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]

Habermas was also a main source Wilber used to denigrate Derrida. As xibalba noted above they reconciled near the end of Derrida's life, something ignored by kennilinguists. Also ignored is extensive research into Habermas' inadequate understanding and critique of the Da. Here's an article that discusses both of those topics. A few excerpts:

"I will argue is that it is possible to cast serious doubts about the criticism that...Habermas [has] levelled upon poststructuralist thought....which has seen the shift from the open hostility voiced above, to a more sympathetic stance, being crowned by Habermas’ recent remarks about their relationship [meaning with Derrida].

"What we need, I will argue, is to move in a non-dialectical [non Hegelian?] way ‘beyond’ the simplistic oppositionalism which has prevented, and continues to prevent, both the ‘post’ and its serious critics to explore the fertile terrain of their intersection."

Echoing Keller above he goes on about Habbie's critique:

"This evaluation is very unfortunate, not to say ill-advised, because it is based on the very limited, ‘Americanised’ version of deconstruction.... It is not considered by Habermas that Derrida’s deconstruction of the metaphysical tradition might bring him close to his own pragmatism.... If one reads Derrida’s criticism of Husserl in a slightly more sympathetic way, one might even find a few parallels in Derrida’s and Habermas’ work.

"That Derrida here could be said to hint towards a form of context-transcendent meaning based in ‘otherness’, that is to say, outside the realm of ‘ownness’ and thus in between subjects, is not picked up by Habermas.... Critchley then argues that there might be a universal, ‘undeconstructable’ ethical moment in deconstruction."

[Edward theurj Berge]

From Deconstruction in a Nutshell (Fordham UP, 1997):

“When we think of Plato we think of the two worlds or regions allegorized in the cave: the upper world of the intelligible paradigms, the sphere of invisible and unchanging being in the sun of the Good that shines over all, as opposed to the sensible likenesses of the forms in the changing, visible world of becoming.... When presented with a neat distinction or opposition of this sort—and this distinction inaugurates philosophy, carves out the very space of 'meta-physics'—Derrida will not, in the manner of Hegel, look for some uplifting, dialectical reconciliation of the two in a higher third thing, a concrete universal, which contains the 'truth' of the first two. Instead, he will look around—in the text itself—for some third thing that the distinction omits, some untruth, or barely remnant truth, which falls outside the famous distinction, which the truth of either separately or both together fails to capture, which is neither and both of the two.

"In the Timaeus the missing third thing, a third nature or type—khora—is supplied by Plato himself. Khora is the immense and indeterminate spatial receptacle in which the sensible likenesses of the eternal paradigms are 'engendered,' in which they are 'inscribed' by the Demiurge, thereby providing a 'home' for all things.... This receptacle is like the forms inasmuch as it has a kind of eternity: it neither is born or dies, it is always already there, and hence beyond temporal coming-to-be and passing away; yet it does not have the eternity of the intelligible paradigms but a certain a-chronistic a temporality. Because it belongs neither to the intelligible nor the sensible world Plato says it is 'hardly real.' Moreover, while it cannot be perceived by the senses but only by the mind, still it is not an intelligible object of the mind, like the forms. Hence, Plato says it is not a legitimate son of reason but is apprehended by a spurious or corrupted logos, a hybrid or bastard reasoning. Khora in neither intelligible being nor sensible becoming, but a little like both, the subject matter of neither a true logos nor a good mythos” (83-4).

[Edward theurj Berge]

This hybrid, bastard reasoning, in my twisted postmeta parlance, is the ego turned back to its roots in the body, the centaur that is neither and both, again "in the middle" way of my mad, madhyamaka kaka.

I like that: mad madhyamaka kaka. I'm going to write a song with that title. You heard it first here.