From: storeyd (storeyd@bc.edu)
Date: Fri May 14 2004 - 04:28:59 BST
Hey all:
Platt wrote:
>Again, I don't think irrational thinking belongs in the fourth level,
>Wilber notwithstanding. As for Wilber's 'post-rational thinking," that' s
>just pie-in-the-sky stuff where we all sit in a circle, hold hands and
>sing Kum By Ya to celebrate a New Age religion, no different in spirit
>that "Jesus loves me, yes I know, because the bible (or in Wilber's case,
>mystic meditation) tells me so."
>
Let me try to but in hear and defend Wilber. First of all, let's get straight
what we mean by "irrationality"; properly speaking, irrationality is not a
possiblity until one has already reached, become habituated in, and mastered
rational cognition--perspectival reason, capable of abstract, logical
thinking, forming conceptual rules etc.; also, a rational person is capable of
reading a story allegorically/symbollically. that is, they can read between
the lines. now, someone who a rational being at the intellectual level deems
a person who is still stuck in literalism "irrational" is correct only in a
relative sense. it is more correct to say that the latter person is
pre-rational...they have simply not yet evolved to that level of cognition.
likewise, the rational person himself never totally cuts his ties to the lower
levels, and, as we all know, has fits of irrationality (but not
pre-rationality, because he has already transcended that level).
However, and most importantly, someone at the
rational/symbolic/intellectual level is at an even greater danger than someone
on the lower levels because he can act against them. Pirsig goes into great
detail about this, when he rips on nasty, lefty intellectuals who castigate
anything social, communal, traditional, normal, etc. so we might want to call
this, as Wilber does, a pathology of rationality; and furthermore, that the
more levels on which you move, the more ways you can get sick...so
irrationally is REALLY about one level trying to dominate the other levels.
So Platt, I was trying to show how the important difference between
pre-rational and irrational gets around your quip that "irrationality" does
not belong on the 4th level. it's not the primitive tribesman's fault that he
can't do long division, it is merely that the selection pressures forming his
consciousness don't push for that, nor should they. also, i want to point out
how the lower levels are not "stupid," merely at a lower of development.
Platt also wrote:
As for Wilber's 'post-rational thinking," that' s
>just pie-in-the-sky stuff where we all sit in a circle, hold hands and
>sing Kum By Ya to celebrate a New Age religion, no different in spirit
>that "Jesus loves me, yes I know, because the bible (or in Wilber's case,
>mystic meditation) tells me so."
Platt, I would like to know, on what grounds you are lambasting Wilber's
post-rational thinking? first of all, i think we should realize that, by
virtue of our discussion, we are already engaging in it, whether we admit it
or not. why? because we're abstracting another level, talking about the
limits of rationality itself. it other words, you're not only a subject
percieving an object, but a subject objectifying your own subjectivity
(respectively, monological reason and dialogical/dialectical reason, which are
both subsets of "perspectival reason").
Second, pirsig's whole project is really about post-rational thinking, as you
call it. we need to get something clear: post-rational does not mean
irrational, or contra-rational...all it means are experiences/modes of
thinking that are beyond the symolic/conceptual order of logical reasoning, in
which the limitation/partiality of those concepts is grasped (but NOT
negated!)...see, the virtue of post-rational thinking (what Wilber calls
network-logic, or integral-aperspectival) is that it recognizes that all the
levels have reasons of their own, and that all levels are important, but
limited, and of course, some are more limited than others. Of course, this is
exactly what pirsig's levels are all about.
as for your remark about wilber's post-rational thinking being a new age swan
song, your critique is not even levelled at the correct level of experience.
you meant to direct your diatribe at wilber's higher levels of experience,
psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual mysticism. these are what he calls
"trans-rational" levels, where it's about direct experience (DQ for us), not
about any abstraction or systematic reasoning, but beyond all such concepts.
this is the usual criticism of wilber, and it is deployed for the same reason
that wilber's books are still misplaced in the "new age", "self-help" sections
at bookstores. anyone who has read wilber even somewhat critically will be
familiar with his frequent and devastating attack on the frivility and vacuity
of New Age theorists...who sit in circles...singing kumbaya (ironically, the
humor in your comment tastes alot like the way he rips on them!).
but beneath all this is your obvious skepticism in the validity of mysticism.
why, on what grounds? see, the rational level becomes very hostile to levels
either above or below, which is one of the reasons we're stuck in a rut in
Iraq right now....
but i just wanted to get one point straight: it's not about "rationality vs.
irrationaly", but "pre-rationality, rationality, and transrationality", with
each of those levels having healhty and unhealthy manifestations.
thanks,
-Dave S.
-Dave
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