My Response to Ken Wilber's "Critical Realism Revisited"

My Response to Ken Wilber's "Critical Realism Revisited"

I'm glad Ken Wilber is making it clear that Integral Theory also includes ontology. In fact, epistemology and ontology inseparably. There had been some con fusion and I also fell for it. I fell for thinking that Wilber priviledged epistemology over ontology. The way perspectives were being spoken about seemed to indicate that the subjective and perspectives were being privileged. I already understood that both ontology and epistemology are necessary and that they stem from a deeper level of less dual unity. The post metaphysical stance was also associated with an excessive talk about perspectives and method perhaps at the expense of reality or ontology as such. What confused me most was the lack of acknowledgement of non physical realities as if they didn't exist because they were not perceived or didn't matter because they could not be disclosed with a shared method and interpreted under a certain altitude (which off course is not true).

But in this discussion we must refine the understanding of what holons are: Not things or processes but wholes that are parts of larger wholes. When talking about "holons" are we also speaking about the metaphysical categories of UNITY, DIVISIONS and their RELATION? Are we speaking about a TRINITY that is variously recognized in different traditions. SAGUNA BRAHMAN as Father (the Whole), Division (Logos) and Holy Spirit as the connectivity between the Many and the One (or between Divisions and Unity)?

In "Critical Realism Revisited" Wilber writes that Integral Theory has an extensive ontology also as involutionary "givens" (the Twenty Tenets, etc). However, I think that these ontological "givens" also are Metaphysical assumptions necessary for the integral model to hold. They are both 'things' andf Metaphysical epistemological 'assumptions' and thus, once again, talking about a "Post Metaphysical" model may lead to further confusions as when epistemology seemed to be privileged.

In my previous writings I mentioned that the relations between the realms (an underdeveloped element of Integral Theory) were given by three main types of reasoning or logics: Either-Or, Both-And and Neither-Or. When Wilber says that Epistemology and Ontology are "from the start" mutually "INTERACTIVE" "COMPLEMENTARY" and "COMPLEMENTARY" he coincides with my thinking about these three logics (as applied to the relation between epistemology and ontology) because "Interactive" means exteriorly related through well defined differences (either-or), mutually "Complementary" means related through mutually defined complements (both-and) and mutually "Enactive" means mutually interior to each other (thus need to be defined neither as exterior nor as complementary).

In other words, "HOLONS" are useful to ways of being (and associated realms) that range from well defined (like exterior dominant Physical objects), equally complementary subjective and objective Subtle Realm existence and Interior-Subjective dominant Causal Realm existence. All of these modes of epistemology-ontology simultaneously coexist in whatever mode of experiential realm we may be focusing on. Their existence can be actual in conscious experience or potential to conscious experience but all of them are always present. I think that this issue should be realized and discussed to expand Integral Theory.

INTERVIEW TO ROY BHASKAR

In which ways Ken Wilber's emphasis on epistemology is insufficient to describe reality and in which ways a reassessment of ontology is necessary to compensate for this? How can Ken Wilber's "Integral Theory" and Professor Roy Bhaskar's "Critical Realism" relate so as to create a more complete and formidable model? In which ways Critical realism contributes to our search for understanding and a better approach to life, values and spirituality?  To commence this dialogue of ideas, please connect with the following link that presents my recent interview with ROY BHASKAR.

Thanks to Integral Leadership Review and to Professor Russ Volckmann. 

http://integralleadershipreview.com/TO