New special issue of Integral Review

[Edward theurj Berge]

As referenced in this post, see the new issue. Plenty of articles to discuss here. The table of contents follows:

Research Across Boundaries: Introduction to the First Part of the Special Issue Markus Molz & Mark G. Edwards	1
Impressions from the Luxemburg Symposium Research Across Boundaries Jonathan Reams & K. Helmut Reich	12

Surprises Ahead: What Will Be Special about the 21st Century? Why Do We Now Need Boundary-Crossing Research? Ruben Nelson	18
Varieties of Boundary Crossings V. V. Raman	27

Networks of Agape and Creativity: Learning Across Boundaries and the Calling of Planetary Realizations Ananta Kumar Giri

38

Toward a Genealogy and Topology of Western Integrative Thinking Gary P. Hampson	46
From Knowledge to Wisdom: Assessment and Prospects after Three Decades Nicholas Maxwell	76
Towards a New Art of Integration Ananta Kumar Giri	113
Against Consilience: Outsider Scholarship and the Isthmus Theory of Knowledge Domains Mike King	123
Global Knowledge Futures: Articulating the Emergence of a New Meta-level Field Jennifer M. Gidley	145
Towards an Integral Meta-Studies: Describing and Transcending Boundaries in the Development of Big Picture Science Mark G. Edwards	173
The Transdisciplinary Moment(um) Julie Thompson Klein	189
Visions of Transmodernity: A New Renaissance of our Human History? Irena Ateljevic	200
Cybersemiotics: A New Foundation for Transdisciplinary Theory of Information, Cognition, Meaningful Communication and the Interaction Between Nature and Culture Soren Brier	220
Listening into the Dark: An Essay Testing the Validity and Efficacy of Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry for Describing and Encouraging Transformations of Self, Society, and Scientific Inquiry William R. Torbert	264
The Arc from the Body to Culture: How Affect, Proprioception, Kinesthesia, and Perceptual Imagery Shape Cultural Knowledge (and vice versa)   Michael Kimmel	300
Integrating Conceptions of Human Progress   Rick Szostak	349
New Departures in Tackling Urban Climate Change: Transdisciplinarity for Social Transformation (a critical appraisal of the WBGU 2011 Report) Christoph Woiwode	384
Transdisciplinary Consumption Sue L.T. McGregor	413

[Edward theurj Berge]

Returning to the Integral Review issue, this one looks promising in light of recent comments: "The arc from body to culture: How affect, proprioception, kinesthesia, and perceptual imagery shape cultural knowledge (and vice versa)." The abstract follows. More as I read it.

"This essay approaches the complex triadic relation between concepts, body, and culture from an angle rooted in the empirical cognitive research of the past three decades or so. Specifically, it reviews approaches to how the body gives a substrate to and shapes cultural cognition. One main section examines how the body contributes to cultural learning and another how abstract cultural concepts and reasoning are grounded in sensorimotor experience, perception, and inner somatic states. Both sections’ purpose is to survey and briefly critique different theoretical frameworks, probe into their complementarity, and summarily evaluate to what extent higher cognition is embodied. The third main section outlines elements of an epistemological framework that connects culture, concepts, and the body in a sensible way. The paper closes with a discussion of how the embodied cognition paradigm advances a rapprochement of different areas both within cognitive research and beyond."

[Edward theurj Berge]

From the article, relevant to recent posts elsewhere:

"'Stereoscopic theorizing', as I called it earlier, between ecologically valid and controlled methods is imperative. I see particular promise in sub-disciplines that straddle disciplinary fences to begin with. Cognitive linguistics is becoming one such 'hub'. It displays considerable ability for traversing boundaries not least because of its gestalt approach" (338).

"Many quarters within cognitive science are showing great ability to harness together different sources of empirical data in exploring cultural cognition. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) push for this explicitly in their 'convergent evidence' framework. They claim that, since sub-personal cognition is difficult to access, theoretical constructs un-falsified by six or eight independent methods must have great strength" (339).

"In a valiant book-length effort to stimulate an interdisciplinary dialog, Slingerland (2008) recently coined the notion of 'vertical integration' . He claims that the cognitive arc from basic elements to meta-culture implicates a disciplinary arc, where the humanistic or social sciences hold the top position and the natural sciences form the fundament. Slingerland proposes that the humanities are not necessarily incommensurate with cognitive research, despite the doubts of the former. He claims that for a true rapprochement between the often-cited “Two Cultures” embodied cognition research is a key site, a point well worth underscoring" (339).

[Edward theurj Berge]

After letting my initial repulsion for the overall Review issue pass, returning to Edwards' article I like this from the abstract:

"Twenty-first-century metatheories will need to be different from the monistic, grand theories of the past. They will have to be integrative rather than totalising, pluralistic rather than monistic, based on science and not only on philosophy, methodical rather than idiosyncratic, find inspiration in theories, methods and interpretive frameworks from the edge more than from the centre and provide means
for inventing new ways of understanding as much as new technologies. Integrative meta-studies describes an open system."

[Edward theurj Berge]

I'm moving this over here from another thread:

Having read carefully the Edwards’ piece one time—it will require more go rounds—I’ll say this for now. He wants to include the scientific method, and by that he means theory, method, data, and interpretation based in empirical observation and experience. We find this in the likes of Bryant, for example, with his Symbolic, Imaginary and Real, or the who, what and why of AQAL. Plus we need a meta-analysis of each of the first four domains, since the meta-domains do not directly deal with empirical evidence. It seems the issue of ‘altitude’ is in the second-order or meta-analysis of each of the 4 basic strands, observing the observer so to speak. However in this article Edwards did not go into an explanation of this aspect, instead focusing on the quadrants or zones, to put it in kennilingus.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Torbert's article is rather precise technically and boring, to me, for the most part. Which I suppose what makes it good 'science' is Edwards' sense. But what caught my attention was including interpretative validity measures into the mix (recall Edwards on this):

"Lather calls these qualitative, Postmodern interpretivist ways of enhancing validity: paralogical validity, ironic validity, rhizomatic validity, and voluptuous validity" (288). He describes each and they sound a lot like several of the themes we've explored in the forum.

This example from the ironic validity reminds me of Cohen stepping down, and I-I's founder syndrome:

"Leadership that relies primarily on unilateral causal power based on the leaders' 'truth' is less likely to cause organizational transformation than leadership that 'listens in to the dark' beyond its current version of truth" (289).

He even suggests that leaders of later action-logics avoid such unilateral power and prefer more mutuality.

I also liked this on how to determine the relative validity of two models:

"The criteria Lichtenstein proposes are: 1. whether the new paradigm is more comprehensive than the former; 2. whether the new paradigm can self-reflectively explain why it is more effective, and 3. whether the new paradigm adequately eliminates an erroneous finding of the previous paradigm. By analogy, Lichtenstein shows how quantum mechanics is more valid than Newtonian physics with its ability to explain more (e.g., subatomic behavior), explain why it can explain more (e.g., providing the dynamic equation through which mass and energy transform into one another), and by correcting errors in the Newt onian model (e.g., using warped space-time to correct Newton’s inaccurate predictions of planet ary orbits)" (292).

[Edward theurj Berge]

From Gidley's article:

"The postformal features I want to highlight include: complex thinking, paradoxical reasoning. [...] Complex thinking involves the ability to hold multiple perspectives in mind while at the same time being able to meta-reflect on those perspectives and the potential relationships among them. This is also referred to as metasystemic thinking. Paradoxical thinking is one of the expressions of complex postformal logic. [...] Postformal logics go beyond Aristotelian formal logic, which requires an either/or response thus creating what is called an 'excluded middle.' Paradoxical thinking refers to the ability to hold in mind the apparently illogical possibility that two contradictory statements can both be true—or indeed both false. This paradox of the included middle allows for both/and and neither/nor to be correct" (152-3).

"Steiner also used the term integral in a way that foreshadowed Gebser’s use of the term. The latter claimed that the integral structure of consciousness involves concretion of previous structures of consciousness, whereby 'the various structures of consciousness that constitute him must have become transparent and conscious to him' (p. 99). Gebser used the term 'integral simultaneity' (p. 143) to express this. This echoes Steiner’s characterization of 'the stages on the way to higher powers of cognition ... [where one eventually reaches] a fundamental mood of soul determined by the simultaneous and integral experience of the foregoing stages'" (154).

[Edward theurj Berge]

Re-reading the Kimmel article (referenced earlier) I came upon the following text about partner dance. As some of you know, I'm an avid partner dancer and have expounded its philosophic virtues in various threads (here and following as one example). Kimmel supports my thesis:

"Cultural learning also impacts our ability to engage in interactions and create intersubjectivity. Even mundane interactions typically require us to recognize meaningful affordances, i.e. enabling states for our next action perceived in real-time. In particular, we incorporate the dynamic flow of body signals (gestures, gaze, gait, etc.) from others into how we modulate our own actions. Just imagine a simple nonverbal negotiation of two persons sliding past each other in a narrow corridor. Sophisticated martial arts, dance, or bodywork skills that require years of apprenticeship equally highlight enactive intersubjectivity (Fuchs & de Jaegher, 2010). As Kimmel (2012) argues, dancers of tango argentino can fluidly improvise together only when they actively explore the partner at every moment and reciprocally make their bodies amenable to being sensed (e.g. a good follower strategically creates muscle chains allowing the leader to sense via her shoulder blade what her leg is up to.) Communication depends on a highly organized 'tango body' with ingrained postural, muscle related, and attentional habits. While complex intersubjectivity skills fundamentally build on immediate perception, they place the senses in a continuum with functional concepts and regulative imagery. For example, tango experts stick to basic enabling states by imagining a constant 'magnet' or 'torch seeking the partner’s sternum.' This helps maintain rapport in any situation. More complex regulators keep track of functionally important sensory coalescences, e.g. an 'energy ball' representing the couple’s joint weight at a given moment. Here, multi-channel sensory input gets blended 'into' the image, including proprioception, the partner’s body, and space. The current position of the ball summarizes system-level information, allows dynamic feedback to be felt in the flesh, and thus provides a control structure for joint action. Finally, the tango case sheds light on the hidden cognitive substrate of dynamic decision making. Accomplished tango leaders fluidly combine basic micro-elements without enacting scripted step sequences and without much remeditation. They simply recognize a large repertory of dynamic configurations that signal affordances to exploit 'on the fly' on a given trajectory or to nudge the couple to when still a bit away. Experts do this without
enforcing anything, but by 'soft-assembling' the interaction within repertoire related as well as
sensory constraints (somatic feedback, music, available space)" (312).