Sex, Ecology, Spirituality 1469384 193915445 2008-02-25T13:03:44Z KYPark 205558 /* Category:Cognitive science literature*/ {{Integral theory}}'''''Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution''''' is [[Integral theory (philosophy)|integral]] [[philosopher]] [[Ken Wilber]]'s 1995 [[magnum opus]]. Wilber intends it to be the first volume of a series called ''[[The Kosmos Trilogy]]'', but subsequent volumes are still in preparation. The scholarly work comprises 850 pages, including 270 pages of notes. The [[Germany|German]] edition of ''Sex, Ecology, Spirituality'' was entitled ''[[Eros (love)|Eros]], [[Cosmos|Kosmos]], [[Logos]]: Eine Jahrtausend-Vision'' ("A Millennium-vision"). The book has been both highly acclaimed by some authors, harshly criticized by others, and largely ignored by academia. ==Content== Published in [[1995]], ''SES'' (as it is sometimes abbreviated) is the work in which Wilber grapples with modern [[philosophical naturalism]], attempting to show its insufficiency as an explanation of [[being]], [[evolution]], and the [[meaning of life]]. He also describes an approach, called [[vision-logic]], which he finds qualified to succeed [[modernism]]. Wilber's project in this book requires nothing less than a complete re-visioning of the history of Eastern and Western thought. There are four philosophers that Wilber finds to be of the highest importance: :*[[Plotinus]], [[Neo-Platonism|Neo-Platonic]] philosopher, who introduced the first [[nondual]] philosophy to the West :*[[Nagarjuna]], [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] philosopher, who did the same in the East :*[[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling]], [[German Idealism|German Idealist]] who created the first ''evolutionary'' nondual philosophy in the West and :* [[Sri Aurobindo]], [[Hindu]] [[Vedanta|Vedantin]] philosopher who did the same in the East This is, of course, radically different from the usual [[history of philosophy]], in which [[Plato]], [[Aristotle]], [[Thomas Aquinas]], [[René Descartes]], [[Immanuel Kant]] and sometimes [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] are typically seen as the greatest Western philosophers, and, if Eastern thinkers are considered, [[Confucius]], [[Laozi]], [[Gautama Buddha]], and [[Adi Shankara]] are among the greatest Eastern thinkers. Wilber emphasizes that the account of existence presented by the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] is incomplete&mdash;it ignores and represses the spiritual and [[noetic]] components of existence. He accordingly avoids the term ''cosmos'', which is associated with merely physical existence. He prefers the term ''kosmos'' to refer to the sum of manifest existence, which harks back to the usage of the term by the [[Pythagoreans]] and other ancient mystics. Wilber conceives of the Kosmos as consisting of several concentric spheres: [[matter]] (the physical universe) plus [[life]] ([[the vital realm]]) plus [[mind]] ([[the mental realm]]) plus [[soul]] ([[the psychic realm]]) plus [[Spirit]] ([[the spiritual realm]]). ==The structure and theses of ''SES''== ===Introduction=== :*Wilber describes the deeply [[dysteleology|dysteleological]] perspective of contemporary philosophical naturalism as "the philosophy of 'oops'". :*He describes the spiritual inadequacies of philosophical naturalism as the source of the contemporary world's menacing [[ecological crisis]]. :*He describes his methodology as outlining "orienting generalizations"&mdash;points on which agreement can be found that will reveal a shared world-space. ===Book One=== :'''1. The Web of Life''' ::*[[Arthur Lovejoy]]'s account of the [[Great Chain of Being]] is used to show how the [[Mechanism (philosophy)|mechanistic]], [[materialism|materialistic]] [[modernism|modern]] [[worldview]] triumphed over the [[Western culture|West]]'s traditional, [[holistic]], [[hierarchy|hierarchical]] view. ::*The prevalence of [[pathology|pathological]], dominating hierarchies throughout history has given hierarchy a bad name. But hierarchy is ultimately inescapable. Thus, we should concentrate on discovering which hierarchies actually do exist and on healing them. :'''2. The Pattern That Connects''' ::The Twenty Tenets :::*[[Arthur Koestler]]'s account of [[holism]] and [[holarchy]] and [[Ludwig von Bertalanffy]]'s [[Systems Theory|General Systems Theory]] are used to describe (approximately) twenty tenets <!-- deadlink [http://207.44.196.94/~wilber/20tenets.html]--> of all [[holons]]. :::*Wilber calls the holistic version of the Great Chain of Being the "Great Nest of Spirit", because this account emphasizes that higher levels ''include'' as well as transcend lower ones. :'''3. Individual And Social''' ::*[[Erich Jantsch]]'s account of [[co-evolution]] and [[self-organizing systems]] is described. :'''4. A View From Within''' ::*Two fundamental aspects of existence are described: the "Left-hand path" (interiority) and the "Right-hand path" (exteriority). ::*Gross [[Reductionism]]&mdash;[[atomism]], for example&mdash;consists of reducing a whole to its parts. Subtle Reductionism&mdash;systems theory, for example&mdash;consists of reducing the interior to the exterior. [[Charles Taylor (philosopher)|Charles Taylor]]'s work is used to show that the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] paradigm suffers from both Gross and Subtle Reductionism. ::*When Individual and Social spheres are added to the Interior and Exterior aspects of existence, [[Aqal#Quadrants|four quadrants]] emerge. :'''5. The Emergence Of Human Nature''' ::* [[Jean Gebser]]'s account of the development of human [[consciousness]] is used to show how the West progressed from the [[Magic (paranormal)|magic]] to the [[Mythology|mythic]] to the [[rational]] mentalities. ::*This acknowledgment that all of existence is in development adds a third fundamental dimension&mdash;depth, or verticality&mdash;to Wilber's model of consciousness. :'''6. Magic, Mythic And Beyond''' ::* [[Jean Piaget]]'s theory of [[developmental psychology]] is used to describe the individual development of the contemporary human being. ::*The "[[Ken Wilber#The Pre.2FTrans Fallacy|Pre/Trans Fallacy]]" is described. This is Wilber's term for "[[Romanticism|romantic]]" approaches, like [[deep ecology]] and [[ecofeminism]], that mistake earlier and more exclusivist modes of being for more mature, more inclusive modes. :'''7. The Farther Reaches Of Human Nature''' ::* [[Jürgen Habermas]]' account of socio-cultural development is used to describe collective human development. ::*[[Vision-logic]] is described, a non-dominating, global awareness of holistic hierarchy, in which the pathological dissociations of Nature from Self, interiority from exteriority, and creativity from compassion are transformed into healthy differentiations. ::*The validity claims of [[mysticism|mystics]] are compared to [[Thomas Kuhn]]'s account of scientific [[paradigm]]s. :'''8. The Depths Of The Divine''' ::*The accounts of four mystics are used to describe the possibilities for further individual spiritual development. :::*The [[Transcendentalist]] [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] on nature mysticism :::*The Christian saint [[Teresa of Avila]] on deity mysticism :::*[[Meister Eckhart]] on formless mysticism :::*The [[Hindu]] [[guru]] [[Ramana Maharshi]] on nondual mysticism ===Book Two=== :'''9. The Way Up Is The Way Down''' ::*According to the [[Neo-Platonist]] [[Plotinus]]' [[nondual]] [[metaphysics]], "Ascending" philosophies are those that embrace the One, or the Absolute. "Descending" philosophies are those that embrace the Many, or Plenitude. Both ascent (driven by ''[[Eros (love)|Eros]]'', or creativity) and descent (driven by ''[[Agape]]'', or compassion) are indispensable for a healthy, whole view. ::*[[Plato]]'s metaphysics, which also included both ascending and descending drives, is described. ::* Plotinus' attack on [[Gnosticism]] is described in order to trace differences between healthy and pathological approaches to ascent. :'''10. This-Wordly, Otherworldly''' ::*Attempts to repair modernism's fractured and flattened worldview are described, especially [[Schelling]]'s [[existential]] [[idealism]]. :'''11. Brave New World''' ::*The liberating advantages as well as the spiritually crippling disadvantages of the modern, scientific mentality are described. :'''12. The Collapse Of The Kosmos''' ::*Charles Taylor's account of the effects of the Enlightenment paradigm is used to show how vertical depth was collapsed into horizontal span and how the ascending drive was dissociated into the "Ego camp" ([[Kant]]'s and [[Fichte]]'s Transcendent Ego) and the "Eco camp" ([[Spinoza]]'s deified Nature). ::*[[Utilitarianism]] is described as mistaking sensory pleasure for Spirit, which ultimately resulted in a fixation on [[hedonism]] and [[sex]] in modern society. :'''13. The Dominance Of The Descenders''' ::*Describes how the West tried to embrace the Many through science, but failed to embrace the One through mysticism. ::*The result was the rise of ''Thanatos'' ([[Freud]]'s death drive), and ''Phobos'' (existential fear), which are the respective pathological versions of ''Agape'' and ''Eros''. :'''14. The Unpacking Of God''' :::*Aspects of particular historical nondual views that could possibly heal the [[noetic]] fissures in the West are described, especially spiritual practice as understood by [[Zen]] & [[Dzogchen]] [[Buddhism]]. ::At The Edge Of History :::*Includes a meditation on Emptiness as the ground of [[Being]] in which all entities are ontologically healed. ==Reception== In a review of the book, author [[Michael Murphy (author)|Michael Murphy]] said that SES was one of the four most important books of the 20th century (the others being [[Aurobindo]]'s ''[[The Life Divine]]'', [[Heidegger]]'s ''[[Being and Time]]'', and [[Alfred North Whitehead|Whitehead]]'s ''[[Process and Reality]]''). In his 1997 book ''Coming into Being'', cultural historian [[William Irwin Thompson]] harshly criticized the entire project of ''SES'', contending that systematic "[[Theory of everything|theories of everything]]" were inherently misguided. He also dismissed Wilber's scholarly achievements as "undergraduate generalizations". Thompson's reverence for many of Wilber's favorite thinkers (like [[Sri Aurobindo]], [[Jean Gebser]] and [[Adi Shankara]]) makes Thompson's criticism all the more relevant. ==Quotation== "Put differently, I sought a world philosophy. I sought an ''[[integral (philosophy)|integral]]'' philosophy, one that would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world's great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details&mdash;that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world is one, undivided whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy for a holistic Kosmos: a world philosophy, an integral philosophy." &mdash; Ken Wilber, "Introduction to Volume Six of the Collected Works". ==External links== *[http://wilber.shambhala.com Wilber's Shambhala site], which includes lengthy excerpts from the forthcoming Volume II of the ''Kosmos Trilogy'', tentatively titled ''Kosmic Karma and Creativity''. *[http://cogweb.ucla.edu/CogSci/Walsh_on_Wilber_95.html Review of ''SES'' by Roger Walsh], author of ''Essential Spirituality'' *[http://www.integralworld.net/rev/rev_ses_puhakka.html Review of ''SES'' by Kaisa Puhakka], Transpersonal Psychologist [[Category:1995 books]]<!--1st ed.--> [[Category:2001 books]]<!--revised 2nd ed.--> [[Category:Philosophy books]] [[Category:Integral theory]] [[Category:Cognitive science literature]] [[ru:Пол, экология, духовность]]