Ken Wilber

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Ken Wilber

Kenneth Earl Wilber Jr. (b. January 31, 1949, Oklahoma City, USA, is an American writer who has advanced an integral theory of consciousness which draws on his interpretation of psychology, sociology, philosophy, mysticism, postmodernism, science and systems theory to form a picture of what he calls the 'Kosmos'.[1] [citation needed] A self-described storyteller and mapmaker, Wilber attempts to integrate various perspectives of the cosmos. Although he was at one time a major proponent of the transpersonal school of psychology, he has since disassociated himself from it.[2] In 1998, Wilber founded the Integral Institute, a think tank for studying issues of science and society in an integral, or non-reductive, way. He has been a pioneer in the development of Integral psychology and Integral politics. He is a practicing Buddhist, and the beliefs of Madhyamika Buddhism, particularly as articulated in the philosophy of Nagarjuna, underpin his work.[3]

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Education

Ken Wilber was born on January 31, 1949 in Oklahoma City, OK. Wilber's family moved around a lot in his formative years finally settling in his senior year to Lincoln, Nebraska.

In 1967 he enrolled as a pre-med student at Duke University,[4] and almost immediately experienced a crisis of disillusionment with what science had to offer. He became inspired by Eastern literature, particularly the Tao Te Ching, which catalyzed his conversion to Buddhism. Academically he lost that first year, returning to Nebraska and enrolling in the University of Nebraska. It was there he completed a bachelor's degree with a double major in chemistry and biology, while simultaneously spending much of his time pursuing Eastern philosophy and Western psychology. He won a scholarship for graduate study in biochemistry, but by this time he was thoroughly captivated by the philosophical and contemplative life, and dropped out.

While tutoring he met Amy Wagner in 1972. They decided to live together and married a year later. They were later divorced.

[edit] Early career

In 1973 at the age of 23, Wilber completed the manuscript for his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, in which he sought to integrate knowledge from disparate fields. After rejections by more than twenty publishers it was finally accepted in 1977 by Quest Books, a theosophical organization. This success brought opportunities for many lectures and workshops, which he gave up after a year to provide more time for his writing. He also helped to launch the journal ReVision in 1978. No Boundary was a popularized summary of The Spectrum of Consciousness published in 1979. It was followed by the sociological works The Atman Project (1980) and Up from Eden (1981). The editorial demands of the journal on his time increased, and in 1981 he agreed to an amicable divorce from Amy and moved to Cambridge, MA to work on ReVision projects.

In 1983 Wilber moved to Marin County, California, where he met and soon married Terry (Treya) Killam. Around this time Treya was diagnosed with breast cancer. From the fall of 1984 until 1987 Wilber gave up most of his writing to focus on caring for her. During this stressful time he temporarily ceased meditation and turned to alcohol. Wilber contracted Rnase-L Enzyme Dysfunction Disease in 1985 which he still struggles with today. In 1987 they moved to Boulder, Colorado to be near Naropa University, a Buddhist University founded by Chogyam Trungpa. Treya died in January, 1989. Their joint experience was recorded in the book Grace and Grit (1991).

[edit] Recent works

Wilber worked for a time on a textbook of integral psychology (eventually published in 1999 as part of volume IV of his Collected Works), but left it to focus on the three year project Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (SES), (1995), the massive first volume of a proposed Kosmos Trilogy. According to the preface of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, it was during this period of isolation that he claims to have experienced an extended, eleven day mystical enlightenment. A Brief History of Everything (1996) was the non-footnoted, popularized summary of SES in the form of an imagined, extended interview. The Eye of Spirit (1997) was a compilation of articles he had written for the journal ReVision on the relationship between science and religion. A shorter revised edition was published by Random House in 1998 as The Marriage of Sense and Soul. In 1997 he met Marci Walters, a young student at Naropa University. They lived together for five years, were married in June 2001, but separated in 2002. Wilber considers that time as the most productive thus far of his career, but had felt from the beginning of their relationship that Marci would eventually move on to raise a family.

Throughout 1997 he had kept journals of his personal experiences, which were published in 1999 as One Taste, a Buddhist term for cosmic or unitary consciousness. Over the next two years his publisher Shambhala Publications, took the unusual step of releasing eight re-edited volumes of his Collected Works. The year 1999 was particularly productive as he finished his Integral Psychology and wrote A Theory of Everything (2000). In A Theory of Everything Wilber attempts to bridge business, politics, science and spirituality and show how they integrate with the theory of Spiral Dynamics. Also in 1999 he wrote a first draft of the novel Boomeritis (2002), which attempts to expose the egotism of his generation.

Since 1987, Wilber has lived in Denver, Colorado, where he is working on his Kosmos trilogy and supervising the work of the Integral Institute.

[edit] Wilber's five phases

Ken Wilber distinguishes five phases of his own development as a writer.[5]

  • Wilber-I (1977-1979)
  • Wilber-II (1980-1982)
  • Wilber-III (1983-1987)
  • Wilber-IV (1995-2001)
  • Wilber-V (2001-present)

[edit] Ideas

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[edit] Mysticism and the great chain of being

Integral Thought
Integral thinkers:
Integral themes:
Influences on integral thought:
Integral organizations:

One of Wilber's main interests is in mapping what he calls the neo-perennial philosophy, an integration of traditional mysticism (typified by Aldous Huxley's perennial philosophy) with an account of cosmic evolution akin to that of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo. He rejects the anti-evolutionary view of history as a regression from past ages or yugas that the perennial philosophy traditionally assumes. Instead, he embraces the traditionally Western notion of the great chain of being. As in the work of Jean Gebser, this great chain (or "nest") is ever-present while "relatively" unfolding throughout this material manifestation. As a Mahayana Buddhist, he believes that reality is ultimately a nondual union of emptiness and form, with form being innately subject to development over time. Wilber's writings are ultimately attempts to describe how form undergoes change, and how sentient beings in the world of form participate in this change until they finally realize their true identity as emptiness.

[edit] The holon as the fundamental building block of the Kosmos

A key idea in Wilber's philosophical approach is the holon, which came from the writings of Arthur Koestler. In considering what might be the basic building blocks of existence, he observed that it seems every entity and concept shares a dual nature: as a whole in itself, and as a part of some other thing. For example, although you are made of parts (your nervous system, your skeletal system, etc.), you are also a part of your society, and of your nation-state. A letter is a self-existing entity and simultaneously an integral part of a word. Everything from quarks to matter to energy to ideas can be looked at in this way — everything in creation except perhaps creation itself is a holon.

In his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Wilber outlines approximately twenty tenets that characterize all holons.[6] These tenets form the basis of Wilber's model of manifest reality. Beyond this, Wilber's view is that the totality of manifest reality itself is just a wave on the ocean of the unmanifest, of Emptiness itself, which is not a holon.

[edit] AQAL: the integral model of the Kosmos

Main article: AQAL

AQAL (pronounced aqual or ah-qwul) represents the core of Wilber's recent work. AQAL stands for "all quadrants all levels", but equally connotes 'all lines', 'all states' and 'all types'. These are the five irreducible categories of Wilber's model of manifest existence. In order for an account of the Kosmos to be complete, Wilber believes that it must include each of these five categories. For Wilber, only such an account can be accurately called "integral." In the essay, "Excerpt C: The Ways We Are in This Together", Wilber describes AQAL as "one suggested architecture of the Kosmos".[7]

[edit] Absolute and relative truth

Wilber accepts the two truths doctrine of Buddhism. It maintains that, to avoid philosophical confusion (or "category collapse"), we must clearly distinguish between the absolute truth of emptiness and the relative truths of form. All of Wilber's AQAL categories — quadrants, lines, levels, states, and types—relate to relative truth. None of them are true in an absolute sense. Only formless awareness, "the simple feeling of being," exists absolutely. Wilber follows Aurobindo in calling this formless awareness "Spirit". Wilber's "Spirit" may be similar to Plotinus' One, to Schelling's Absolute, to the Hindu Brahman, and to the Shunyata of Buddhism.

[edit] The pre/trans fallacy

Main article: Pre/trans fallacy

Wilber claims that many claims about non-rational states make a mistake he calls the pre/trans fallacy. According to Wilber, the non-rational stages of consciousness (what Wilber calls "pre-rational" and "trans-rational" stages) can be easily confused with each other. One can reduce supposed "trans-rational" spiritual realization to pre-rational regression, or one can elevate pre-rational states to the trans-rational domain. For example, Wilber claims that Freud and Jung commit this fallacy. Freud considered mystical realizations to be regressions to infantile oceanic states. Wilber alleges that Freud thus commits a fallacy of reduction. Wilber thinks that Jung commits the converse form of the same mistake by considering pre-rational myths to reflect divine realizations. Likewise, pre-rational states such as tribal thinking, groupthink, the occultism of the Nazis or Charles Manson, and mystic religions may be misidentified as post-rational states.

Interestingly, Wilber characterizes himself as having fallen victim to the pre/trans fallacy in his early work (see Wilber's five phases).

[edit] Wilber on science

In his book The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion, Wilber characterizes the current state of the "hard" sciences as "narrow science." He claims that the natural sciences currently allow evidence only from the lowest realm of consciousness, the sensorimotor (the five senses and their extensions).

What he calls "broad science" would include evidence from logic, mathematics, and from the symbolic, hermeneutical, and other realms of consciousness. Ultimately and ideally, broad science would include the testimony of meditators and spiritual practitioners.

Wilber's own conception of science includes both narrow science and broad science. His example is using electroencephalogram machines and other technologies to test the experiences of meditators and other spiritual practitioners. This would be an example of what Wilber calls "integral science".

According to Wilber's theory, narrow science trumps narrow religion, but broad science trumps narrow science. That is, the natural sciences provide a more inclusive, accurate account of reality than any of the particular exoteric religious traditions. But an integral approach that evaluates both religious claims and scientific claims based on intersubjectivity is preferable to narrow science.

[edit] Wilber on Darwinism

Wilber rejects creationism as the claims of narrow religion disingenuously disguised as science. However, he also doesn't subscribe to the philosophically naturalistic evolutionary theory of, for example, Richard Dawkins, a leading expert on evolution, who Wilber describes as a "religious preacher". Although Wilber sees natural selection as a valid—if limited—scientific theory, he sees Darwinism as describing the merely biological aspect of evolution. (Aurobindo, he believes, gave a more complete account of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of evolution.) Additionally, Wilber sees Darwin as having a largely negative net intellectual influence. Due to the success of Darwinism, the holistic, ontologically evolutionary views of German idealism were effectively replaced with physicalism among the intellectual and philosophical élite.

Wilber agrees with intelligent design theorists that neo-Darwinism fails to adequately explain the origin of life, sentience, and human self-awareness. But he rejects Intelligent Design theorists' embrace of a dualistic creator deity separate from the creation as the solution to these problems. (Wilber's conception of divinity is similar to that found in Zen and Advaita Vedanta.) In a posting on an internet forum run by his organization, he both confirmed his support of the scientific method and simultaneously charged hardcore Neo-Darwinists with bad faith of almost schizophrenic proportions.

Recently, Wilber has been using the term "tetra-evolution" to refer to the four-dimensional development of holons. This refers to the four quadrants of integral theory (interior individual, exterior individual, interior plural, and exterior plural), which Wilber believes co-evolve.

[edit] Current work

In 2005, at the launch of the Integral Spiritual Center, a branch of the Integral Institute, Wilber presented a 118-page rough draft summary of his two forthcoming books.[8] The essay is entitled "What is Integral Spirituality?", and contains several new ideas: Integral methodological pluralism, Integral post-metaphysics, Integral math, and the Wilber-Combs lattice.


[edit] Integral post-metaphysics

Integral post-metaphysics is the term Wilber has recently given to his attempts to reconstruct the world's spiritual-religious traditions in a way that accounts for the modern and post-modern criticisms of those traditions.

Although so far little or nothing of this has appeared in printed books, some material has appeared online. (See Ken Wilber Online for further details.)


[edit] The Wilber-Combs Lattice

This is a conceptual model of consciousness developed by Wilber and Allan Combs. It is a grid with sequential states of consciousness on the x axis (from left to right) and with developmental structures, or levels, of consciousness on the y axis (from bottom to top). This lattice illustrates how each structure of consciousness interprets experiences of different states of consciousness, including mystical states, in different ways. For example, someone at the mythic level of awareness might interpret a subtle experience as a realm filled with gods and goddesses, whereas someone at the mental level might interpret it in a more rational way, such as a vision of the deep meaning of the cosmos.

[edit] Influences on Wilber

Wilber's conception of the perennial philosophy has been primarily influenced by Madhyamika Buddhism, particularly as articulated in the philosophy of Nagarjuna.[9] The nondual mysticism of Advaita Vedanta, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Plotinus, and Ramana Maharshi are also strong influences. Wilber has been a dedicated practitioner of Buddhist meditation since his college years, and has studied under some widely recognized meditators, such as Dainin Katagiri, Maezumi Roshi, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Penor Rinpoche and Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche.

Wilber's conception of evolution or psychological development draws on Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, the great chain of being, German idealism, Erich Jantsch, Jean Piaget, Abraham Maslow, Erik Erikson, Lawrence Kohlberg, Howard Gardner, Clare W. Graves, Robert Kegan and Spiral Dynamics.

On several occasions, Wilber has singled out the work of the American-born guru Adi Da (also known as Da Free John) as humankind's foremost expression of nondual realization. In his introduction to Da's 1980 book Scientific Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House!, Wilber stated "my opinion is that we have, in the person of Da Free John, a Spiritual master and religious genius of the ultimate degree" and described his teaching as "unsurpassed by that of any other spiritual Hero, of any period, of any place, of any time, of any persuasion." Likewise, Wilber called Adi Da's magnum opus, The Dawn Horse Testament, "the most ecstatic, most profound, most complete, most radical, most comprehensive single spiritual text ever to be penned and confessed by the Human-Transcendental Spirit". Although Wilber has since publicly expressed reservations about Adi Da's behaviour and behavioural patterns, in an open letter to the Adidam community he fully reaffirmed his confidence in Adi Da's ultimate realization and in the transcendent virtues of the Way of Adidam that Adi Da teaches.[10][11] Interestingly, Wilber now works closely with Saniel Bonder, David Deida, and Terry Patten, three ex-devotees of Adi Da.

[edit] Wilber's influence

Wilber claims to have a growing influence among scholars, business and organizational theorists, political analysts, and community change agents, and especially among religious scholars actively applying his insights to reframing conventional theology. His works have been read by several musicians, including Stuart Davis, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Saul Williams and Billy Corgan. He is currently associated with a number of important spiritual teachers, who have, to a greater or lesser degree, expressed assent to his theoretical approach. These include Andrew Cohen, Lama Surya Das, Father Thomas Keating Brother David Steindl-Rast, and religious scholar Ronald H. Miller.

It should be noted that there is no independent confirmation of the preceding statement other than Wilber's publishers. According to Wilber's publisher Shambhala, Charles Taylor, a philosopher wrote:

"I have tremendously appreciated Wilber's work. He has managed to integrate so many things, and to keep his horizons open, where most of our culture keeps closing them down. It is magnificent work."[12]

In 2004, Wilber participated in a collaborative commentary on The Ultimate Matrix Collection DVD with Princeton professor of religion Cornel West.

However, almost all professional philosophers ignore Wilber's work: for example, his name goes entirely unmentioned in the titles of twenty-five years' worth of peer-reviewed articles and reviews in the academic journal Philosophy East and West (a philosophical journal specializing in Asian philosophy).[13] Wilber and his supporters defend his work as mapping a dimension of reality which they believe that Western thought has largely neglected since the Renaissance, a dimension Wilber calls 'altitude' or 'depth'. Some of Wilber's supporters claim that academic philosophers ignore Wilber's work due to its mystical embrace of this supposed dimension. According to Wilber, much of modern philosophy remains within the rational phase of Wilber's model of the spectrum of consciousness, and is therefore not attuned to the transrational aspects of consciousness.

In an interview with Klaus Schwab, Bill Clinton said the following:

If ordinary people don’t perceive that our grand ideas are working in their lives, then they can’t develop the higher level of consciousness, if I can use a kind of touchy-feely word, that American philosopher Ken Wilber wrote a whole book about, called A Theory of Everything. He said, you know, the problem is the world needs to be more integrated but it requires a consciousness that’s way up here, and an ability to see beyond the differences among us.[14]

[edit] The evolution of Wilber's work

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. [citation needed]

[edit] Criticism of Wilber's work

[edit] Technical criticism

The Croatian esoteric philosopher Arvan Harvat has argued that attempting to integrate a thoroughly nondual approach like Zen with an evolutionary view is ultimately impossible: if your model includes absolutely everything, how can it change? Wilber's response is that it is only form that evolves; emptiness (shunyata) remains unchanged. Trans-conceptually, one can embrace one's own transrational (and hence ultimately ineffable) experience-awareness, and this is what constitutes true nondual enlightenment. [citation needed]

Others, including Georg Feuerstein, argue that Wilber's Neo-perennial Philosophy is a confusion between concepts of differentiated nondualist doctrines (such as Plotinus's neo-Platonism and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta) and truly unitary monism of Zen and Advaita Vedanta: the former philosophies distinguish between emanated or manifest reality and the unchangeable source, while for Zen or Advaita the Source and reality are essentially one and the same. This is expressed in a famous Zen saying of which Wilber is quite fond: "Nirvana is Samsara fully realized; Samsara is Nirvana rightly understood." [citation needed]

Wilber's response to criticisms like this is typified in the extended interview Speaking of Everything:

...when I lay out the stages of development, I am giving what I explicitly called in SES a "rational reconstruction of the trans-rational"

—Ken Wilber, Speaking of Everything

Thus, differentiated non-dual doctrines and truly unitary monist doctrines are describing (or coming from) different levels of consciousness, the former from a causal perspective that differentiates between emptiness and form (and hence must see form as emanationary), and the latter from a nondual perspective that equates emptiness and form (and hence renders emanation a redundant concept).

[edit] Criticism by transpersonal and integral theorists

Cultural historian and poet William Irwin Thompson, who shares Wilber's admiration for Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, and Eastern philosophy, has harshly criticized Wilber's theoretical approach and scholarly achievements. In his 1996 book Coming into Being: Texts and Artifacts in the Evolution of Consciousness, Thompson characterized Wilber's approach as "compulsive mappings and textbook categorizations" and as excessively objectifying and "masculinist". In a subsequent interview, Wilber characterized his own work as that of "a storyteller" and "a mapmaker" rather than that of a philosopher or a theoretician.

Jorge Ferrer criticises the Wilberian approach from the point of view of a relational and participative spirituality and proposes non-authoritarian forms of spirituality. To him, Wilber's system is inherently authoritarian in intent and effect, forcing a synthesis from above on what should be the result of an open dialogue. His book Revisioning Transpersonal Theory critiques and deconstructs Transpersonal psychology, perennialism, and Wilber's own theories, in favour of a more participatory approach to spirituality.

Christian de Quincey considers Wilber's integral theory to be an intellectual edifice that lacks emotion. This statement (made in 2000 in "The Promise of Integralism: A Critical Appreciation of Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology" in the Journal of Consciousness Studies[16] and others in this essay led to a bitter exchange of replies and counter-replies between Wilber and de Quincey, which can be found on de Quincey's and the Shambhala websites.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wilber uses the term kosmos to refer to all of manifest existence, including various realms of consciousness. The term kosmos is used to distinguish this nondual universe (which, on his view, includes both noetic and physical aspects) from the strictly physical universe that is the concern of the traditional ("narrow") sciences and which is widely associated with the term cosmos.
  2. ^ On Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writing, and Other Matters of Little Consequence: A Shambhala Interview with Ken Wilber, Shambhala Publications. Retrieved on June 14, 2006.
  3. ^ The Kosmos According to Ken Wilber, A Dialogue with Robin Kornman, Shambhala Sun, September 1996. Retrieved on June 14, 2006.
  4. ^ Tony Schwartz, What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America, Bantam, 1996, ISBN 0-553-37492-3, p348
  5. ^ Alan Kazlev, The Development of Ken Wilber's thought:
  6. ^ Wilber, Ken; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, 1995, p. 35-78
  7. ^ Excerpt C: The Ways We Are In This Together. Ken Wilber Online. Retrieved on December 26, 2005.
  8. ^ What is Integral Spirituality?. Integral Spiritual Center. Retrieved on December 26, 2005. (1.3 MB PDF file)
  9. ^ The Kosmos According to Ken Wilber: A Dialogue with Robin Kornman. Shambhala Sun (September 1996). Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
  10. ^ Wilber, Ken (1996-10-11). The Case of Adi Da. Ken Wilber Online. Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
  11. ^ Wilber, Ken (1998-10-28). An Update on the Case of Adi Da. Ken Wilber Online. Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
  12. ^ On Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writing, and Other Matters of Little Consequence: A Shambhala Interview with Ken Wilber, Part II. Ken Wilber Online. Shambhala Publications. Retrieved on 2006-06-14.
  13. ^ Article Index, Philosophy East and West, vols. 26-50 (1976-2000).
  14. ^ "A Conversation with William J. Clinton"
  15. ^ Speaking of Everything interview transcript. Piers Clement's "Your Path to Transition" website. Retrieved on January 6, 2006.
  16. ^ de Quincey, Christian (Winter 2000). The Promise of Integralism: A Critical Appreciation of Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology. Journal of Consciousness Studies. Vol. 7(11/12). Retrieved on 2006-06-15.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Works by Wilber

[edit] Books about Wilber

  • Donald Jay Rothberg and Sean Kelly, Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations With Leading Transpersonal Thinkers, 1998, ISBN 0-8356-0766-6
  • 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, Motilal Banarsidass, 2002, ISBN 81-208-1932-2
  • Frank Visser, Ken Wilber: Thought As Passion, SUNY Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7914-5816-4, (first published in Dutch as Ken Wilber: Denken als passie, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2001)
  • Brad Reynolds, Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber: A Historical Survey and Chapter-By-Chapter Review of Wilber's Major Works, 2004, ISBN 1-58542-317-3
  • Lew Howard, Introducing Ken Wilber, May 2005, ISBN 1-4208-2986-6
  • Raphael Meriden, Entfaltung des Bewusstseins: Ken Wilbers Vision der Evolution, 2002, ISBN 88-87198-05-5

[edit] External links

[edit] Links by Wilber

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] Interviews and video

[edit] Sites of friends and fans of Wilber

[edit] Critiques

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