Hi David!
DMB:
Whenever social
level views are contradicted by intellectual level views, the 4th level has
to win out. Here's a brief explanation. Roger, I'd like to know what you
think of this...
Galileo's critic was arguing from a position where natural philosophy and
theology were integrated into a wholistic worldview. (Christian theology had
been wedded to Aristotelian physics in the age of Scholasticism.) Galileo's
discoveries helped to begin the differentiation of these realms or domains.
And that is what the Enlightenment project was all about. In spite of the
defect, which is a matter of taking this differentiation process too far so
that science become totally divorced from moral, the Enlightenment project
definately produced an improvement. Fixing this defect means reintegrating
these realms so that there is no contradiction, it means reintegrating these
realms back into a wholistic view, but now at a higher level. And this
higher level will no only explain the world better, it will be more moral.
Not only does science need to recognize values and purpose, but religion has
to become more rational and reasonable. I think that Pirsig is trying to do
this in his attempt to integrate mysticism into empiricism and Wilber is
trying to do this with a kind of science of spirituality.
ROG:
I agree wholeheartedly with the goal of reintegration and the elimination of
contradictions with these two levels. As you know, I enjoy Wilber too.
As one very minor quibble, I am not sure that I would agree that the
intellectual level should always win over the social when contradictions
arise between levels. Certainly GOOD intellectual patterns should prevail.
The question though is whether the pattern in question is indeed one of
quality or not. A lot of damage has been done with bad ideas that seemed good
at the time. I would say though that intellectual methodology should be
preferred over social/authoritarian/dogmatic/myth-based methods. Does this
make sense? (this focus on the method rather than the patterns comes out
noticeably in my differences from Wim in the 9 month "IS SOCIETY MAKING
PROGRESS?" thread)
Rog
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