Ken Wilber

Kenneth Earl Wilber Jr. (born January 31, 1949, Oklahoma City, USA) is an American philosopher. His work focuses mainly on uniting science and religion with the experiences of meditators and mystics. Although he is considered a founder of the transpersonal school of psychology, he has since disassociated himself from it. In a recording entitled Kosmic Consciousness, Wilber denied his identities as philosopher or theorist and instead stated that he is simply a storyteller, and that his stories address universal questions.

In 2000 Wilber founded the Integral Institute, a think-tank for studying issues of science and society in an integral way. He has been a pioneer in the development of Integral Psychology and Integral Politics.

__The Neo-perennial Philosophy__

Wilber's major theoretical accomplishment has been to create what he calls the Neo-perennial Philosophy by integrating Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy with a theory of Spiritual Evolution. Wilber's writings are ultimately attempts to describe how spirit, or ineffable nondual awareness, changes through time.

Some, such as the Croatian esoteric philosopher Arvan Harvat, have noted that attempting to integrate a thoroughly nondual approach like Zen with an evolutionary view is ultimately impossible: if your model includes everything, how can it change? Wilber's response might be that his theory is actually a 'rational reconstruction of a trans-rational state of consciousness'. In effect, Wilber concedes the ultimate futilityâ€”from a rational perspectiveâ€”of his quest. His writings point beyond the rational to the mystical.

__Holons and The Twenty Tenets__

According to Wilber, reality does not consist merely of matter, or energy, or ideas, or processes. Instead, it consists of holons. A holon is a whole/partâ€”it is a whole that is at the same time a part of a larger whole. Thus you are made of parts, like your heart, your brain, etc. Yet you are also a part of your society. Everything from quarks to galaxies to theories to poems to mice to a human being is a holon.

In his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evoution, Wilber outlines approximately twenty tenets that characterize all holons. These tenets form the basis of Wilber's nondual model of consciousness.

__AQAL__

AQAL (pronounced aqual) is the core of Wilber's work. AQAL stands for All Quadrants All Levels, but equally connotes All Lines, All States and All Types. Wilber's thesis is that, in order to give an inclusive, balanced and fair accountâ€”that is, an integral accountâ€”of anything, the account must be AQAL. Thus we must explain what Wilber means by Quadrants, Levels, Lines, States and Types.

__Quadrants__

Each holon has an interior perspective (an inside) and an exterior perspective (an outside). It also has a individual perspective and a collective (or plural) perspective. If you map these into quadrants, you have four quadrants, or dimensions: the interior individual, the exterior individual, the interior plural, and the exterior plural. Wilber sometimes calls these quadrants, referring to the chart (See: http://www.rebirthing-milano.it/images/quadranti_wilber.jpg ) respectively, as upper-left (or UL), upper-right (UR), lower left (LL), and lower right (LR).

To give an example of how this works, consider four schools of social science. Freudian psychoanalysis, which interprets people's interior experinces, is an account of the interior individual dimension or quadrant. B. F. Skinner's behaviorism, which limits itself to the observation of the behavior of organisms, is an exterior individual account. Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics interprets the collective consciousness of a society, and is thus an interior plural perspective. Economic theory examines the external behavior of a society.

Thus all four pursuitsâ€”psychoanalysis, behaviorism, philosophical hermeneutics and economicsâ€”offer complimentary, rather than contradictory, perspectives. It is possible for all to be correct, and necessary for a complete account of human society. Wilber has integrated these four areas of knowledge through an acknowledgment of the four fundamental dimensions of existence.

Upper-Left Quadrant (UL): "I" Interior-Individual / Intentional e.g., Freud

Upper-Right Quadrant (UR): "It" Exterior-Individual / Behavioral e.g., B.F. Skinner

Lower-Left Quadrant (LL): "We" Interior-Collective / Cultural e.g., Gadamer

Lower-Right Quadrant (LR): "Its" Exterior-Collective / Social e.g., Marxism

__Lines, streams, or intelligences__

Are you more highly developed in certain areas than in others? According to Wilber, all holons have multiple lines of development, or intelligencesâ€”in fact, over two dozen have been observed. They include cognitive, ethical, Spiritual, kinesthetic, affective, musical, spatial, logical-mathematical, karmic, etc. One can be highly cognitively developed (cerebrally smart) without being highly morally developed (as in the case of Nazi doctors). However, he acknowledges, you cannot be highly morally developed without the pre-requisite cognitive development. So not all of the developmental lines are ontologically equal.

__Levels or stages__

The concept of levels follows closely on the concept of lines of development. The more highly developed you are in a particular line, the higher level you are at in that line.

Many criticize the strict hierarchical (or patriarchical) nature of Wilber's conception of the level. But consider, for example, the hierarchical nature of matter itself. Sub-atomic particles are composed of quarks. Atoms are made of sub-atomic particles. Molecules are made of atoms. Cell organelles are made of molecules, etc. This is similar to how Wilber conceives of levels. One must attain the lower levels before the higher levels because the higher levels are constituted by the lower level components.

The simplest categorization that Wilber uses contains four levels:

* Body (or gross realm; Buddhist Nirmanakaya)
* Mind (or subtle realm; Buddhist Sambhogakaya)
* Soul (or causal realm; Buddhist Jnanadharmakaya stage of the Dharmakaya)
* Spirit (or non-duality; Buddhist Svabhavikakaya stage of the Dharmakaya)

Another scheme describes the ethical developmental line:

* Egocentric (similar to Carol Gilligan's 'Selfish' stage)
* Ethnocentric (Gilligan's 'Care' stage)
* World-centric (Gilligan's 'Universal Care' stage)
* Integrated (Gilligan's 'Integrated' stage)

Within each broad stage, there are sub-levels (for example, these are along the cognitive developmental line):

* Gross realm
** Instinctual
** Tribal (Piaget's Sensorimotor stage)
** Egoic (Piaget's Pre-operational)
** Mythic (or Mythic-Membership morality) (Piaget's Concrete ** Operational)
** Rational (Piaget's Formal Operational)
** Pluralistic (early vision-logic)
* Subtle realm
** Integral (middle vision-logic)
** Holistic (late vision-logic)
** Psychic (from Grk. psyche, "soul")
* Causal realm (that which causes, or gives rise to, manifest existence)
* Nondual

Another broad organization of the levels contains three categories:

* pre-personal (subconscious motivations)
* personal (conscious mental processes)
* trans-personal (integrative and mystical structures)

This organization reveals more of Wilber's synthesizing talent. Freudian drives, Jungian archetypes, and myth are pre-personal structures. Empirical and rational processes are personal levels. Transpersonal entities include, for example, Aurobindo's Overmind, Emerson's Oversoul, and Plotinus' nous. The exceptional feature of Wilber's approach is that, under this methodology, all of these mental stucturesâ€”subconscious, rational, mysticalâ€”are considered complimentary and equally legitimate, rather than competing in a zero-sum conceptual space. And that is perhaps Wilber's greatest accomplishmentâ€”the opening up of a space wherein more ideas, theories, beliefs, and stories can be considered true, responsible, and acceptable.

As Wilber remarks in the CD interview Speaking of Everything: "This can all be done deductively." In other words: "Maybe I'm wrong about the precise characteristics of some or all of the stages or levels. But nonetheless, it's clear that psychological and cultural development follows a pattern, and that pattern is always from more partial to more whole."

__States__

A state is basically a level that is only attained temporarily. Once you have unlimited access to a state of consciousness, then it is a permanent structure, or a developmental level.

States of consciousness include: waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, and nondual. (In the mystical traditions of which Wilber is a part, these four states correspond to four realms: gross, subtle, causal, and nondual.) Thus it is theoretically possible for someone at a low cognitive levelâ€”a newborn, for instanceâ€”to attain an advanced mystical state.

__Types__

These are valid distinctions that are not covered under Wilberâ€™s other categorizations. Masculine/feminine, the nine Enneagram categories, and Jung's archetypes and typologies, among innumerable others, are all valid types in Wilber's schema. Wilber makes types part of his model in order to point out that these distinctions are different from, and in addition to the already mentioned distictions: quadrants, lines, levels and states.

__The Two Truths Doctrine__

Wilber's version of the Two Truths doctrine maintains that whatever does not exist in deep, dreamless sleep, doesn't exist absolutely. Therefore, all of the above categorizations are relative. None of them are absolute. Ultimately and absolutely, only nondual awareness exists. Wilber follows Aurobindo (and Hegel) in calling this nonduality "spirit". It is conceptually identical to Plotinus' One, and Schelling's Absolute.

Another way that Wilber puts this is that nonduality is both the highest rung in the ladder of the development of consciousness, and the wood from which the ladder is made.

__The Pre/Trans Fallacy__

The Pre/Trans fallacy is one of Wilber's more famous ideas. Its basic tenent is that because the early, prerational, stages of consciousness and the latter, transrational, stages of consciousness are both not rational, they can be easily confused with one another. As perhaps the most well known victim, Freud considered the mystical realizations of Eastern meditators regressions to infantile oceanic states. Another famous victim, Carl Jung, committed the opposite mistake by considering myth to reflect divine realizations. Likewise, many New-Agers engage in "spiritual" practices that are prerational (a big clue to this is that they are narcissistic and self-glorifying). So you can see the two dangers of the pre/trans fallacy. One is to reduce genuine (transrational) spritual realization to prerational regression; the other is to elevate prerational states to the transrational domain.

Interestingly, Wilber characterizes his early work as falling victim to the pre/trans fallacy.

__Influences__

Wilber's conception of the Perennial Philosophy is influenced by the post-metaphysical, non-dual mysticism of Advaita Vedanta, Zen Buddhism, Nagarjuna, Plotinus, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, and Ramana Maharshi.

Wilber's conception of Spiritual Evolution or psychological development is typified by Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, the Great chain of being, German idealism and by developmental psychologies like those of Jean Piaget, Abraham Maslow, Erik Erikson, Lawrence Kohlberg, Howard Gardner, Clare W. Graves, Robert Kegan and Spiral Dynamics.

Wilber's other major influences include: Tibetan Buddhism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Erich Jantsch. He is conversant with the philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and JÃ¼rgen Habermas.

Wilber has in turn influenced scores of new age and religious writers. His works have also been read by several musicians, including Stuart Davis, Ed Kowalczyk, and Billy Corgan.

Wilber has stated that the American-born guru Adi Da "was one of the greatest spiritual Realizers of all time, unparalleled in his grasp of many profound spiritual issues". However, in 1998 open letter, Wilber argued that, while this opinion stands, due to accusations of cult-like behavior surrounding Adi Da, he "can no longerâ€”and (does) no longerâ€”recommend Daâ€™s community for the typical spiritual aspirant".

Although few academics are currently aware of Wilber's writings, Charles Taylor, one of the most important contemporary North American philosophers, has acknowledged Wilber's importance. (In Sex Ecology Spirituality, Wilber had frequently cited Taylor's work.) The slowness of academic philosophers to warm to Wilber's work is undoubtedly due to its mystical nature, and to Wilber's association with the New Age movement.

__Wilber's Five Phases__

Wilber himself identifies five phases in the evolution of his ideas. According to Wilber, subsequent phases do not negate earlier phases, but transcend and include earlier phases, incorporating them into a deeper and more integrated whole.

__Quotation__

"In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life."
- "Foreword", in Frank Visser's Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion, 2000

"I have one major rule: everybody is right. More specifically, everybodyâ€”including meâ€”has some important pieces of the truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace."
- "Introduction", Collected Works of Ken Wilber, vol. VIII, p. 49

__Bibliography__

__Books By Wilber__

__Books About Wilber__

*Donald Jay Rothberg and Sean Kelly, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0835607666/integrative0f-20/, 1998
*Joseph Vrinte, Perennial Quest for a Psychology with a Soul: An inquiry into the relevance of Sri Aurobindo's metaphysical yoga psychology in the context of Ken Wilber's integral psychology, 2002
*Frank Visser, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0791458164/integrative0f-20/, 2003
*Brad Reynolds, Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber: A Historical Survey and Chapter-By-Chapter Review of Wilber's Major Works, 2004Air Jordan VIII Low

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