From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Tue May 06 2003 - 15:36:06 BST
Hi Steve,
: I can see Sam's "windbag" point. He commonly repeats the same idea within
: the same paragraph. But I would also urge Sam to read Wilber, anyway.
: He is less of a rhetorician than Pirsig, but more of a scholar.
:
I've been trying to discover (via Google) by what standards Wilber is assessed as a 'scholar'. One
biography is repeated in a number of places:
"Born in 1949 in Oklahoma City, Ken Wilber lived in many places during his school years, due to his
father being in the army. He completed high school in Lincoln, Nebraska, and started medicine at
Duke University. However, during his first year he lost all interest in pursuing a career in
science, and started to read in psychology and philosophy, both West and East. He went back to
Nebraska to study biochemistry, but after a few years dropped out of university to devote all his
time to studying his own curriculum and writing books. With eighteen books on spirituality and
science, and translations in twenty countries, Wilber is now the most translated academic author in
the United States. He is seen as an important representative of transpersonal psychology, which
emerged in the sixties from humanistic psychology, and which concerns itself explicitly with
spirituality. For the fundamental and pioneering nature of his insights, he has been called "the
Einstein of consciousness"."
In other words he doesn't seem to have ever finished a first degree, let alone anything higher. What
I've read of his work certainly confirms the impression of auto-didacticism (ie potentially
creative, but self-indulgent and repetitive). Doesn't seem like 'scholarship' to me. Also, the point
about being widely translated (even if it is true) doesn't equate to academic respect. I'd have
thought people like Chomsky, Rawls, Davidson, Pinker etc etc (just to think along philosophical
lines, let alone scientific ones) have more respect within the academic community. Doesn't saying
Wilber "dropped out of university to devote all his time to studying his own curriculum" translate
into "Wilber spends a long time staring at his own navel"?
(Of course, 'scholarship' is only a partial good, and lack of scholarship in itself is not a
problem. It's the Quality of the language and ideas that counts. I don't see Pirsig as a great
scholar either - but Pirsig talks sense, not nonsense, and, which is a related point, Pirsig,
especially in ZMM, comes across with great humility. The impression I get from Wilber is of a
monstrous ego, and all the praise seems suspiciously cult-like. Hey ho, I'm probably just being
philosophologically prejudiced!)
Sam
"Even to have expressed a false thought boldly and clearly is already to have gained a great deal."
Wittgenstein, 1948
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue May 06 2003 - 16:13:45 BST