If you’ve read Ken you’re familiar with the pre-trans fallacy (PTF). But is it valid? Is it itself a fallacy? To have a PTF the so-called transrational states of consciousness have to actually be…transrational.
And what if they’re not, as I’ve suggested before, but are really pre-rational stages of development that are highly and laterally developed via meditation?
Is it necessarily the case that if one like myself makes such a suggestion that we are automatically reductionist and have a lower than “integral” level of cognition?ÂÂ
Is it possible to still be considered “integral” without a belief is such transrational states of spirituality?
For a reminder, here’s how Ken described the PTF in Integral Spirituality (draft) pp. 70-71:
If you do not believe in Spirit, then you will take every trans-rational event and reduce it to pre-rational impulses and preverbal twaddle, perhaps claiming it is regressive, nothing but a holdover from the oceanic fusion days of infancy. You are a grand reductionist, and your names are legion, and happily you go about the day, collapsing trans-rational to pre-rationalâ€â€reducing any experience of Spirit to a bit of undigested meat, and God is something you can simply outgrow, if you just keep trying. With this sleight of hand, this intellectual bit of laziness, all genuine trans-rational realities are dismissed.
If, on the other hand, you believe in Spirit, and anything non-rational is Spirit, then it appears that every pre-rational twitch or twingeâ€â€no matter how infantile, childish, regressive, self-centered, irrational, or egocentricâ€â€is somehow deeply spiritual or religious, and so you go about reinforcing those areas in your awareness that will most fight maturity. Every Peter-Pan piety is encouragedâ€â€under the name of Spiritâ€â€as pre-rational is gloriously elevated to transrational. This makes even my selfish, pre-rational, preconventional impulses appear especially spiritualâ€â€yet they are not beyond reason, but beneath it.
I don’t find Gerry Goddard easy to read, but be clear about one thing: his model is more complicated than Wilber’s, at least more complicated than the 4Q version of Wilber’s model in currency at the time he (Goddard) was writing these articles. Goddard’s model has twelve quadrants, in order to make the distinction between the object as holon and the object as perceived by the subject. This is referred to in the above passage as “the LEFT ‘outer’ is ‘the way the other ’shows up’ as RIGHT objecthood.” That is really what all the often confusing verbiage about subject/object and subject/subject polarities boils down to.
I agree with you, Edward, that Gerry is talking about holonic perspectives, and it does seem to me that subsequent modifications in Wilber’s model may have been strongly influenced by Goddard’s analysis. As I have said before, though, both Goddard and Wilber make these distinctions far more complicated and redundant than they have to. I have taken all of Goddard’s and Wilber’s perspectives and shown how they can be directly related to individual and social relationships, without the need for multiple quadrants, inside/outside distinctions within quadrants, and all the rest.
Gerry and I also have our quarrels over agentic vs. communal societies and their relationship to agentic vs. communal individuals. I do agree with them that we can and should make these distinctions, and I think that agreement is more important than our differences, but we do have differences on what we call agentic and communal, and particularly, the historical development of them.
I also respect Gerry as really the first to call Wilber on the conflation between societies and social aspects of holons, or what has more recently been referred to by Frank as holons as quadrants vs. holons within quadrants. Gerry sees, and I and I think Mark agree on this, that a distinction has to be made here which Wilber’s model as he has been presenting it does not make.
I hope you guys don’t mind me asking a question or two as I follow along- my background on integral outside of Wilber’s writings is sometimes limited.
What is “holons as quadrants vs holons within quadrants?” Is ken’s assertion of the distinction of a dominant monad relevent (in contradiction) to this?
With regard to the emergence and supression of a subject/subject epistemology- isn’t postmodernism (in many of its forms at least) creating and integrating a distinctly subject/subject epistemology?
It might take me a while to assimilate Goddard to the point of translating it into my usual clear, concise rhetoric. In the meantime I recommend Peter Collins series of essays on the pre-trans issue, as I think he’s on to something quite similar (though with his own distinctive flavor, of course.) I’m currently also trying to assimilate this work and will try to explicate it forthcoming with Goddard’s and then add my own idiosyncratic spices to the brew.
As a taste of what Collins is implicating at http://indigo.ie/~peter/pretrans.html
The pre/trans fallacy (as in Ken Wilber’s writings) is based on a somewhat distorted interpretation of the relationship between pre and trans (i.e. prepersonal and transpersonal).
While emphasising one important aspect i.e where pre and trans are clearly distinguished from each other, Wilber fails to adequately recognise the equally important aspect where pre and trans remain continuous with each other throughout development.
In dynamic experiential terms both aspects – in varying configurations – are necessarily involved. Indeed properly understood a large variety of pre/trans fallacies exist.
Using the radial method, the articles outline the characteristic type of fallacy associated with each of the major levels of development (12 in my account).
Does someone have an online link to Ken’s original pre-trans article that appeared in Eye to Eye and Revision Journal? I’d like to re-read it. As I recall it shows the inverse relationship of pre to trans levels, i.e., pre-fusion to nondual union, subconscious dreaming to the subtle level etc. And our course rationality is the middle fulcrum point that mediates between the two. This is similiar to both Goddard and Collins and is relevant to what is brewing in my own subterranean (or is that transterranean?) depths (heights?).
Here’s Frances Vaughan talking about Washburn’s pre-trans distinctions in her article “A question of balance: health and pathology in new religious movements.” Leaving aside the theme of the article for the moment (to be returned to in a new blog applying it to Ken’s own religious movement), here’s how she sees Washburn’s pre-trans attributes:
http://www.csp.org/communities/docs/vaughan-balance.html#notes
Philosophy teacher Michael Washburn[13] has delineated specific distinctions between pre-personal and transpersonal states. In his view ego transcendence is characterized by: (1) integrated, articulate wholeness in contrast to undifferentiated oneness; (2) consciously cognized intuition in contrast to trance or passive, unconscious perception; (3) faith and grace in contrast to infantile dependence; (4) insight in contrast to undifferentiated perception; (5)spontaneity in contrast to reactivity and impulsiveness; (6) altruism in contrast to narcissism; and (7) purity of heart in contrast to ignorance. Ego development in this framework is viewed as a transition that inevitably involves both alienation and evolution of consciousness. It is at the ego level that conscious, effective action becomes possible.
[13] M. Washburn, “The bimodal and tri-phasic structures of human experience,” ReVision, 3(2), Fall, 1980.
Matthew: You can find Ken’s distinction between quadrants and quadrivia at the following link. So yes, it does have something to do with a dominant monad, in his mind:
http://www.kenwilber.com/Writings/PDF/KenRespondstoRecentCritics_CRITICS_2006.pdf.
As to pomo being about what Goddard describes as a subject/subject epistemology, yes and no. Intersubjectivity per Goddard, at least in its dominant and expressed form, is more about the communicative action of the subject-object relation per Habermas, for example. The subject-subject relation–the other half of intersubjectivity–is more the repressed direct communication via the collective unconscious. It becomes unconscious during the process of the differenation of the subject-object dualism during rational development.
Thanks, very helpful!
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