Constructive and deconstructive postmodernism

[Edward theurj Berge]

Gary Hampson in his Integral Review article “Integral re-view postmodernism” (cited below) discussed how Wilber distinguishes constructive and deconstructive postmodernism. The latter is a lower level of postformal development (green) while the former is a higher postformal development (teal and above). Aside from Hampson questioning the validity of deconstruction as relativistic he also questions this placement and suggests that perhaps they are both sides of the same postformal coin (level).

In this regard Mark Edwards (2010) says:

“I regard integral metastudies as a counterpart to the more typical forms of decentering and deconstructing postmodernism which seeks to identify and give voice to the personal story, the local history, the grounded experience, and the marginalized instance. These two postmodern activities are fundamentally different and provide critical counterpoints for each other’s development. Decentering, pluralist postmodern research is not something I believe is to be integrated within an integral metastudies. Decentering postmodernism and integrative postmodernism are complementary forms of knowledge building. Where integral postmodernism develops abstractions, decentering postmoderism develops grounded stories. Where integral postmodernism creates imaginative generalized frameworks, decentering postmodernism creates particular narratives and personalized accounts of human experience.

“This is not a developmental modernism versus postmodernism battle. It is an ongoing complementarity (e.g., Plato and Aristotle). An integral metastudies should not be seen as a rational project of integrating every perspective, concept, paradigm, or cultural tradition within its domain. There must be some things that, by definition, lie outside of its capacities to accommodate and explain. Consequently, an integral metastudies needs a decentering postmodernism that it cannot integrate, that lies outside of its scientific and systematic purview, which continually challenges it and is critical of its generalizations, abstractions, and universalizings. The decentering form of particularizing postmodernism is not something that integral metatheory can locate or neatly categorize somewhere within its general frameworks. Decentering postmodernism will always provide a source of critical insight and substantive opposition to the generalizing goals of an integral metastudies. In the same way that postmodernism often misunderstands integrative approaches as just some form of scientific monism, there is a danger that integral researchers can misrepresent the decentering and localizing concerns of postmodernism as simple relativism” (408 - 09).

Recent work on metatheory suggests that postmodern decentering is itself a form of metatheory, a compliment to the more constructive kind. For example in the special Integral Review issue on metatheory Steven Wallis (2010) says:
 
"It may be noted that six of our authors describe metatheory as making implicit assumptions explicit, analysis of assumptions, analysis of underlying structure, and the analysis of structure. These are essentially deconstructive approaches.

"In contrast to this deconstructive approach, metatheory may also be understood to integrate multiple theories. The two approaches may be inseparable as one cannot combine or integrate two theories without also integrating the assumptions, structures, and concepts of those theories. In short, metatheory (as the study of theory) may be conducted in at least two ways. It may be integrative (where multiple theories are combined). It may be deconstructive (where theories are parsed into their constituent components for analysis and/or recombination). Either way, the process leads to the creation of a metatheory, metatheorum, or a 'theory of theory'” (78).

In the same issue of IR Latha Poonamallee sees Advaita non-dualism as one of the deconstructive metatheories. She says:

"Another school of thought takes the position that examining metatheory as a constellation of ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions is a useful one. This paper is more aligned with the latter view that an examination of the underlying assumptions about theorizing can increase 'theoretical consciousness'and provide an alternate framework for inquiry” (190).

I will have more to say about nondualism as a legitimate metatheory in itself later, which disagrees with using such traditional notions of nondualism because they retain metaphysical elements.

Edwards, M. G. (2010) "‘Of Elephants and Butterflies: An Integral Metatheory for Organizational Transformation," in Integral Theory in Action: Applied, Theoretical, and Critical Perspectives on the AQAL Model, Esbjörn-Hargens, S. (Ed.) Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp.385-412.

Hampson, G. (2007). "Integral re-views postmodernism: the way out is through." Integral Review 4.

Poonamallee, L. (2010) "Advaita (non-dualism) as metatheory." Integral Reveiw 6:3, July.

Wallis, S. (2010) "Toward a science of metatheory," Integral Review 6:3, July.

[Edward theurj Berge]

By transcendental idealism I mean that Kant thought the “categories” were not only inherent to the mind but also the objective world, that they were originary or causal. So even though one could not know the thing in itself with reason alone, one could apprehend it nonetheless because the categories were inherent in the sensible world and in our intelligible mind and this was the connection point. All of which transcended our reason because these ideal categories existed both within and without us. Kant started us down the postmetaphysical trail but this remnant of it remained behind to haunt his philosophy. A remnant we still see in Wilber's transcendental subject (that he got from Fichte and manifested in his transrational “states”) and mathematical models like the MHC with their ideal Platonic forms.

Now Kant was right that the categories are inherent to our mind but not like he envisioned. We know from Lakoff & Johnson (see real and false reason thread) that categorization is indeed inherent to the way or brain-mind works and it cannot be otherwise. But they do not extend this to the world in itself as a causal agency that we just apprehend. We certainly utilize our categorization to organize and manipulate the world for our benefit but they don't confuse this with this remnant myth of the given; they still maintain this every so small separation that we don't actually know the thing in itself but nevertheless well enough within our relationship with it to effect useful change. Recall they warned that because this gap is small it is easy to make the confusion that it is nonexistent which led us down the primrose path of false reason, i.e. metaphysicality.

In criticizing Fichte Schelling turns us back from the transcendental subject (object) by noting it is not originary but arises from the unconscious processes of nature and thus not transcendental in the sense Fichte intends. This was also his criticism of Hegel, who also maintained originary “essences.” While the early Schelling went along with this agenda, the mid- to late Schelling did not. Hence you get Wilber citing early Schelling, Fichte and Hegel as corroborating evidence for his own transcendentalism while ignoring later Schelling and the subsequent American pragmatism that sprang from it (e.g. Mead), and the cognitive science movement that evolved from that (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson). But Wilber himself was not “originary” in that, getting it from the likes of the constructive postmodernists like Griffin, who still retain (as Pedraja notes) a “centeredness” in Whitehead's philosophy.

And along came the likes of Derrida, who Hampson asserts is not strictly of the deconstructive variety but also constructive. The likes of Griffin and Wilber, themselves emphasizing one side of this coin with their essences and formalisms, cannot see like Hampson that Derrida combined both sides in his postformal dialectics. Recall above the quotes from Schelling's mid to late period on the relation of opposition and compare with Desilet's discussion of Derrida.

[Edward theurj Berge]

We went into this dichotomy of absolute and relative in the IPN thread, how those influenced by Kant's metaphysical remnant remains in the likes of Wilber and the con pomos. Recall this from page 3 of that discussion, quoting Mark Johnson's referenced book:

“What must be avoided...is the Kantian view that an adequate account of human mind and thought requires the keeping of two sets of books--one for the phenomenal world of things as appearances to us, and the other for the mysterious, noumenal world of things in themselves" (113).

[Edward theurj Berge]

And we can also see the Kantian remnant is Wilber's use of Murti's interpretation of Nagarjuna that we re-explored in the Batchelor thread. Only there we found ancient Hindu and Hindu-influenced Buddhism as precedent to Kant.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Compare to Wilber on Schelling, from BHOE:

"Schelling's point is that nature is not the only reality, and mind in not the only reality. Spirit is the only reality. But in order to create the manifest world Spirit must go outside of itself, empty itself, into creation. Spirit descends into manifestation but this manifestation is nevertheless Spirit itself" (459).

He goes on to note how for Schelling nature is objective spirit still slumbering, unconscious. With the mind spirit becomes subjective and conscious. And for S it is not either/or but both/and in nonduality, where we come to know this through "a direct mystical union...that is not mediated" (461-2). Here W is focusing on early to mid S, which still has traces of this Spirit that, as W interprets, "descends into manifestation." It does appear S retains some of this metaphysical spirit early on but it seems questionable that he does later on. W also notes that Hegel held to this same Spirit.

[Edward theurj Berge]

This interesting review of a book shows Schelling's influence on American pragmatism. Therein Schelling's view of the absolute shifted throughout his oeuvre and the author

"'shows how the late Schelling overcame the absolutism of the idealist metaphysics of reason' in his account of 'the dark will in nature,' and 'the puzzle of existence....the late Schelling...had gone well beyond Hegel in philosophical reflection, in that [he] emphasized the finite facticity of absolute reason.' According to Schelling, Wetz says, 'reality cannot be derived from reason, and chaos, lack of order, impulse and desire partly dominate in reality; these are, in short, unreasoning or irrational powers, which Schelling summarized under his concept of the dark will'.... Wetz emphasizes, later Schelling seems more existentialist than meliorist."

H.G. Callaway, "Schelling and the Background of American Pragmatism." A review of Franz Josef Wetz, Friedrich W.J. Schelling, zur Einführung, Hamburg: Junius Verlag, 1996

[Balder]

Thanks for this education, Ed. I've intended to look into Schelling's works but had not yet made time to do so.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Oh Jesus, literally. Turns out Schelling's last period was a return to Jesus H. Christ with notions like the following, from this lengthy study of him:

"On the basis of his Doctrine of Divine Potencies, Schelling now elucidates Positive Philosophy which is to be revealed as Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation. Philosophy of Mythology refers to pagan religion as natural religion, while Philosophy of Revelation deals with Christianity as the revealed Religion. The relation of the former to the latter is the relation of the imperfect to the perfect religion.

"According to Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation, the temporal sensory World arose from human original sin. Namely because a human committed the original sin, the world came into being."

What is up with these guys when they are faced with death? Cannot they just go into oblivion with their balls intact? Thank God(less) that this propensity slowly filtered out through the pragmatists to the cogscipragos.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Let us now return to Poonamallee's article on Advaita, which is similar to Wilber's use of Schelling. (And it is no wonder that Wilber also uses Vedanta and the type of Vajrayana Buddhism influenced by it.) What makes it non-dual is the unifying concept of "an all pervasive energy" (191) that "does not separate the spiritual from the mundane because they are all parts of the same ultimate reality" (192). Here's Wilber's and Schelling's (and Hegel's) Spirit, the metaphysically formal dialectical higher synthesis of opposition, or as I came to call it in various threads, dual nonduality.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I've suggested that a postformal dialectic does not 1) posit an ultimate reality that 2) synthesizes the opposites but rather maintains oppositional tension in relation. In the latter a universal absolute is relatively grounded in particular instances, just as those instances are given meaning and understanding by universal categories. They are symbiotic instead of antagonistic with no need of an outside force like Spirit to ameliorate them. Kant had the right idea to keep the universal regulative in this fashion and not within a constitutive metaphysics. But he like Schelling, while moving in a postmeta direction, nonetheless retained the remnant. As did apparently some of the American pragmatists, if we are to believe Callaway's account.

Whereas returning to Edwards above, con and decon are not subsumed in a spiritualized or higher synthesis but remain an ongoing complimentarity, almost as if they were "types" in kennilingus and opposed to levels. A basic categorical typology that persists through various incarnations of hierarchically complex levels. And of course one that is interpreted differently by those cognitive levels, wherein the legitimate debate continues as to what is the relatively more accurate interpretation of the absolute.

[Edward theurj Berge]

We have to be careful here with the various meanings of terms in different contexts. Recall Wilber's levels and those of Commons' hierarchical complexity advance through transition steps, for Wilber fusion, differentiation and integration. Commons increases the steps with the same general idea. These uses should not be confused with the bi-polar types of con and decon that might be present at each and every stage and step, but will be viewed differently by each.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I'm cross-posting the following over here from p. 8 of the “integral postmetaphysical nonduality” thread, as it is relevant, particularly in relation to the last post on how to view teleology postmetaphysically and nondually.

Here are some interesting excerpts from an article called "Interstitial Life" by Steven Shaviro:

"Darwin provides an immanent, non-teleological mechanism for the development of life.

"I have elsewhere (Shaviro 2003, 205-212) criticized the way that devotees of evolutionary
psychology, in particular, tend to invoke “purpose,” attributed to such reified agencies as “evolution.”

"The outcome of a process is not the same as the conditions that led to its existence in the first place. To equate the two is precisely to confuse the “efficient cause” that gave rise to the trait with the trait’s concrete action as “final cause.”

"But selection is rendered intelligible, in retrospect, only by means of the “teleological principle”
that particular traits have been selected for because they are adaptive. Thus the theory of natural selection takes away teleology with one hand, but gives it back with the other. The “argument from design” is rejected as an appeal to a transcendent, external cause, but restored as an immanent principle of emergent order.

"Kant thus insists that linear, mechanistic causality is universally valid for all phenomena. But at the same time, he also proposes a second kind of causality, one that is purposive and freely willed. This second causality does not negate the first, and does not offer any exceptions to it. Rather, “freedom” and “purpose” exist alongside “natural mechanism”: Derrida would say that they are supplementary
to it.

"Purposive (teleological) causality is not altogether eliminated, but it can only be accorded a ghostly, supplemental status.... But in cases of complexity, or of higher-order emergence, supplemental causality becomes far more important.

"The idea of purpose, or of final cause, involves a circular relation between parts and whole. The whole precedes the parts, in the sense that “the possibility of [a thing’s] parts (as concerns both their existence and their form) must depend on their relation to the whole.” But the parts also precede and produce the whole, insofar as they mutually determine, and adapt to, one another: “the parts of the thing combine into the unity of a whole because they are reciprocally cause and effect of their form” (252). An organism must therefore be regarded as “both an organized and a self-organizing being.” It is both the passive effect of preceding, external causes, and something that is actively, immanently self-caused and selfgenerating."

[Edward theurj Berge]

And my comment in that thread was:

As I've said before, there is also downward causation in addition to its upward forebear. But it seems that capacity only arises, or rather emerges, at a particular level of development somewhere around egoic rationality. Recall Levin's scheme where it is only at his level 3 that the journey to integrate earlier levels can even begin, and in so doing the higher level integrates and transforms the earlier levels, that is, reciprocal downward causation. Hence prepersonal dream and deep sleep become subtle and causal transpersonal enactions. And all by virtue of the personal ego sans skyhooks, aka integral postmetaphysical nonduality.