January 10, 2006

OBSTACLES TO AN INTEGRAL PARADIGM OF KNOWLEDGE

A. Blindness to the Full Spectrum of knowing (Being) B [category error]

Hugh of Saint Victor (1096-1141, French or German Philosopher and Theologian, of the Saint Victor Monastery, Paris): The mystical ascent has three stages:

1. Seeing God in nature.

2. Seeing God within ourselves.

3. Seeing God as if face to face (pp. 2-3).

Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274, ADoctor Seraphicus,@ Italian Theologian): Humans have Athree eyes@:

1. The Eye of the Flesh (Sense): This eye of sensory experience, allows us to perceive the external world of space, time and separate sense objects, giving us exterior and inferior knowledge B a Avestige of God.@ It illuminates the gross, material realm of Being of the perennial philosophy B basic sensorimotor intelligence. In this realm, an object is never A and not-A. It is either A or not-A. This is the eye which has given us empiric-analytic science.

2. The Eye of Reason (Mind): This eye participates in a world of ideas, images, logic and concepts, giving us interior knowledge B an Aimage of God.@ It illuminates the (low) subtle, mental, animic realm of the perennial philosophy. In this realm, we can see things invisible to our bodily senses, imagine sensory objects not immediately present, operate internally upon sensorimotor objects, delay instinctual and impulsive discharges, and determine the truth of ideas. This is the eye which has given us phenomenological philosophy and psychology.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) held that this abstract sphere is a necessary condition for the manifestation of the natural/sensory realm. Eastern traditions see the gross realm arising from the subtle.

3. The Eye of Contemplation: This eye gives us a superior knowledge B a knowledge of transcendent realities, salutary truth, Atruth which is unto liberation,@ the Divine Ultimate. It illuminates the causal, transcendent realm of perennial philosophy. This is the eye which has given us religion and meditation.

Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) described this eye (Agnosis@), as contemplating Athe Immutable, the Self which is Reality, Consciousness and Bliss,@ and held that it had nothing in common with the eye of reason whose basic principle, exhaustive verbal adequacy, is opposed to any liberating finality, any transcendence of the sphere of words. Eastern traditions see the subtle realm arising from the causal (pp. 2-6).

Each eye is valid in its own sphere, but commits a fallacy when by itself, it attempts to grasp fully higher or lower realms (p. 6).

Category Errors:

1. Failure to acknowledge the Eye of Flesh: Every major religion contains trans-verbal insights confused with empirical facts (and rational truths).

The Bible: the sun circles the earth.

Hindus and Buddhists: the earth is sitting on an elephant.

Prior to the time when Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) simultaneously and independently invented the scientific method, and when Francis Bacon (1561-1656) systematized induction (the formation of general laws on the basis of numerous specific instances), human knowledge was dominated by the Church, that is, by a dogma which confused and combined the eyes of sense, reason and contemplation. Galileo, Kepler and Bacon yoked the eye of reason to the eye of flesh when the proposition in question concerns the domain of flesh (pp. 10-14).

2. Failure to acknowledge the Eye of Contemplation: Philosophy, theology, metaphysics have confused the eye of reason with that of contemplation.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) put forth rational Aproofs@ for the existence of God (p. 16).

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) put forth rational Aproofs@ for the existence of God (p. 16).

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) claimed that all valid knowledge comes from the eye of reason, and dismissed both the eye of flesh and the eye of contemplation. He put forth rational Aproofs@ for the existence of God (pp. 9 and 16).

In the East: Prior to the time when Nagarjuna (150 C.E.), founder of Madhyamika school of Mahayana Buddhism, showed that reason cannot describe transcendental reality, Eastern religions confused the eyes of reason and contemplation. Nagarjuna showed that the two propositions, AReality is Atman@ and AReality is Anatman,@ can be put with equal force. The eye of reason cannot apprehend the Ultimate. Only the eye of contemplation (prajna) can know the Ultimate directly, and the way it does so, is with an immediate, non-conceptual seeing (p. 17).

In the West: Prior to the time when Nicholas de Cusa (?1401-1464) described that, as disclosed by contemplation, the Ultimate is a Acoincidence of opposites@ which cannot be pictured in logic, Western religions confused the eyes of reason and contemplation. Nicholas de Cusa showed that one cannot picture a thing being itself and not being itself at the same time, one cannot see it raining and not raining at the same time in the same spot, one cannot picture nor reason accurately about non-duality. Any attempt to do this creates two opposites where, in fact, none exist (p. 16).

Prior to the time when Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) demonstrated that any reasoning about the trans-empirical reality, creates with equal plausibility, arguments for either of two completely contradictory views, Western religions continued confused. Kant showed that one cannot make rational statements about Ultimate Reality (God, Buddha, Tao) because pure reason is incapable of grasping transcendent realities. If it tries to do so and produces a statement, the contradictory side of this statement can always be put with equal plausibility. Reason trying to grasp God (the Absolute) generates a paradox. God is beyond sense and reason. The eye of pure reason cannot, by its very nature, see into the realm of spirit. Philosophy cannot reach God. Kant did for the eye of reason what Galileo, Kepler and Bacon had done for the eye of flesh. He yoked the eye of reason to the eye of reason when the proposition in question concerns the domain of the mind (pp. 16-17).

Kant was not enlightened, however, and did not acknowledge the eye of contemplation. He held that since reason cannot grasp God, then God must forever be hidden to direct awareness. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) pointed out Kant=s error, and showed that the eye of contemplation can know the Ultimate directly (p. 18).

3. The Eye of Flesh usurping the Other Two Realms: This is scientism. Blinded by the Principia, the description by Isaac Newton (1642-1727) of the empiric-scientific method, and only a few decades after Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer had differentiated the eye of pure reason from that of contemplation, the eye of flesh nevertheless came to think of itself as the sole eye able to produce valid knowledge.

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) spurred empirical science into becoming scientism, that is, speaking not just for the eye of flesh, but also for the eye of mind and the eye of contemplation. In so doing, science fell prey to precisely the same category errors that it itself had discovered in dogmatic theology (and for which it had made religion pay dearly). Like theology before it, it invaded the other two realms. Science went from saying, AThat which cannot be seen by the eye of flesh cannot be empirically verified,@ to AThat which cannot be seen by the eye of flesh does not exist.@ The empiric criterion came to be sole basis for truth. Philosophy became positivism, scientific materialism. Psychology became behaviorism. Since no number is intrinsically better than another, the whole hierarchy of value (the Great Chain of Being) collapsed, now reduced to simple, valueless place setters, there to take its rightful spot in the rest of nature, to become part of that dull affair, soundless, scentless, colorless B merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly. Levels of significance were replaced by levels of magnification (pp. 18-19, 21-22 and 25-26).

The conflict between empirical science and religion is, and always has been, a conflict between the pseudo-scientific aspects of religion and the pseudo-religious aspects of science. Any conflict can always be shown to reduce to a category error (p. 32).

B. Confusing the Eyes of Flesh and Contemplation B [The Pre/Trans Fallacy]

This fallacy occurs in two forms: 1. When the eye of contemplation (the super-conscious, trans-rational, trans-personal) is reduced to the eye of flesh (the sub-conscious, pre-rational, pre-personal) and, 2. When the eye of flesh is elevated to the eye of contemplation (pp. 180-181).

1. Reducing the Spiritual to the Sensory:

a. Psychology: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) reduced all spiritual (trans-personal) experiences to the pre-personal level, explaining trans-temporal insights as pre-temporal id impulses, trans-subject/object experiences as pre-subject/object narcissism, trans-personal union as pre-personal fusion.

This world view is not confined to Freud. It is standard, orthodox, unquestioned Western psychology, from Jean Piaget (1896-1980), to Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), to Alfred Adler (1870-1937), to Silvano Arieti (1914-1981) (p. 189).

b. Anthropology: In his theory of natural selection, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) espoused this world view, correctly seeing evolution as moving from lower to higher, but failing to acknowledge the role in it played by Spirit. Hence, he:

Attempted to derive the higher from the lower, instead of from Spirit.

Refused to acknowledge any higher stages of evolution.

Darwin=s world view is standard, orthodox Western anthropology (p. 193).

c. Sociology: Peter Marin (AThe New Narcissism,@ Harper=s, October 1975) and Christopher Lasch (1933-1994, The Culture of Narcissism, 1979) and have shown that much of the Anew age@ movement is based on narcissistic regression and self-centric fixation. However, both consider all trans-personal experiences pathological, assuming that any consciousness not exclusively bound to history, ego, time or logic, represents regression to pre-social, pre-egoic worlds (pp. 194-195).

2. Elevating the Sensory to the Spiritual:

a. Psychology: Carl Jung (1875-1961) consistently fused or confused the trans-personal, numinous dimension with pre-personal structures, glorifying certain infantile mythic forms of thought. (By obscuring the vast and profound differences between the higher and the lower collective unconscious (collective realms), Jung also frequently gave a regressive treatment to Spirit).

Jung=s world view is accepted by virtually all romantic psychologists and philosophers, as well as by many trans-personal psychologists and philosophers, including William Wordsworth (1770-1850), sometimes Henri Bergson (1859-1941), Alan Watts (1915-1973), Norman O. Brown (1913-2002, Love=s Body, 1966 B psychotics are half-saints), the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (Mysticism: Spiritual Quest or Psychic Disorder?, 1976), Ken Wilber (1949-, early work, such as Spectrum of Consciousness, 1977, and to a lesser degree, No Boundary, 1979), Ignacio Matte Blanco (The Unconscious as Infinite Sets, 1998), and John Welwood (The Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation, 2000) (pp. 189-191 and 206).

b. Anthropology: A vastly influential school of anthropology imbues what are often primitive and barbaric rites of pre-egoic stages with trans-egoic symbolism, and read into them deeply mystical insights. From dilute and secular forms, such as the romantic anthropology of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778, the idea of the Anoble savage@), to religious forms which see the sacrifice mythology of the Bronze Age (3,500-1,600 B.C.E.) as the Golden Age of Transcendence, to outright decadence theories, such as those of Ludwig Klages (1872-1956, The Spirit as Adversary to the Soul, 1929-1932) which see the rise of reason as a fundamental error in the cosmos, this world view places the present mental-ego at the end of a long slide downhill B a slide whose results outweigh any corresponding advances (pp. 193-194).

c. Sociology: Theodore Roszak (1907-1981) and other new age enthusiasts misconstrue pre-egoic license for trans-egoic freedom. (Or, they simply denigrate the role of ego, secondary process and logic, and argue in favor of a Anon-egoic@ mode, thus confusing pre-egoic fantasy with trans-egoic vision, pre-conceptual feelings with trans-conceptual insight, pre-personal desires with trans-personal growth) (p. 195).

C. Confusing Legitimacy and Authenticity in Religion

1. Legitimacy: Any psycho-social institution which validates or facilitates translation (a change in surface structure, in a particular element or component of a given level of personal development), is legitimate. Legitimacy is a horizontal scale, a measure of the degree of integration, organization, meaning, coherence, and stability within a given level of structural adaptation. In our society, the average expectable level of structural development reached by its members is approximately mythic-rational (pp. 226-227).

Examples of legitimate religions include:

a. Exoteric Protestantism. At best, exoteric Protestantism has offered a sturdy legitimacy at the mythic level. It has not offered a widespread, authentic, mystical, transcendental, super-conscient experience.

b. Civil religion.

c. Lay Shintoism (p. 237).

2. Authenticity: Any psycho-social institution which validates or facilitates transformation (a change in deep structure, in the psycho-social basic defining form of a given level of personal development), is authentic. Authenticity is a vertical scale, a measure of the degree of transformation offered by the psycho-social institution (pp. 226-227).

Some of the new religions are explicitly and structurally in search of an authentic, not merely legitimate, dimension. For example:

Zen.

Vedanta.

Raja Yoga.

Vajrayana.

Sociologists of religion often confuse legitimacy and authenticity.

D. Confusing Levels and Stages of Consciousness

The development ladder has rungs (basic levels, structures) which are permanent and the foundation of higher levels. The climber (self-system) identifies with each rung until that level is fully consolidated and integrated. It then dis-identifies with that level as it climbs to the next higher level. The previous rung (level) remains and is incorporated in the self-system. The view from each rung (stage, the world view at that level), however, changes as the climber now has a more comprehensive view. The previous view (stage) is discarded and is replaced by the new view. The highest rung of the ladder is both the highest rung and also the material of which the ladder is made (the Ground of being) (pp. 255-256).

1. Basic Levels (Structures): Basic structures are the root supports of the various transition stages of the self. Levels are like rungs on a ladder (or for a country, its basic geographical features). Even as the self climbs to a higher rung (the country of Hawaii becomes a state of the United States), the lower rungs of the ladder (Hawaii=s geographical features) are included, not abandoned or discarded (p. 242).

For example, in cognitive development, once a capacity emerges and matures (such as an image, symbol, concept or rule), it is by and large retained, the higher cognitive structures subsuming and incorporating the lower. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) delineated four structures of consciousness B the sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational (pp. 242 and 244).

Yoga chakras represent basic structures of consciousness (p. 242).

The basic structures and the approximate age at which the self-system identifies with each structure, are as follows:

Pre-natal-3 months Physical

1-6 months Sensori-perceptual

6-12 months Emotional-sexual

15 months- 2 years Phantasmic

6-8 years Representational mind

11-15 years Rule/Role Mind

(21 years) Reflexive-Formal mind

(28 years) Vision-logic

(35 years) Subtle

B Causal

B Ultimate (Ground) (p. 246).

Cognitive structures are necessary but not sufficient for moral and self-development (p. 264).

2. Stages (Phases, Transitions) in the Development of the Self: Stages are like the view from particular rungs of the ladder (or stages in the growth of a new nationality, such as from Hawaiian to U.S.). Barring fixation or repression, the new stage or view (nationality) negates, dissolves and replaces the previous one.

For example, in moral development, lower structures are essentially dissolved, negated. The higher stages replace rather than include the lower. Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) delineated six major transition stages of moral sense.

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) described a hierarchy of needs which consists of transition-replacement structures in consciousness. (This is true for all but his lowest, the physiological one which is, in fact, a basic structure. It is never outgrown. That Aneed@ should be replaced by something like symbiotic, impulsive needs) (pp. 242, 244-245 and 264).

Modes of self are stages (p. 244).

The Self-system: The basic structures of consciousness are devoid of self. They contain no ego, no sense of self, no feeling of personal Ame-ness.@ In the course of development, however, a self-system emerges and takes the basic structures of consciousness as its successive substrates. The basic structures form the rungs of a ladder upon which the self-system climbs, generating self-transition stages in the process (pp. 251-252).

Thus, the self-system, though ultimately illusory, nevertheless serves an absolutely necessary, even if intermediate function. It is the vehicle of development, growth, and transcendence. It is the climber of the ladder of structural organization, a climb destined to release the self from itself (p. 252).

Characteristics of the Self-system:

The Executor of Psychological Organization, Integration and Coordination: The self-system appropriates and organizes the stream of psychological events in meaningful and coherent ways. Psychoanalysis defines the self as Athe process of organizing.@ The self is an active organizer of psychological reality, an independent organizing principle, a Aframe of reference@ against which the activities or states of the underlying psychic parts (substructures) are measured (pp. 253-254).

The Locus of Identification: In the midst of appropriating and organizing the stream of structural events, the self creates for itself a selective identity. The self is the center of the sense of identity B the intuitive apprehension of proximate AI-ness@ (p. 254).

The Navigator of Development: At any point on the ladder of basic structures (except the two end limits), the self is faced with several different Adirectional pulls.@ It can choose to remain on its present level of structural organization, or choose to release it in favor of another, either up or down the hierarchy (p. 254).

Stages of Development as the Result of the Interaction between Basic Structures and the Self-System: Table 1 summarizes, for the middle levels, how the identification of the self-system with a basic structure (particular rung on the ladder), necessarily gives rise to a particular stage of development (a certain view from that rung).

Table 1: Correlation between Basic Structures and Self Transition Stages*

Age (Years)	Basic Structure (Rung of the Ladder)	Stage of the Self (View from the Rung)
2-7	Representational Mind (aware of others but not capable of taking the role of others)	Reacts to others but not in conscious conformity with others. Self-centered, narcissistic, aware of its own tenuous and vulnerable existence, but not able to fully comprehend the others who may threaten it. Above all, concerned for its own self-protection. Still Aclose to the body@ (motivated it), is impulsive. Morality is around pain and punishment (obedience), and bodily hedonistic pleasure.
6-15	Rule/Role Mind	Can take the role (perspective) of others. Is attuned to the opinions and roles of others. Is not capable of formal operational thinking, and hence has no inner capacity to judge true from fraudulent roles, merely conforming to the role assigned to it, especially by authority figures. To lose face, to be an outsider, to not belong, is the terror of the self identified with the role-mind.
Adolescence	Formal-reflexive Mind	Capable of sustained self-reflection and introspection. Involved in conscientious and self-inquiring modes of awareness and behavior. Has the capacity to question conventional mores, and is thus involved in post-conventional moral decisions. Relies not on conformity but on its own conscience. Since the self is identified with the processes of self-reflection, it must succeed in this venture in order to maintain self-esteem.

* Pp. 257-260. Only middle structures and stages are represented because they are the easiest to research and interpret (p. 258).

E. Failure to understand the Ultimate State of Consciousness (Spirit)

Spirit is:

1. Inexpressible Verbally except as a Paradox: Spirit is both completely transcendent and completely immanent. In words, the highest state of consciousness (Spirit, the Absolute) must be stated as a paradox.

Spirit, the ultimate stage of consciousness, is both:

* The highest stage of being and the ground of all being.

* The goal of evolution and the ground of evolution.

* The highest stage of development and the reality (suchness) of all stages of development.

* The highest of all conditions and the Condition of all conditions.

* AThe highest rung of the ladder and the wood out of which the ladder is made@ (p. 266).

2. All-encompassing: As described in the Chandogya Upanishad, Brahman (the Absolute Reality, the Ultimate State of Consciousness), is AOne without a Second,@ that is, the Absolute is that which has nothing outside It, nothing apart from It, nothing other to It. In the Bible, the description of the prophet Isaiah is, AI am the Lord, and there is none else.@ Brahman, the Buddha-Mind, the Godhead is absolutely all-encompassing, all-inclusive, all-pervading (p. 267).

3. Undefinable: One cannot define or say Awhat@ Brahman is, for there is nothing It is not. Being one without a second, there is nothing outside It, and, therefore, nowhere to draw the classifying line. It is for this reason that the Absolute is also called pure Emptiness B since all definitions, propositions and statements about It, are void and meaningless (p. 269).

4. Non-dual: Since there is nothing outside Brahman, there is nothing opposed to It. The Absolute is that which has no opposite. It is for this reason that the Absolute is also called the Non-dual, the Not-two (p. 269).

Infinite: The entire Absolute is completely and wholly present at every point of space and time, since one cannot have a different infinite at each point. As Saint Bonaventure (1121-1274) put it, the Absolute is Aa sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.@ The Absolute is simultaneously present in its entirety every-where and every-when. AWho sees not God everywhere, sees Him nowhere@ (pp. 270-271).

Spaceless and Timeless: The Absolute can embrace all space because It itself is without space. It is Aspace-less.@ It can be present in its entirety at every point of time because it itself is without time. It is Atime-less@ (pp. 270-271).

Unattainable: If it were possible for a person to attain the Absolute, this would imply moving from a point where the Absolute is not, to a point where It is. But there is no point where It is not. It is impossible to attain It because it is impossible to escape It. We cannot manufacture a union with It. The Ultimate State of Consciousness is already fully and completely present. It is in no way different from one=s ordinary state of consciousness. It is not a state among other states, but a state inclusive of all states, embracing all states, analogous to a principle which embraces all its consequences (pp. 271 and 273-274).

Already known to Us: Since Brahman will not split into getter and got, since it is One without a second and will not split into an experience among other experiences, it follows that we already always know Brahman. The state of not-knowing Brahman is the Ultimate State of Consciousness. Since we are Brahman, obviously we cannot see Brahman B just as the eye cannot see itself. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says, AThou couldst not see the seer of sight, thou couldst not hear the hearer of hearing, nor perceive the perceiver of perception, nor know the knower of knowledge. One never sees the Self, the pure Witness @ (pp. 278-279).

The failure to grasp these characteristics has let many modern theorists to collapse and equate Spirit with any merely Aholistic@ findings in physics, biology and psychology.

REFERENCE

All page numbers refer to:

Wilber, Ken. 1983/2001. Eye to eye B the quest for the new paradigm. 3^rd Edition, Revised. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

***