective view, described in "it" language, we can see the objective brain mechanisms and neurophysiological systems.


In addition to a singular view

• Consciousness exists in the plural (as part of a group, a community, a collective).

• Consciousness does not exist in a vacuum; it exists in a community of other selves.

• Just as we can look at the inside and the outside of the individual, we can look at the inside and the outside of the plural or collective.


Consciousness: the plural perspective

• From the plural inside, second-person, intersubjective view, described in "we" language, we see various shared worldviews, ethics, customs, values, and intersubjective structures held in common by those in the collective

• From the plural outside, third-person, interobjective view, described in “its” language, we see objective social systems, structures and institutions; the techno-economic base, the quantitative aspects of the society, modes of communication and so on.


Wilber’s Four QuadrantsUpper Left

Interior-Individual (Intentional)

“I” subjective

Upper Right

Exterior-Individual (Behavioral)

“It” objective

Lower Left

Interior-Collective (Cultural)

“We” intersubjective

Lower Right

Exterior-Collective (Social)

“Its” interobjective



Need to consider all views

• Every line, level and state of being and knowing has these four dimensions

• They need to be considered and integrated to have a complete, holistic, global and integral view

• Different approaches to understanding each view



Exterior consciousness of the individual (UR)

• Consciousness is clearly linked in complex ways to objective biological and neurophysiological systems that may be investigated by MRI, CAT, EEG, physiological markers, and so on.

• provides the "brain" or “it” perspective that needs to be correlated with the "mind" or “I” and the “we” and “its” side


Interior consciousness of the individual (UL)

• The subjective aspect of consciousness, individual awareness

• The “I” perspective, though immediately and subjectively present and available, needs to be correlated with the “it/s” and “we” dimensions of consciousness


Interior consciousness of the collective (LL)

• Intersubjective, ethical, linguistic, and cultural contexts mold consciousness and therefore forms an important part of a more integral analysis

• But just as consciousness can not be reduced to "it“ or “I” language, it includes but can not be reduced to "we"-language. All realities, are not merely cultural constructions.


Exterior consciousness of the collective (LR)

• Various techno-economic modes, institutions, economic circumstances, ecological networks and social systems affect consciousness, but consciousness can not be reduced to or solely determined by a holistic system of interwoven "its“.



Exterior/Interior

• Exterior: Possess simple location, can physically sense, emphasize quantity or size

• Interior: no simple physical location in exterior world (exist in emotional, spiritual, cultural, etc. space) emphasizes quality (value, depth, meaning)


Summary

• Subjective intentions, objective brain states and behavior, intersubjective cultural contexts and interobjective social forces all are a part of and affect consciousness


Four made three

• The four major perspectives, I, it, we and its can be reduced to the I, we and it(s), or first-, second- and third-person accounts of reality

• The following charts give several other correlates of these “Big Three”


Big Three correlates

Objective/Interobjective

Subjective Intersubjective

It/s I We

Third person First person Second Person

Nature Consciousness Culture

Technical skills Personal values

Collective wisdom


Big Three correlates (more)

Ecology/ Systems

Self/Ego Relationships

Science Art (self expression)

Morals

Plato’s The True

The Beautiful The Good

Popper’s Objective It

Subjective I Cultural We


Big Three correlates (still more)

Habermas’ Propositional Truth

Subjective Truthfulness /Sincerity

Normative Rightness/Justice

Kant’s Pure Reason

Aesthetic Judgment

Practical Reason

Buddhism’s Dharma

Buddha Sangha

Wilber’s Behavioral/Social

Intentional Cultural


Some modern pioneers to the integral approach

• Early pioneers: Goethe, Schelling, Hegel, Fechner, James

• 20th Century: Steiner, Whitehead, Gebser

• In the next four slides will look at the four pioneers discussed on pp. 78-85 of Integral Psychology


James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934)

• First great developmental psychologist and may be America’s greatest psychologist

• Believed the three great modes of experience were aesthetic, moral and scientific (see Big Three above) and proposed detailed developmental stages in each of these domains

• Influenced Piaget, Kohlberg, Dewey, Popper, Campbell and others


Jurgen Habermas (1929-)

• Most comprehensive developmental philosopher alive applying his integral vision across philosophy, psychology, anthropology, evolutionary theory, linguistics and politics

• Three tiered model account of: 1) universal pragmatics, 2) development of individual in Big Three and 3) socio-cultural evolution


Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)

• India’s greatest modern philosopher-sage

• Synthesized truths of premodern and modern

• Model of consciousness consists of three systems: 1) surface/outer/frontal, 20deeper/psychic/soul and 3) vertical ascending/descending


Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

• First to gather evidence that each level has a different need that emerges hierarchically and pre-potently as follows: 1) physiological, 2) safety, 3) belongingness, 4) self-esteem, 5) self-actualization and 6) self-transcendence.

• Instrumental in founding humanistic-existential and transpersonal psychology


References

• Most of the material in this presentation was taken from pp. 57-85 of Integral Psychology, (2000).

• The charts are from Waves, Streams, States, and Self--A Summary of My Psychological Model (Or, Outline of An Integral Psychology) at http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/psych_model/psych_model1.cfm/

• All by Ken Wilber. Please read his material for more complete and in depth information.


Contact information

Dr. Rodney H. Clarken

Director of Field Experiences and Professor

School of Education, Northern Michigan University, 1401 Presque Isle Avenue, Marquette, MI 49855-5348

Tel: 906-227-2160 (secretary), 227-1881 (office), 226-2079 (home), Fax: 227-2764, email: [email protected]

Website with this presentation and web cast and info on courses, papers, Baha'i and China: http://www-instruct.nmu.edu/education/rclarken

Documents

© Rodney H. Clarken 2004 1 Integral Psychology 3 Part Two: From Premodern to Modern Dr. Rodney H. Clarken Director of Field Experiences and Professor School