This post is about the chapter 7 Attuned to the Kosmos. I decided to make a post about this specific chapter a long while after I actually composed my notes because I think the chapter and the concept of validity claims in 4Q framework were among of the most powerful in the book.
In this chapter, Wilber introduces validity claims for each of the four quadrants: validity claim determines what constitutes “truthfulness” in each of the quadrants. In general, Wilber states that truth in the broadest sense means “being attuned with the real”. Poetic but not concrete, in any case makes sense to me.
Wilber describes the correspondence theory of truth which underlies concept of truth in the right hand or exterior quadrants (empirical maps of reality, “objective truth”):
“Most people take truth to mean representational truth. Simple mapping or simple correspondence. I make a statement or a proposition that refers to or represents something in the concrete world. For example, I might say, “It is raining outside.” Now we want to know if that is true or not. We want to know the validity or the “truth status” of that statement. So basically, we go and look outside. And if it is indeed raining, we say that the statement “It is raining outside” is a true statement. ”
This is the validity claim and and definition of truth is especially prevalent in the individual-exterior and its manifestations like the empirical sciences.
Individual-interior (upper-left quadrant)
When discussing interior quadrants Wilber introduces a different kind of validity claim. Wilber writes that because the territory that is mapped here is interior, and only way you can know other person’s interior is by communication, the question here is not so much whether map matches the objective territory but whether the mapmaker can be trusted. So the validity claim in the individual-interior is subjective truthfulness, sincerity, honesty, authenticity.
“Interior events are located in states of consciousness, not in objective states of affairs, and so you can’t empirically nail them down with simple location. As we saw, they are accessed with communication and interpretation, not with the monological gaze. “
I like these validity claims very much. I think they offer a richer picture to what is reality through the four quadrants. However, concerning the above argument specifically, I agree given interiors can be reached only through communication. But I think interiors can also be assessed through observation and empathy (“emphatetic resonance”) to some degree given that there is enough similarity in the background of the observer and the observed. In this case, the validity of claims depends upon the sincerity or authenticity of observed behavior, quality and reliability of interpretation and the degree to which the observer and observed share a common worldspace (background).
In the above line of argument, behavior could be understood as communication. In that case, I would have no beef with Wilber but I would add that in individual-interior validity of a claim depends of quality/reliability of interpretation in addition to sincerity or authenticity of the communication.
Wilber ties this to psychotherapy or “depth psychology” (in his own words) purpose of which is to help people interpret themselves more truthfully:
“Furthermore, and this is crucial, I might lie to myself. I might try to conceal aspects of my own depth from myself. I might do this intentionally, or I might do it “unconsciously.” But one way or another, I might misinterpret my own depth, I might lie about my own interior…. One way or another, I have misinterpreted my interior, I have distorted my depth. I have started calling anger “sadness.” And I carry this lie around with me. I cannot be truthful with myself because that would involve such great pain—to want to kill the father I love—so I would rather lie about the whole thing. And so this I do. My “shadow,” my “unconscious,” is now the locus of this lie, the focal point of this insincerity, the inner place that I hide from myself. “
I think this is very well put. I like this perspective to psychotherapy. I how objective or empirical truth of the external world is here compared to authenticity of the internal world.
Wilber points out that if somebody has misinterpreted his depth, he will misinterpret often depth in others (which will result in problems in interpersonal relations).
Collective-interior (lower left)
Wilber points out the importance of collective-interior to the individual-interior (individual-interior is inseparable from collective-interior):
“The crucial point is that the subjective world is situated in an intersubjective space, a cultural space, and it is this intersubjective space that allows the subjective space to arise in the first place. Without this cultural background, my own individual thoughts would have no meaning at all. I wouldn’t even have the tools to interpret my own thoughts to myself. In fact, I wouldn’t even have developed thoughts, I would be “wolf boy.” “
Wilber says the aim of the validity claim here is (intersubjective) mutual understanding. Wilber introduces the concept “cultural fit”:
“All of that is involved in this cultural fit, this background of common meaning and appropriateness and justness. I have been describing this background as if it were some sort of contract that you and I consciously form, like a social contract, and sometimes it is. Sometimes we simply reach mutual agreement about, for example, the voting age or the speed limit on the highway. That is part of cultural fit, of how we agree on rules and common meanings that allow us all to fit together.
But much of cultural fit is not a conscious contract; much of it is so deeply background that we hardly know it’s there. There are linguistic structures and cultural practices so deeply contextual that we are still trying to dig them up and understand them (one of Heidegger’s main themes). But the point is, wherever they come from, there is no escaping these intersubjective networks that allow the subjective space to develop in the first place!
… [cultural fit is about] Yes, justness, goodness, rightness. How do we reach the common good? What is right and appropriate for us, such that we can all inhabit the same cultural space with some sort of dignity and fairness? How do we arrange our subjective spaces so that they mesh in the common intersubjective space, the common worldspace, the common culture, upon which we have all depended for our own subjective being? This is not a matter of arranging objects in the space of simple location! It is a matter of arranging subjects in the collective interior space of culture. This is not simply truthfulness, and not simply the true, but the good. ”
So the validity claim in the collective-interior is justness (is an act just?), cultural fit (does X fit well to our collective culture?) and mutual understanding (to what degree we agree on this?). Collective-interior is about morals, ethics, laws, shared identity, values, common cultural background, shared worldviews, mutual understanding.
Collective-exterior (lower right)
Wilber writes that while upper right is exteriors of just individuals, the Lower Right is exteriors of systems. Validity claim here is “functional fit” – how well various holons fit together in the overall objective system. It is about systems theory.
Wilber writes why collective-interior cannot be reduced to study of collective-exterior by systems theory:
“So open any good book on systems theory and you will find nothing about ethical standards, intersubjective values, moral dispositions, mutual understanding, truthfulness, sincerity, depth, integrity, aesthetics, interpretation, hermeneutics, beauty, art, the sublime. Open any systems theory text and you will find none of that even mentioned. All you will find are the objective and exterior correlates of all of that. All you will find in systems theory are information bits scurrying through processing channels, and cybernetic feedback loops, and processes within processes of dynamic networks of monological representations, and nests within nests of endless processes, all of which have simple location, not in an individual, but in the social system and network of objective processes.
All of which is true! And all of which leaves out the interiors in their own terms, the actual lived experiences and values and lifeworlds—it honors the Right Hand of the collective, but completely devastates the Left Hand. ”
Wilber illustrates the difference between perspectives of collective interior and exterior by using Hopi Rain Dance as an example.
“The Lower-Left approach studies the community by becoming a participant observer, and attempts to understand it from within. Remember, the validity criteria in the Lower Left is mutual understanding. And this you attempt to do by becoming a participant observer. You enter the interior meaning of the community. And you understand this meaning only by understanding its cultural fit—by understanding what the meaning of the Dance is, based on how it fits into the vast background of cultural and linguistic meanings and practices. And the participant observer, the hermeneutic interpreter, might find that, as we said, the Dance is part of a sacred ritual with nature. That is its interior meaning, which you understand by immersing yourself in this cultural background, which will give you the common worldspace or common context against which you can now make adequate interpretations.
Now the standard systems scientist, or standard systems theorist, is not primarily interested in any of that, in any of the interior meaning. Rather, systems theory is interested in the function that the Dance performs in the overall social system. What the natives say this Dance means is not so important. What is really important is that the Dance is part of an objective social system, and this objective system in many ways determines what the individual participants are doing. The real function of the Dance is to provide autopoietic self-maintenance of the system. The Dance is thus part of the social system’s attempt to maintain its social integration, its functional fit. It provides a common ritual around which social cohesion is organized. And this can be determined by observing the Dance from an objective stance, an “empirical” or positivistic stance—objective and monological. You can even make a monological flow chart of it, which, believe me, is not how the natives experience the Dance at all! ”
Point here is that both approaches are OK, they enrich each other. What is found out by using interior (interpretation of intersubjective depth) and exterior (empirical-analytical) approaches correlate with each other.
Summary: validity claims
Wilber writes that approaches via each of the four quadrants and their validity claims gives rise to valid knowledge:
“All of these are valid forms of knowledge, because they are grounded in the realities of the four facets of every holon. And therefore all four of these truth claims can be redeemed, can be confirmed or rejected by a community of the adequate. They each have a different validity claim which carefully guides us, through checks and balances, on our knowledge quest. They are all falsifiable in their own domains, which means false claims can be dislodged by further evidence from that domain. (So let us gently ignore the claims of any one quadrant that it alone has the only falsifiable test there is, so it alone has the only truth worth knowing!) ”
It seems to me that “community of the adequate” which can confirm or reject claims in the four quadrants are: in individual-interior: I, in collective-interior: WE, in interior and collective exterior: one researcher or a community of researchers (scientific community)
The chapter ends with some poetic language about four faces of Spirit:
“And ultimately, these four truths are simply the four faces of Spirit as it shines in the manifest world. The validity claims are the ways that we connect to Spirit itself, ways that we attune ourselves to the Kosmos. As we said at the beginning of this discussion, the validity claims force us to confront reality; they curb our egoistic fantasies and self-centered ways; they demand evidence from the rest of the Kosmos; they force us outside of ourselves! They are the checks and balances in the Kosmic Constitution. “
This Wilbers spiritual view. I don’t know how much I am in agreement with that. In any case, I find the validity claims in the four quadrants very valuable (they can be thought as 4 faces of “truth”).