INTRODUCTION PART I PART II PART III Page 1 Page 2 PART IV Page 1 Page 2 PART V NOTES Notes 1-8 Notes 9-19 Notes 20-30

      Postmodern epistemologies (from Nietzsche to Heidegger to Gadamer to Foucault to Derrida to Lyotard) have done two profound things: introduced incredibly important truths into the game of human epistemology, and completely confused the field almost beyond repair. What is required, in any integral methodological pluralism, is a way to honor the enduring insights of postmodernism while avoiding the crippling confusions that have thus far inescapably followed.

      The main argument between postmodern and modern/premodern epistemologies concerns whether the weight of truth is to be assigned to relativity or universality--or, which amounts to the same thing, whether interpretations or facts are most fundamental. The very form of that argument itself, however, demonstrates that it has taken place almost entirely within a first-tier paradigm (i.e., a first-tier data injunction machine)--the argument has been between blue fundamentals, orange universals, and green pluralisms, with one of the them taken to be true and the others false. A second-tier turquoise paradigm discloses, on the other hand, a more fruitful way to move forward by highlighting the partial truths contained in all of those claims, and then resituating them within a more encompassing and compassionate framework expressing a self-reflexive turquoise moment of the AQAL matrix's self-understanding. In doing so, we will see that the argument is not between facts and interpretations, but instead involves understanding how both facts and interpretations are integral dimensions of this and every moment.

      I personally have seen no other approach that comes anywhere close to integrating the truths of premodern, modern, and postmodern approaches. Rather, today's existing approaches tend to choose one or the other of those moments (premodern or modern or postmodern) and virulently condemn the others--a living example, alas, of a first-tier mentality still at war with its neighbors. Let us see if we can instead introduce a second-tier integral moment that honors each of them by resituating them in a larger framework, a framework that salvages their truth claims by limiting their reach. That is, by relieving each of them of their absolutisms, their enduring partial truths can be registered, included, and embraced in the ongoing unfolding of this moment's rush to realization.

Overview: Revolutionary Integral Pluralism

      Let's start by turning from the nature of Kosmic karma in all four quadrants and look a little more closely at the methodologies that seem the most appropriate at disclosing/enacting the quadrants. The quadrants, recall, are simply variations on the perspectives that are embedded in all major natural languages--namely, first person (singular: I; plural: we); second person (singular: you; plural: you/we); and third person (singular: him, her, it; plural: they, them, its). We often summarize these as I, we, it, and its (or simply I, we, and it).

      The point is that each of those perspectives embodies a particular dimension of being-in-the-world. Further, it appears that each of those dimensions of being-in-the-world (or each of those quadrants) can be approached by a different mode of inquiry. These different inquiries--from phenomenology to hermeneutics to collaborative inquiry to systems theory--all disclose different aspects of the Kosmos, but each approach tends to take its corner of the Kosmos to be the Kosmos itself, thus ignoring or denying the important realties in the other quadrants (not to mention the fact that the belief in the existence of the other quadrants is usually ascribed to some sort of horrible pathology in the believer).

      In other words, as important as all of these methodologies are, each of them tends to be blind to the realities in the other quadrants. It is this historical blindness, still operating as a widespread Kosmic habit, that we particularly want to address, because this blindness requires a sustained creative novelty of transcendence in order to escape its inherited prejudices. We call this prejudice quadrant absolutism, whether it appears in positivism, phenomenology, or postmodernism.

     If we are ever to truly enter An Integral Age at the Leading Edge, it would help enormously if this widespread quadrant absolutism could be addressed and overcome. A significant move in that direction can be taken by simply acknowledging the important truths that each of the major forms of inquiry offer (instead of condemning all but one's own).

     Briefly, here is what we will be suggesting: empiricism and behaviorism primarily engage the third-person singular modes of being-in-the-world (UR); introspection and phenomenology primarily engage the first-person singular modes of being-in-the-world (UL); hermeneutics and collaborative inquiry primarily engage the second-person and first-person plural modes of being-in-the-world (LL); and the ecological sciences, structural-functionalism, and systems theory primarily engage the third-person plural modes of being-in-the-world (LR). Of course, there are many more types of inquiries available, but these highlight some of the more historically significant that we will be briefly discussing.

     Putting all of these modes of inquiry together, as an enactment and disclosure of turquoise cognition, results in what we are calling integral methodological pluralism, which embodies the more practical side of an Integral Post-Metaphysics.

     If we are ever to enter An Integral Age at the Leading Edge, it will likely be under the banner of an integral methodological pluralism. Clare Graves called the transformation from first tier to second tier a "momentous leap of meaning," because where all first-tier memes are convinced that their particular worldview is the only valid worldview, second-tier consciousness fully recognized and honors the partial truths in all of them. In other words, the leap from first tier to second tier is a leap from partialism and pluralism to integralism and holism.

     Pragmatically, this means that all partial modes of human inquiry suddenly assume a new and profound significance as important pieces in the larger Kosmic puzzle, each of which has something incredibly important to tell us. Integral methodological pluralism thus becomes the banner of that momentous leap of meaning.

     Of course, there are many other ways that second-tier consciousness will begin to reach a larger number of members of any given society, but here we are discussing the growing tip, or An Integral Age at the Leading Edge. As Goldstone pointed out, it has empirically been the case that elite leadership is a prerequisite for revolutions. If those revolutions (or even reforms) are to be of an authentic, vertical, transformative nature, then a fifth factor is necessary--namely, an increase in Eros or depth in any of the quadrants--and because the elite leading edge today is green (and has been for 20 years), then it follows that the fifth factor in this instance means a yellow paradigm, or an integral injunction and social practice, and the actual practice of integral methodological pluralism fits that bill organically.

     In short, the more human beings who engage in an integral methodological pluralism--whose very nature is to acknowledge, honor, and include all authentic modes of human inquiry--then the greater the probability that the leading edge of the AQAL configuration in that culture will undergo a legitimation crisis followed by "a momentous leap of meaning" from first- to second-tier consciousness, with the possibility that the consciousness and culture of this growing tip will then spread out to larger segments of the society at large.

To Enact a Dimension of Being-in-the-World

     Each of the important methodologies (from empiricism to collaborative inquiry to systems theory) are actually types of practices or injunctions--in all cases, they are not just what humans think, but what humans do--and those practices therefore bring forth, enact, and illumine a particular dimension of one's own being--behavioral, intentional, cultural, or social. For example, the very form of participatory or collaborative inquiry--in which two or more subjects of awareness enter a circle of shared horizons and therefore bring forth a worldspace of overlapping intentionalities, meaning, and mutual understanding--the very form of this injunctive practice enables, enacts, and brings forth the intersubjective dimension of the individuals themselves. (This is why different forms of praxis yield different theoria.)

     Under the enactive potential of various forms of practice--from phenomenology to empiricism to hermeneutics to ecological investigations to contemplative endeavors--various dimensions of a holon are energized: they "light up" in vibratory resonance, enacting a worldspace mutually co-created by the inquiring subject (but not merely created by the subject), and stand forth in the clearing created in part by the form of the inquiry.

     Thus, when I take a first-person stance to this moment, I light up the subjective dimensions of being-in-the-world, many aspects of which are disclosed by introspective phenomenology. When I take a second-person stance to this moment, I light up the intersubjective dimensions of being-in-the-world, many aspects of which are disclosed by hermeneutics and collaborative inquiry. When I take up a third-person perspective to this moment, I light up the objective (and interobjective) dimensions of being-in-the-world. (We will discuss several examples of these in a moment.)

     That is why none of these domains (or none of the occasions in any quadrant) are merely given or predetermined, just lying around out there waiting for all and sundry to see--but neither are these domains totally created by the inquiring subject or intersubjectivity (which is merely the pathology of postmodernism). As we have seen, some features of these domains (or reality in general) are given--that is, they pre-exist the awareness of the inquiring subject. These givens or Kosmic a priori include the various Kosmic habits and the quadratic inheritances we discussed. As we put it, the a priori or given ground of this moment is the previous moment's AQAL matrix, which arrives on the seen as a given (or an inheritance from the previous moment) but never exists merely as a given, for it is always already taken up, transcended and included, transformed and reworked, by this moment's AQAL matrix, as self-organization through self-transcendence creatively unfolds moment to moment.

Reconstructive Inquiry

     That is an essentially Whiteheadian stance (but only if expanded from an incomplete to a complete or quadratic formulation--see below); that is, the entire previous moment of AQAL space is handed to this moment's AQAL space as an a priori, even though that space itself, when it first emerged in the previous moment, emerged in part as creative freedom (not determined, not given), but a freedom that, when passed on to the succeeding moment, is passed on as determinism (which the succeeding moment must include, on pain of pathology, and then go beyond by adding its own creative freedom that is not determined by the previous moment).

     These Kosmic givens thus include (among other items we will discuss) the entire world of past actuals--that is, all of the actual occasions that have already emerged (an emergence molded by the entire AQAL space in which it arose), a creative emergence that is then handed to succeeding moments as causal influence, morphic resonance, formative causation, prehensive unification, cultural context and social memory, morphogenetic grooves, deep patterns and waves of development, and so forth. These types of inheritances are givens: they are given by the past to the present, and they pre-exist any subject's awareness of them (although when they were first laid down, they were themselves co-created by the subjectivity that is part of the AQAL matrix at every moment. That is, these givens do not pre-exist subjectivity and its interpretations, since subjectivity is one of the four dimensions of all actual occasions; rather, these givens pre-exist the subjectivity of this moment, not the subjectivity of the previous moment, which helped co-create them. But the point is that, once laid down, the previous moment's entire AQAL space is handed to this moment's AQAL space as a given which pre-exists any registration by this moment: it pre-exists the subjectivity, and the objectivity, and the intersubjectivity, and the interobjectivity of this moment--but not of the moment before, although the moment before received its own a priori givens, and so on.)

     Hence, the only way that the subjects of this moment can reflectively illumine their history of past actuals is through a reconstructive inquiry (in any quadrant). A reconstructive inquiry means that a subject or subjects attempt to examine the actuals of their own existence by investigating these realities after they have already emerged. A reconstructive inquiry (in any quadrant) is therefore essentially an a posteriori investigation into previously laid-down realities. It is not an a priori investigation into predetermined structures (which is where we part ways with Plato, Hegel, Plotinus, Husserl, and Aurobindo--again, this is part of the move to a post-metaphysical stance), even though the past actuals being investigated now appear as a prioris because they are indeed Kosmic habits that are now pre-given (which is why metaphysics mistook them for ontologically pre-existing structures instead of organic Kosmic habits, which are handed not from the timeless to time, as metaphysics thought, but from the temporal past to the temporal present).

     Reconstructive inquiry is not by any means the only type of inquiry. It is simply one version of the investigation of what was as it impacts what is. It does not cover inquiries that involve what should be (morals, ethics, normative inquiries); or aesthetic inquiry (art, artistic expression, self expression); or more openly interpretive endeavors (literary, expressive); or even exploratory inquiry into realities not yet emerged on a large scale but just now forming at the frothy creative edge, among many others. So when we emphasize that reconstructive inquiry is important, let's not imagine it is the only approach to reality, but is merely one of the many tools of integral methodological pluralism. It is important, however, because it can help us determine which waves of consciousness (e.g., red, blue, orange) have been laid down as Kosmic habits, and which are as yet still in the formative stages--and thus allow us to move forward with a post-metaphysical approach to levels of consciousness, which can point to the existence of these waves of consciousness without resorting to metaphysical and ontological postulates but simply morphogenetic patterns and habits of evolution (without denying the existence of higher potentials available through self-transcendence, although these higher potentials have not yet taken on fixed form on a widespread scale, and thus their exploration remains idiosyncratic, though nonetheless very real).

     In short, reconstructive inquiry is one type of inquiry that examines the nature of the present moment by looking into the past moments that led to its present form and content. These types of reconstructive inquiries in the various quadrants include, for example: reconstructive science or evolutionary science (in the LR), anthropology (LR), genealogical hermeneutics (LL), developmental structuralism (LR), psychoanalytic inquiry (UL), Foucauldian archaeology (LR) and genealogy (LL/LR), interpretive cultural history (LL), the evolution of ecological systems (LR), stellar evolution (LR), biological speciation (LR), evolutionary psychology (UR), bifurcation points in complex and chaotic dynamic systems (LR), and so on. Those reconstructive inquiries basically "unearth" or "discover" various aspects of the past actuals of the holons under investigation, and they can do so because those past actuals are givens which pre-exist this moment. They are not Platonic givens but Kosmic habits: nonetheless, they pre-exist this moment. They are Whiteheadians givens--fossilized actual occasions now prehended by their descendents, to which they are internal as prehensive unification and external in interpretive reflection (which is why they jump the Kantian divide of the thing-in-itself and present no fundamental epistemological dilemma; see below).¹⁸

     But the central point is that, although these past actuals are givens that pre-exist this moment, their illumination is not. That is--just as with every other moment in spacetime (past, present, and future)--this moment's coming-to-be is an AQAL affair: it is molded by factors in all four quadrants (and their already-existing waves, streams, and states). This means that the unearthing of past actuals, which are fossil givens, inescapably occurs in conjunction with this moment's creative freedom and interpretation. Thus, there is no reflective way to get at past actuals except through an inquiry that includes interpretations of past actuals. The past actuals, as givens, are tucked seamlessly into the pre-reflective prehensive unifications of this moment; but they can only be unearthed with a reflective reconstructive inquiry that inescapably adds its own interpretative (subjective and intersubjective) dimensions. Thus, past actuals, as givens, are never disclosed in their pristine form; they are previous AQAL spaces that, if reflectively "unearthed," are done so only by this moment's AQAL space, a disclosure that colors the previous space with this moment's additions and interpretations (which is exactly what the previous AQAL space had done itself before passed to this moment as a given). Thus, even thought the entire Kosmos of the previous moment is handed to us as a given and is felt from within in its totality in my present prehension (i.e., in my present, pre-reflective, prehensive unification), at no point do we reflectively disclose a merely pregiven world.

     Does this mean that we can never get in touch with the thing-in-itself? That we can never get in touch with any pre-existing givens? No, on the contrary: the past a priori is now internal to the present moment as an actual constituent of this moment's feeling, and thus what you are feeling in this moment is, in part, the thing in-itself of the previous moment now tucked fully into your being. To say that you can never completely separate past givens from present elaborations is not to say that the thing-in-itself is epistemologically and ontologically dissociated and forever untouchable (this neo-Whiteheadian move thus escapes that particular Kantian nightmare).

     Thus, although we can in some deep sense feel the thing-in-itself, we cannot reflectively cognize it; we can feel it, not think it. Even though the thing-in-itself of the previous moment is tucked fully into this moment's prehensive unification or felt-meaning, if we attempt, after the fact, to reflect on and reconstruct this past given, we then inescapably add this moment's interpretations to that moment's givens. Reflexivity itself always disqualifies itself from the thing-in-itself. When the thing-in-itself creatively emerged, it was not given. When dug up, it is not given. Again, at no place do we ever find a merely given world.

     This does not mean that therefore our reconstructive hermeneutics, reconstructive phenomenology, and reconstructive sciences are of no benefit at all--they are extraordinarily important as one aspect of a more transparent self-understanding. It is to say, however, that at no point do reconstructive inquiries disclose the thing-in-itself (although, if done correctly, they are guided by the thing-in-itself, they are guided by the givens or factual inheritances or Kosmic habits of the past as they impinge causally on the present via morphic resonance, formative causation, prehensive unification, cultural memory, and so on). When we enact a world, we are immersed in a meshwork of pre-existing givens with present interpretations.

Facts-and-Interpretations Are Intrinsic to the Kosmos

      Thus, to say that the present moment is a seamless mesh of past givens and present interpretations is not to deny the existence of either one of them. Whitehead's great genius was to see that "facts-and-interpretations" are the same thing as "include-and-transcend." The previous moment is handed as fact, as given, as a priori, to the present moment, which adds its own creativity, interpretations, and transcendence--an AQAL matrix which is then handed, as fact, to the next moment's matrix. The interpretations of today become the facts of tomorrow as Kosmic inheritance.¹⁹

     This is true all the way up, all the way down. As I have often pointed out, even electrons have to interpret their environment, and even quarks possess intersubjectivity. It is not just that atoms prehend their predecessors (a la Whitehead); it is that one AQAL moment comprehends its predecessors: the four quadrants go all the way down (we will return to this important point in a moment and discuss the ways that it goes considerably beyond, while happily including, Whitehead's notion of prehension).

     Thus, when it comes to humans as well, there are indeed a priori givens, and there are our present interpretations of those givens. The great (and in some ways single) argument between modernity and postmodernity has always been: how much weight do we give to each of those moments? Modernity (and the Enlightenment) argued strenuously that there is only a pregiven world of facts. The basic Enlightenment paradigm was thus the reflection paradigm (or "the Mirror of Nature")--namely, reality is in all important ways objectively given (i.e., the world of nature we see out there is a pregiven reality reflected or represented in the universal laws of nature)--and therefore correct epistemology consists in making an accurate map or representation of the pregiven territory. The givens alone are real: facts alone exist.

     Postmodernity, as if in violent reaction to that silliness, swung to the other extreme and came up with its own howler: there are no facts, only interpretations. Postmodernity did not merely say, "There are givens but our disclosure of them is in many ways interpretive." It said simply, "There are no givens anywhere, there are only interpretations and social constructions." In other words, in place of the Whiteheadian process of rupture-with-continuity (or transcend-and-include), postmodernism put a nothing-but-ruptures view: nothing but breaks, incommensurate disjunctions, fragments, shards, as the broken Kosmos proceeds moment by moment to alienate and deny its past.

     So modernity claimed "there are no interpretations, only facts"; and postmodernity claimed that there are "no facts, only interpretations." I don't have to tell you that in my opinion they both had an important if partial piece of the puzzle. What is required, of course, is an integral-aperspectival stance that honors and incorporates the important moments of both approaches to past actuals, while avoiding their respective quadrant absolutisms (Enlightenment modernism privileged the UR; postmodernism privileged the LL).²⁰ Both of them took their own preferred mode of being-in-the-world and claimed it was the only valid mode of being-in-the-world.