EJACULATION & BROCCOLI: A Phased Evolutionary Definition of "Metaphysics" - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-29T12:43:11Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/ejaculation-broccoli-an-integral-definition-of-metaphysics?id=5301756%3ATopic%3A59054&feed=yes&xn_auth=noI'm pretty sure that I'm usin…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-03:5301756:Comment:595552015-01-03T03:13:54.909ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>I'm pretty sure that I'm using "post-" in the normal way... which always involves a double sense. Just like when we say "contemporary". It has a specific meaning in our own epoch but only as the relevant subset of its general meaning. </p>
<p>WE integralites naturally use post-metaphysics to mean our stance <em>relative</em> everything -- everything we are subsuming, clarifying & revaluing about all the kinds of metaphysics that have gone before. However that meaning is valid…</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that I'm using "post-" in the normal way... which always involves a double sense. Just like when we say "contemporary". It has a specific meaning in our own epoch but only as the relevant subset of its general meaning. </p>
<p>WE integralites naturally use post-metaphysics to mean our stance <em>relative</em> everything -- everything we are subsuming, clarifying & revaluing about all the kinds of metaphysics that have gone before. However that meaning is valid precisely because it is a subset of the self-enfolding of metaphysics that happens at every phase. </p>
<p>It has a precise meaning because it has a generic meaning. And vice versa. </p>
<p>There is really no terminological issue here. What's going is simply that we, like everyone, tend to leave out certain bracketed words when we speak. People attracted to "postmetaphysical spirituality" assume it means "<em>(integral-level) postmetaphysics"</em> or "<em>(metatheoretic) postmetaphysics.</em>"</p>
<p>We don't need to say that all the time in order to know what we mean. However we must also face up t the fact that this has a certain specificity. But 17th century physicists might use the term to designate their freedom from the irrational dogmas of Christendom. That is true for the same reason that our usage is true. But ours is more true. Why? Because we know why ours is true for the same reason as their. And, of course, we are looking from our viewpoint. </p>
<p>The level which understands the phase-based relativity of metaphysics happens to be our own discussion level... so for us it is simply convenient to treat this as "postmetaphysics". However our level is also the one at which we see this as valid because of its analogy to all levels.</p> Yes, he's using 'post-, here,…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-03:5301756:Comment:594992015-01-03T01:28:17.560ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>Yes, he's using 'post-, here, conventionally, as a developmental marker. A six-year-old's understanding is post- in relation to a toddler's. The way it is normally understood in its attachment to -metaphysics is also developmental: post-metaphysics 'goes beyond' (and reconfigures) former metaphysical worldviews. My beef is with making 'post-metaphysical' <em>itself</em> a generic developmental process word, such that everyone at any stage and at any time is essentially 'post-metaphysical'…</p>
<p>Yes, he's using 'post-, here, conventionally, as a developmental marker. A six-year-old's understanding is post- in relation to a toddler's. The way it is normally understood in its attachment to -metaphysics is also developmental: post-metaphysics 'goes beyond' (and reconfigures) former metaphysical worldviews. My beef is with making 'post-metaphysical' <em>itself</em> a generic developmental process word, such that everyone at any stage and at any time is essentially 'post-metaphysical' in relation to some preceding worldview-stage. That waters the word down in a way that I don't find useful -- although I agree with, and also see, the stages of ontological suspension and reconfiguration that we've both been discussing (and I don't think most sophisticated folks who currently embrace the word, post-metaphysical, imagine in any way that their understanding is the end of the line, <em>or</em> metaphysics-free).</p>
<p>My suggestion is, instead, to track these transitions as "post-<em>x</em> metaphysics" (which use of 'post-' still suggests "the almost certain future waves that will displace the current one.")<br/><br/></p> Hi LP - If I understand you c…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-03:5301756:Comment:594982015-01-03T01:17:10.534ZAmbo Sunohttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/AmboSuno
<p>Hi LP - If I understand you correctly enough, you are using "post" (metaphysical) as a process word. Maybe it is almost an eternal 'place holder' for articulating the recognition of transition to any substantial new stage. Just to get in the swing of the prefix as you are using it, it doesn't settle in to inhabit the currently fresh destination arrived at.</p>
<p>As you seem to be addressing, "post" usually becomes attached in time, context, and even contents to the particular new. Maybe…</p>
<p>Hi LP - If I understand you correctly enough, you are using "post" (metaphysical) as a process word. Maybe it is almost an eternal 'place holder' for articulating the recognition of transition to any substantial new stage. Just to get in the swing of the prefix as you are using it, it doesn't settle in to inhabit the currently fresh destination arrived at.</p>
<p>As you seem to be addressing, "post" usually becomes attached in time, context, and even contents to the particular new. Maybe part of the reason that happens is the customary limitation in envision the multiple waves that have come and that will come - we become fasten-ated and tend to reside in the very contemporary events of past, present, future.</p>
<p>You are suggesting that keeping the designation "post" free to articulate the almost certain future waves that will displace the current one brings benefit. For one thing it avoids the confusion of designating where we speaking about in a series of pres and posts, and it is ever a reminder of the one given, change (or has that been challenged as a given, too :))</p>
<p>Practicing, ambo</p> Well, that's a good explanati…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-03:5301756:Comment:595542015-01-03T00:40:05.141ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>Well, that's a good explanation, and I'll support your use of 'postmetaphysics' in this way. I have given my reasons why I don't think it's the best term -- I don't find discussion of "pre-modern postmetaphysics" clarifying or compelling, although I do agree with you about the importance of noting and tracking resemblances and resonances between our current phase and prior ones -- but even if I don't adopt this terminology, at the least I'll be able to track you better in your own use of…</p>
<p>Well, that's a good explanation, and I'll support your use of 'postmetaphysics' in this way. I have given my reasons why I don't think it's the best term -- I don't find discussion of "pre-modern postmetaphysics" clarifying or compelling, although I do agree with you about the importance of noting and tracking resemblances and resonances between our current phase and prior ones -- but even if I don't adopt this terminology, at the least I'll be able to track you better in your own use of these distinctions. </p> "Postmetaphysics" is a perfec…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-02:5301756:Comment:593822015-01-02T21:48:00.894ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>"Postmetaphysics" is a perfectly good provisional name that evokes a particular theory-friendly dimension of the integralite shift. No reason not to keep using it. Yet within the fumble space of that word we will continue to run into predictable conversations from several angles about the status, utility and validity of metaphysics. In order to address these internal challenges there must be a differentiation between:<br></br> (a) tautological ontology (b) general dynamic abstraction (c)…</p>
<p>"Postmetaphysics" is a perfectly good provisional name that evokes a particular theory-friendly dimension of the integralite shift. No reason not to keep using it. Yet within the fumble space of that word we will continue to run into predictable conversations from several angles about the status, utility and validity of metaphysics. In order to address these internal challenges there must be a differentiation between:<br/> (a) tautological ontology (b) general dynamic abstraction (c) subtle forms (d) the phase-related revelation of a refinement/suspension of inherited unverified ontic supposition.</p>
<p>I have put forward a few reasons why I think metaphysics applies most strongly and consistently to the latter. Of particular relevance is the ongoing strength of those who use "metaphysics" as nearly synonymous with Amber mythology and disproven forms of historical physics.</p>
<p>I would argue that it is not the "post-" which is misleading but rather the pre-developmentalist treatment of post- as a kind of contemporary status. Preconventional, conventional & postconventional are operative at every junction and even very sophisticated communities tend to behave more primitively than necessary when they lose focus on their resemblance to prior phases. It is this resemblance which allows us to isolate what is different in the current phase. Not keeping prior phases in the foreground of our definitions... is what characterizes all prior phases.</p>
<p>It is precisely the failure to extend the prefix post- to every worldview that suggests a binary movement beyond metaphysics altogether. Both the naive modernist and postmodernist intellectuals typically behave in this manner... sealing themselves off in their superficially unique vantage point.</p>
<p>In order to secure the present and future utility of the insights appearing as "postmetaphysical" the word must cease to be vulnerable from developmentalist and relativist attacks. Its cultural force depends upon it being the extension and refinement of a general mechanism which it now has a uniquely lucid capacity to recognize. The indeterminate "novelty" and/or "clarification" of more advanced phases means that we cannot precisely take a stand on perennial or emergent truths. Or, rather, we must define novel emergence in a manner that allows to appear virtually identical to a refinement of the creative action of reality at all phases. We have little choice in this regard since "new truths" are retroactively applied to our perception of history as soon as they emerge. </p>
<p>Postmetaphysics is the "new" metaphysics which improve the situation at every stage... but which does not appear in consciousness until one can take a retrospective view of the transition between these stages and their potential structural compatibility. </p>
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</blockquote> Happy New Year to you, too, A…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-01:5301756:Comment:596392015-01-01T19:06:02.041ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>Happy New Year to you, too, Ambo! And, yes, I think you're on target with your interpretation of my comments. I do recognize, from my modern vantage-point, science-like and metaphysics-like activities in our ancestors: I can retro-read these concepts back into their cultural frames. My point is not that they did not engage in activities that can legitimately be seen as proto-forms of what we call (broad) science or (broad) metaphysics; my point is that it is inappropriately anachronistic…</p>
<p>Happy New Year to you, too, Ambo! And, yes, I think you're on target with your interpretation of my comments. I do recognize, from my modern vantage-point, science-like and metaphysics-like activities in our ancestors: I can retro-read these concepts back into their cultural frames. My point is not that they did not engage in activities that can legitimately be seen as proto-forms of what we call (broad) science or (broad) metaphysics; my point is that it is inappropriately anachronistic to talk about their <em>definitions</em> of science or metaphysics. Neither 'science' nor 'metaphysics' were objects in their conceptual/perceptual worldspaces, so they didn't have definitions of these things.</p> Rereading my post above this…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-01:5301756:Comment:596382015-01-01T18:53:16.770ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>Rereading my post above this morning, I wanted to add that I do really like your offered definition of postmetaphysics, Layman. My preference at the moment, though, is to keep the definition but find another word for it (like <strong>metaphysical</strong> [or ontological] <strong>suspension</strong> or <strong>metaphysical relevation</strong> [to use terms from Bohm's dialogue or rheomode, respectively].)<br></br><br></br>To distill some of what I said above (since I was basically thinking aloud as…</p>
<p>Rereading my post above this morning, I wanted to add that I do really like your offered definition of postmetaphysics, Layman. My preference at the moment, though, is to keep the definition but find another word for it (like <strong>metaphysical</strong> [or ontological] <strong>suspension</strong> or <strong>metaphysical relevation</strong> [to use terms from Bohm's dialogue or rheomode, respectively].)<br/><br/>To distill some of what I said above (since I was basically thinking aloud as I went), I appreciate and agree with the impulse to identify past analogues for the present shift from metaphysical to post-metaphysical orientations. As we have discussed here quite a bit, post-metaphysics is not the best word for what we are up to in integral philosophy, in my opinion, though it can serve as a good-enough shorthand for one important aspect of it. Because post-metaphysics doesn't leave metaphysics behind, though perhaps in its early phases it imagined it did, the 'post-' is a bit misleading. The way I have come to reconcile continued usage of this term is, as I said, to gloss it specifically as post-metaphysics-of-presence (and related metaphysical themes, such as the myth of the given, the view from nowhere, etc), and as affirming instead an alternative metaphysics (of withdrawal, metaxology, adjacency) and a generative partnership with various empirical methodologies.<br/><br/>If we follow your suggestion to posit a metaphysics and post-metaphysics at every cultural stage of development, we can then consider the 'post-' to refer to the objectification and repudiation or refinement of <em>different</em> prior metaphysical commitments, each time without abandoning metaphysics altogether -- which of course is what you are saying, and which, I admit, is a similar move to the one I describe above for my current orientation to this term. I can't object to it for its general structure, since it is basically the same one I am using. <br/><br/>I think my main concerns are these: <br/><br/>1) Extending it to every worldview stage seems to compound the problems with the word (it is only selectively 'post', and so remains a bit misleading, since it suggests a movement beyond metaphysics altogether, when that is apparently never the case); <br/><br/>2) Post-metaphysics, as it is currently understood and used, is intimately related to certain stage-developments in thinking and perception, and so applying it universally dissociates it from these developments and denudes it of its cultural force. Instead, it becomes something like a generic, contentless 'critical turn' -- an act of ontic suspension and relevation -- that is not really something you can identify with... It would be like saying, I'm sympathetic to and I identify with differentiation or objectification.<br/><br/>So, my basic suggestion is to let post-metaphysics remain the imperfectly-named philosophical movement that it is, without compounding the confusion associated with the term by applying it universally, and let's find instead a better naming convention. One might be to find appropriate process terms to track the phases of ontic embedment and objectification, or to be more specific whenever we name an historical phase ('post-X metaphysics,' e.g., 'post-MOSP metaphysics' or 'post-magical metaphysics' [such as 'sympathetic' and 'contagious' magic].)</p> I'm budding in out of queue a…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-01:5301756:Comment:596372015-01-01T18:45:43.322Zandrewhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/andrew
<p>I'm budding in out of queue again Ambo. It seems to me perfectly acceptable to label the deconsctructive strains of continental philosophy as post metaphysical . I don't see an issue there; however, I think the question to be asked, then, is are those strains of thought the final say on the nature of reality? Wilber, apparently, does not think so. The loving eros of the cosmos is certainly almost complete metaphysical speculation, as is positing an over-arching non-dual pure awareness…</p>
<p>I'm budding in out of queue again Ambo. It seems to me perfectly acceptable to label the deconsctructive strains of continental philosophy as post metaphysical . I don't see an issue there; however, I think the question to be asked, then, is are those strains of thought the final say on the nature of reality? Wilber, apparently, does not think so. The loving eros of the cosmos is certainly almost complete metaphysical speculation, as is positing an over-arching non-dual pure awareness ass-holon. So, maybe we get to pick, choose, privilege , certain traditional ideas at the integral stage? The point I've tried to make in 2014 ( no matter how poorly) is that it seems strange and somewhat sad/tragic to me that integral stages of development abandons all forms of faith completely. This to me is error and possibly even hubris. </p> Hi - I like this discussion.…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-01:5301756:Comment:596352015-01-01T18:06:18.864ZAmbo Sunohttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/AmboSuno
Hi - I like this discussion. It's helpful, even as I continue to wonder if the term "post metaphysics" is necessary. Though this isn't the main point of my comment here, could it be said so directly that in recognizing some huge limitations to existing metaphysics' inquiry and speculation regarding first principles or origins, that we no longer can believe in first principles, origins, "givens", so we are now past such inquiries, post such inquiries, as postmodern and post post modern people?…
Hi - I like this discussion. It's helpful, even as I continue to wonder if the term "post metaphysics" is necessary. Though this isn't the main point of my comment here, could it be said so directly that in recognizing some huge limitations to existing metaphysics' inquiry and speculation regarding first principles or origins, that we no longer can believe in first principles, origins, "givens", so we are now past such inquiries, post such inquiries, as postmodern and post post modern people? What am I mis-stating please? If I'm totally off base and it would require a long tedious reply, you can let the question go :)<br/>
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What started me to reply now was to ask you Bruce to perhaps clarify or emphasize that you don't think early usages of scientific methods including informal empirical studies and the use of anecdotal reports to improve technology reach a level of formalized inquiry to allow that it is science? You are probably aware that even in tribal and clan cultures technology of implements was quite high and necessarily rigorous since their technologies determined how well the people lived and even whether they lived. There might be a master knower, designer, craftsman-maker who determined for example, one example of many more than we might imagine, the angle of an edge or a point with various materials. There may have been an apprentice chosen from the clan or tribe who had the necessary mental, practical, and space-form capacity to learn the "science" and trade. Again, am I on the right track to say that you just don't think these traditions of practical knowledge of the world materials and man's usage reached a level where it would be helpful to allude to it as science? It is too proto? And therefore it could be misleading in important ways?<br/>
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Please excuse if this is too redundant or off-base.<br/>
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Hey! Happy New Year, Bruce! Nice - I like this, LP. Here…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-01-01:5301756:Comment:593782015-01-01T04:26:29.566ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>Nice - I like this, LP. Here's my feedback.</p>
<p><strong>LP:</strong> <em>What do we need from a definition of metaphysics? It must be flexible enough to appear, in some form, as valid even when we are sympathetic to post-metaphysics. And it must also explain the pejorative instinct that commonly arises in toward "metaphysics" in the annals of modernists, postmodernists & integralites.</em></p>
<p>Yep, I'm with you on this (with one caveat, below).</p>
<p><strong>LP:</strong> …</p>
<p>Nice - I like this, LP. Here's my feedback.</p>
<p><strong>LP:</strong> <em>What do we need from a definition of metaphysics? It must be flexible enough to appear, in some form, as valid even when we are sympathetic to post-metaphysics. And it must also explain the pejorative instinct that commonly arises in toward "metaphysics" in the annals of modernists, postmodernists & integralites.</em></p>
<p>Yep, I'm with you on this (with one caveat, below).</p>
<p><strong>LP:</strong> <em>The 1st concern is addressed by conceiving that metaphysical presumptions are necessary even for postmetaphysical viewpoints -- although presumably in a more refined and limited form than in previous worldviews. The 2nd is satisfied by an unfoldment model in which every stage performs a revaluation of previously tolerable assertions that is analogous to the critique of metaphysics.</em></p>
<p>The way you address the first concern (and I agree with how you address it) seems to contradict what you say further on in the letter. When you talk about the admission of metaphysical presumptions in a postmetaphysical context necessarily being more refined and limited than in previous worldviews, this seems to treat the postmetaphysical orientation as standing uniquely apart from previous worldviews and previous perspectives on metaphysics. This seems, to me, to be a different stance than the one that takes "post-metaphysics" as the critical moment within any worldview transition and consolidation (when it differentiates itself from prior worldviews and reality-assumptions).</p>
<p>Also, when you say above, “<em>It must be flexible enough to appear, in some form, as valid even when we are sympathetic to post-metaphysics,”</em> this seems to take post-metaphysics as an orientation involving certain perspectives and <em>co</em>mmitments of its own, with which we can be sympathetic, not just as a phase of a generic process. And I agree with this way of relating to post-metaphysics – as an orientation with a defining set of onto-epistemological commitments. Which is one reason I think we lose something (too much) if we try to turn it into a phase of a generic, transhistorical process.</p>
<p><strong>LP:</strong> <em>To a large or small degree, the model of growth suggests that currently presumed metaphysics (i.e. VALID at our worldspace) are being superceded by the objectification inherent in our cognitive analysis of them. Like the present moment they are always passing into the past, always associating themselves, a little or a lot, with a previously uninspected set of assumptions. Even when we observe their current</em> <strong><i>validity</i></strong> <em>-- although in a minimal degree.</em></p>
<p>As I commented previously, I agree that something like this is necessary when we accept something like Wilber's unfoldment principle. We must assume that our current metaphysical convictions will likely be challenged, are subject to change, etc -- at the least, as we come to recognize the 'unmarked space' we have created (and neglected) through the selection of our preferred distinctions.</p>
<p><strong>LP:</strong> <em>In all this we are not impugning metaphysics as error (although it does and must explain why that is such a natural impression). What it does is reveal the previously unsubstantiated nature of the presumptions. They may well turn out to be substantiated! A Jehovah-like space demon might still turn out to be a "real fact". Yet his status as the pre-time creator of everything, previously widely accepted, is now an untenable supposition. </em></p>
<p>If we define metaphysics primarily in light of a critique-of-metaphysics -- namely, as unsubstantiated beliefs in untenable things -- then I think it is natural to regard 'metaphysics' as a pejorative term. I think Wilber makes a mistake -- is too cautious, too apologetic -- when he emphasizes post-metaphysics as the primary orientation and then admits he has to sneak in a 'minimal metaphysics' through the backdoor. I think this needs to be cleaned up, so we can recognize metaphysics as valuable and necessary ... not just the 'unfortunate crutches' of limited worldviews on the way, presumably, towards greater and greater 'empirically validated' models with as little 'nasty metaphysicses' as possible.... In other words, I think the current philosophical zeitgeist no longer requires us to concede modern and postmodern allergies to metaphysics, even while recognizing some (targeted) validity to their critiques.</p>
<p><strong>LP: </strong> <em>The critique of metaphysics is always metaphysics empowering a refinement of itself. That refinement always proceeds out of a less refined and historically prior condition. Our observation of currently valid metaphysics cannot be separated from our observation of the non-necessary of some "other" metaphysics.</em></p>
<p>I think sometimes, in our cultural meandering, we may not always end up with a more refined metaphysics than those that existed in the past. Sometimes we may find we took an unfruitful or limited turn and come to recognize greater depth and sophistication in a prior view than we had, for whatever contingent reasons, been able to perceive.</p>
<p>But that aside, yes, I agree: I see the post-metaphysical critique of metaphysics as an example of metaphysics empowering a refinement of itself. Post-metaphysics does not leave metaphysics behind. How I relate to post-metaphysics, really, is as “post-MOSP” (to use your terminology): a critique of the metaphysics of (simple) presence and the myth of the given.</p>
<p><strong>LP:</strong> <em>[W]e have (thanks to Heidegger) the word Ontology to describe the inquiry into "what is" and the quasi-pejorative use of metaphysics to describe ontic suppositions. If we take physics in the broadest sense of scientific philosophy it means whatever can be energetically validated as an ontic phenomenon with consequences for other ontic phenomena.</em></p>
<p>Yeah, our discussion here may be mostly a debate about terminology. We can certainly hold these words in the way you are suggesting. But a quite well-accepted definition of metaphysics, in post-Heideggerian speculative realist, critical realist, metaxological, and OOO circles, among others, is as that general field of human inquiry which deals with ontological questions (though it may necessarily involve epistemological ones as well).</p>
<p><strong>LP: </strong> <em>The "jarring anachronism" of discussing Barbarian metaphysics and postmetaphysics is precisely an element that we should be embracing. To affirm a "whole spiral" or "developmental" model means reaching out from pluralism to include and integrate the pre-pluralist realities in order to form a trans-pluralist reality. That absolutely requires us to embrace the counterintuitive and uncanny presence of suppositions analogous to our own operating in prior epochs. This should not seem jarring but it does. It should not seem any more jarring than the fact that we suppose a "worldview" or 'beings" to operate equally at every phase.</em></p>
<p>I'm more comfortable seeing postmetaphysics as one historical expression of a universal process -- say, the process of disembedment from unconscious identifications, the objectification of organizing (subjective) architecture on the way to new levels of integration, etc, as we see described in Intersubjectivist/Object-Relational psychology, or Robert Kegan's work, or Theory U, among other instances -- than as a universal itself. So, yes, let's acknowledge movements analogous to the shift from metaphysics to postmetaphysics in prior eras -- let's name and explore homeomorphically equivalent movements across developmental and historical worldspaces -- but I think we stretch the word's meaning too much, and we also do violence to developmental unfolding, if we describe as 'postmetaphysics' a process which predates the historical and developmental emergence of metaphysical inquiry (e.g., the disciplined inquiry into first principles). To do so would lead us, I think, into a pre-trans fallacy.</p>
<p>As I mentioned in a previous post, the jarring anachronism, for me, isn’t in acknowledging largely implicit and unconscious metaphysical beliefs in Aboriginal or Barbarian cultures, but in talking about an “Aboriginal definition of metaphysics (or post-metaphysics).” That’s not necessary to posit, any more than it is to posit an “Aboriginal definition of science.” We can say, from our vantage now, that we recognize elements of their worldviews which we would define as metaphysical, or even practices which we might describe as a kind of primitive proto-science, but neither ‘metaphysics’ nor ‘science’ were objects in their own worldspaces (so they weren’t offering definitions of these things or drawing these distinctions). Assuming their given ex-istence for Barbarians or Aboriginals is the kind of metaphysical move Wilber critiques (and seeks to remedy with his kosmic addressing scheme).</p>