1. Everybody is right. As you are well aware, Wilber never says this. He states that everybody is right but partial and the non-right parts can be ignored. He goes on to describe exactly where that rightness will be. (In the areas where a particular practice can has been done through a particular perspective, observations made and discussed with competent peers.) Your entire argument here is not only fallacious since it is based on a straw man but dishonest since you are completely aware of this.
2. Here you demonstrate that you do not understand the theory of which you were so proudly an expert before you were declared not so. (Although you do cite an authority in defense - yourself.) Wilbers quadrants are not aspects of anything. They are perspectives through which any occasion can be observed. Again your arguments are very easily demolished, but it is down to stupidity here rather than dishonesty so that is to your credit, I suppose.
3. Now this is just a cheap shot. Of course Wilber does not research every argument in every field - that would be finitely impossible as one writer put it. (Oh yes - Wilber himself in the introduction to SES.) Nor does he take the generalisations that Falk (the only critic more witless than you.)talks about. What he does is summarise. That is, you may argue, not a valid approach or that it may miss some very interesting details in a field - but it is a clear part of his methodology. This is big picture work and does not pretend to be anything else.
Overall the thing is this. In order to make room for your own excellent but rather meagre work, you would find it more convenient for Wilber to be as it were 'out of the way' since you and he fell out and much of your work and the field in general is based on his work. I would invite you to be more honest and generous. Acknowledge Wilber's work, even while rejecting the man. Trust me you will feel better. It is not all about you. Or him. or me.
Michael
By MD |
6/12/2006 12:46 AM I'll take a moment and offer a somewhat extended response. You are wrong on pretty much every point, but I do appreciate the response.
1) "Everybody is right" -- a direct quote, from numerous places, incl. Introduction, Collected Works of Ken Wilber, vol. VIII and Jack Crittenden's famous (and highly Wilber-endorsed) essay summarizing Wilber. That Wilber (in CW VIII) goes on to say, "More specifically, everybody - including me - has some important pieces of the truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace." is more intellectually honest (if needlessly flowery), but still has problems because people can be 100% wrong without batting an eye. Easy example: The world is flat. BZZZT! False, not true, belief about reality, try again! To imply it important to account for that truth (or false truth spliced into something smaller) requires intellectual hair-splitting that no one needs outside of hair-splitting intellectuals.
2) No, you are wrong, and I but need to ask you, in light of what you said, "ok, so what is the occasion here?". From Excerpt C (online): "The four quadrants are not four different occasions but four different perspectives on (and hence dimensions of) every occasion." The fallacy is that there is no one occasion that fulfills Wilber's famous quadrant diagram, thus it is false by his own definition, or his definition is false, or both. Thus the essential, and right, reaction to his famous four quadrants is a harumphy "so what?". Or, "ok sorta neat, but what's the big deal?"
3) Not sure exactly what your point is. Being superficial (which Wilber is) is far different than not researching every argument in every field. Certainly he hasn't done the latter. But that doesn't stop him from substanial writings about many fields in which he has received no training whatsoever. And then he pronounces things like "there is no substantial disagreement" (I'm paraphrasing) on a particular point and that is showing to be a hollower claim as more people actually check that which is uses as primary sources. For example, he demonstrates little understanding of the field of aesthetics/art yet wrote about those, and further associates his name and brand with "integral art" constantly.
As far as your final points; there is no need for Wilber to be "out of the way" and I have no power to make that happen. Let's keep things in perspective, shall we? Compared to his volumes, of course I've yet to write a single book, and only essays at this point (though I'm working on my first book as we speak); so your comparison (I take it you are comparing my output to his) is rather silly. I have never made such a comparison, and would never. I have written more than anyone else about integral art (at least in those particular terms) and I have much more to write in the coming years.
The real story is that he and I are in different fields. He is in speculative psychology and I'm in art/aesthetics. And I refine that even further as being generally concerned with that field from the point of view of the working artist. So you really don't have a point. And finally, this: anytime anyone critiques his work, they acknowledge Wilber. As far as adulation, I think he's doing just fine on that regard and he needs none from me.
By Anonymous |
8/10/2006 8:00 AM I am sorry for the long post but fewer words just dont get at what I want to raise and a more compressed version simply would sound toooo dogmatic (and this sounds dogmatic enough). Please regard it as nothing more than another perspective on Wilber.
A. On orientating generalisations B. On theories of everything and Why does Wilber matter to ME
Here are MY thoughts on that, far from being an authority on whatever or knowing Wilber personally:
A. I think Ken offers orientating generalisations indeed but those are absolutely not necessarily the mainstream-opinion of the professionals coming from the field he cites. He does not summarize what the professionals already have agreed on but rather uses the heuristic approach of taking only those claims seriously that can actually stand the test against the bigger picture. I am running out of terms here (you Mr. Dallman might find some, language is actually not my strength) but let me give you two examples:
1. Evolutionary debate: one could argue Wilber misrepresents the evolutionary standpoint of science when claiming that nobody (no scientist) beliefs in half-wings but telos, Brahman, subtle energies, pizza or whatever this Wilber-dude postulates instead. This would be true, because – as Falk and his references show – it simply is empirically false to claim scientists believe in Telos. But what I think Wilber never had the empirical approach of actually summarizing mainstream opinions in disciplines. Instead he checks their claims against the findings of other disciplines. So he does with the evolutionary debate in EYE to EYE. He argues – checking the scientific position against philosophy – that the question about evolution must be divided in a WHAT (the scientific – what happens, how does evolution occur) and a WHY (why does this evolution acutually happen) of evolution. While he says to fully agree on the WHAT with science he does not agree on its WHY because of a simple philosophical performative contradiction: if everything is product of chance, then so must the statement (that everything is product of chance) itself be and thus becomes an argument without legitimation – chance is I think a bad legitimation for arguments (check out Eye to Eye for more detail, especially chapter on contradiction of science). Now this might be a fallacious argument, but as soon as we argue on its truth we already have accepted that it makes sense to test scientific claims against the bigger picture. This Wilberian suggestions of trying to understand the parts by testing them against the whole and understanding the whole by understanding the parts makes sense to me.
2. One could argue if Wilber was to give an orienting generalisation of christian religion he would have to summarize the catechism. What does he do instead? He summarizes weird mystics of which the mainstream of practicing christians might have never heard. How does he defend this move? Well, he checks religious claims against the insights of enlightenment, scepticism, Freudian, Kantian, Feuerbachian, Nietzsch- and Marxian critique and comes to the conclusion that the only direction in religion in general having maybe survived those critisisms is mysticism. Of course here too what he presents as mysticism is not what all mystics agreed on but the aspects of mysticism that still are alive after being confronted with the above mentioned criticism (this of course is Wilbers claim, but he gives his reasons why he makes it; see A Sociable God).
Does this make sense? I have simply met no-one yet to mention this simple point, that Wilber does not simply summarize the mainstream opinions of different disciplines (good mama, how could someone claim Gebser, Zen or the mystical aspects of Fechner to be mainstream? Sometimes his references are, but many actually are not; quantity simply counts only then when you take quality into account – thats my understanding of Wilbers formula injunction, data, verification) but gives generalisations on only those opinions, that can stand against the big picture.
B. I dont think Wilbers main aim is a theory of everything. I actually think he gives no shit about that (see Deida's „Wilber is a fraud“). What I think what he does is to give people interested in Kants question „what is the human being“ some guiding help by giving them a heuristic map they could follow covering 1. the very minimum they have to study and 2. some guiding rules where to begin and where to be careful if one wants to approach this meta-question and not fall onto ones nose right ahead. „So, I say use his work as a bibliography of primary sources.“ - good lord, how could I do anything else? I really dont understand how one could fall into parrot-like repeating his heuristic principles (levels, lines all the shit) as if it WAS, what it actually helps you see more clearly. But I really think Wilber is very clear on this point. Has he not said so often that the only thing he wants his readers do is DO the actual practice? Why on earth should I interpret this as meaning to only meditate or take mysticism seriously and leave those thousands of references – most of them „mental practices“ - from Habermas and Luhman to Heisenberg, Aristotle and Searle aside? Mr. Dallman I really see no reason to claim that Wilber is attempting to be a substitute for his sources. I guess I appreciate Gebsers work as much as you do but what I can't find in Gebser – despite the sheer beauty of his work – is any DETAILED references to postmodernism, cognitive science, systems theory, developmental phsychology, atheism, agnosticism, and existencialism.
Does this make sense? Please undestand that I am young, interested in the classical question of philosophy – who am I or what is the human being – and what I find in Wilber is a list of the very minimum of perspectives and approaches I could confront myself with. This will be – as you, Mr. Dallman say, - decades of silent work in the libraries, behind the piano, on the meditation coushin and in relationship, but thanks to Wilber I know where to begin – now I at least have some understanding on what I COULD find in meditation or Freud. Maybe Wilber is wrong with his portrays of those sources – well, he certainly is – but this is what I actually am obliged to find out myself and what is not my primary question. My primary question is WHICH are those sources, secondary is the question whether Wilber did portray them well. What Wilber did was to arouse my interest, get me away from television and get me reading Gebser, Searle, Dennett, Plato, all the sceptics AND mystics, listening to Bach, Jazz, Funk AND Pop AND watching MTV. To me that simply feels fair.
Mr. Dallman I guess I share all your concearns about not jumping into the riches of humanity but repeating Wilberian concepts instead, but I really – at least from my very position of someone who does not know Wilber personally, you might have the better picture here – do not see in Wilberian works themselves any clue that he regards his interpretations as substitute for his references. His work I simply regard as heuristic help getting TO or INTO those sources, nothing more – is this actually not what he insists on when saying the map aint the territory? And I simply know no other person having taken so many sources into account while trying to interpret them – as Tillich said – in meliorem partem, in the best way possible, the way that they make most sense.
