Integral Theory |
Integral theorists: |
Integral themes: |
Influences on integral theory: |
Integral artists: Integral organizations: |
|
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution is
integral philosopher Ken Wilber's 1995
magnum opus. Wilber intended it to be the first volume of a series called
The Kosmos Trilogy, but subsequent volumes were never produced. The scholarly work comprises 850 pages, including 270 pages of notes. The German edition of
Sex, Ecology, Spiritualitywas entitled
Eros, Kosmos, Logos: Eine Jahrtausend-Vision ("A Millennium-vision"). The book has been both highly acclaimed by some authors and harshly criticized by others.
Content
Wilber's project in this book requires nothing less than a complete re-visioning of the history of Eastern and Western thought. There are four philosophers that Wilber finds to be of the highest importance:
Wilber argues that the account of existence presented by the
Enlightenment is incomplete—it ignores the spiritual and
noetic components of existence. He accordingly avoids the term
cosmos, which is associated with merely physical existence. He prefers the term
kosmos to refer to the sum of manifest existence, which harks back to the usage of the term by the
Pythagoreans and other ancient mystics. Wilber conceives of the Kosmos as consisting of several concentric spheres:
matter (the physical
universe) plus
life (the
vital realm) plus
mind (the
mental realm) plus
soul(the
psychic realm) plus
Spirit (the
spiritual realm).
The structure and theses of SES
In the introduction, Wilber describes the deeply
dysteleological perspective of contemporary philosophical naturalism as "the philosophy of 'oops'". He describes the spiritual inadequacies of philosophical naturalism as the source of the contemporary world's menacing
ecological crisis. He describes his methodology as outlining "orienting generalizations"—points on which agreement can be found that will reveal a shared world-space.
Book One
In the second chapter, "The Pattern That Connects", Wilber uses
Arthur Koestler's account of
holism and
holarchy and
Ludwig von Bertalanffy's
General Systems Theoryto describe approximately twenty tenets of all
holons. Wilber calls the holistic version of the Great Chain of Being the "Great Nest of Spirit", because this account emphasizes that higher levels
include as well as transcend lower ones.
In the fourth chapter, "A View From Within", Wilber describes what he calls two fundamental aspects of existence: the "Left-hand path" (interiority) and the "Right-hand path" (exteriority). Gross
reductionism—
atomism, for example—consists of reducing a whole to its parts. Subtle reductionism—
systems theory, for example—consists of reducing the interior to the exterior.
Charles Taylor's work is used to show that the
Enlightenment paradigm suffers from both gross and subtle reductionism. When Individual and Social spheres are added to the Interior and Exterior aspects of existence,
four quadrants emerge.
In the fifth chapter, "The Emergence Of Human Nature", Wilber uses
Jean Gebser's account of the development of human
consciousness to show how the West progressed from the
magic to the
mythic to the
rational mentalities. This acknowledgment that all of existence is in development adds a third fundamental dimension—depth, or verticality—to Wilber's model of consciousness.
In the seventh chapter, "The Farther Reaches Of Human Nature", Wilber uses
Jürgen Habermas' account of socio-
cultural development to describe collective human development. Wilber describes
vision-logic, a non-dominating, global awareness of holistic hierarchy, in which the pathological dissociations of Nature from Self, interiority from exteriority, and creativity from compassion are transformed into healthy differentiations. The validity claims of
mystics are compared to
Thomas Kuhn's account of scientific
paradigms.
Book Two
In the ninth chapter, "The Way Up Is The Way Down", Wilber describes
Neo-PlatonistPlotinus'
nondual metaphysics. "Ascending" philosophies are those that embrace the One, or the Absolute. "Descending" philosophies are those that embrace the Many, or Plenitude. Both ascent (driven by
Eros, or
creativity) and descent (driven by
Agape, or
compassion) are indispensable for a healthy, whole view.
Plato's metaphysics, which also included both ascending and descending drives, is described. Plotinus' attack on
Gnosticism is described in order to trace differences between healthy and pathological approaches to ascent.
In the tenth chapter, "This-Worldly, Otherworldly", Wilber describes various attempts to repair modernism's fractured and flattened worldview, especially Schelling's
existential idealism.
In the eleventh chapter, "Brave New World", Wilber describes the liberating advantages as well as the spiritually crippling disadvantages of the modern, scientific mentality.
In the twelfth chapter, "The Collapse Of The Kosmos", Wilber uses Taylor's account of the effects of the Enlightenment paradigm to show how vertical
depth was collapsed into horizontal
span and how the ascending drive was
dissociated into the "Ego camp" (
Immanuel Kant's and
Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Transcendent Ego) and the "Eco camp" (
Baruch Spinoza's deified Nature).
Utilitarianism is described as mistaking
sensorypleasure for Spirit, which ultimately resulted in a fixation on
hedonism and
sex in modern society.
In the thirteenth chapter, "The Dominance Of The Descenders", Wilber describes how the West tried to embrace the Many through science, but failed to embrace the One through mysticism. The result was the rise of
Thanatos (
Sigmund Freud's
death drive), and
Phobos (
existential fear), which are the respective pathological versions of
Agapeand
Eros.
In the fourteenth chapter, "The Unpacking Of God", Wilber describes aspects of particular historical nondual views that could possibly heal the
noetic fissures in the West, especially spiritual practice as understood by
Zen and
Dzogchen Buddhism.
Reception
In his 1997 book
Coming into Being, cultural historian
William Irwin Thompson harshly criticized the entire project of
SES, contending that systematic "
theories of everything" were inherently misguided. He also dismissed Wilber's scholarly achievements as "undergraduate generalizations".
[1]Quotation
"Put differently, I sought a world philosophy. I sought an
integral philosophy, one that would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world's great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world is one, undivided whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy for a holistic Kosmos: a world philosophy, an integral philosophy." — Ken Wilber, "Introduction to Volume Six of the Collected Works".
References
- Thompson, William Irwin (1996). Coming into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 0-312-15834-3.
External links