An Integral Perspective, Part 1

Introduction to integral theory and quadrants

I’d like to introduce a conceptual framework called integral theory I’ve found useful making sense of life and was primarily developed by Ken Wilber starting in the 1970s.

In a nutshell, it attempts to synthesize all human disciplines across culture and history into a meta-theory of sorts, though I’ve also heard it explained as a way to bridge spirituality and science.

Religion and science have only been distinct fields at odds somewhat recently (in the past century or two). Before then, they were more connected though that is perhaps another story for another time.

Let’s begin with outlining the key elements of integral theory with a brief note for each:

• Quadrants - analyzing human disciplines by perspective

• Levels (or Stages) - the developmental dimension, or “growing up”

• Lines - techne, savoir faire, or know-how. The dimension of skill development.

• States - the “waking up” aspect of experience — sleeping, waking, dreaming, etc.

• Types - the dimension of category — everything from MBTI, Big Five, Enneagram, astrology or a Harry Potter personality quiz.

In this piece, I’ll address quadrants.

Quadrants refer to different perspectives of reality. 

Source: https://www.dailyevolver.com/theory/

On the horizontal axis there’s interior versus exterior. Vertically, there’s individual versus collective.

Here's a shorthand way to remember this:

• I -- individual, interior -- upper left quadrant - subjective

• it -- individual, exterior -- upper right quadrant - objective

• we -- collective, interior -- lower left quadrant - intersubjective

• its -- collective, exterior -- lower right quadrant - interobjective

And here are some examples of different fields that track with each of the quadrants:

• Upper left -- meditation, phenomenology, psychotherapy, literature

• Upper right -- “hard sciences” -- physics, chemistry, biology

• Lower left -- cultural studies -- shared values, language, worldviews

• Lower right -- systems -- networks, natural environment, technology, governments

Now, for a practical question. How is this at all useful?

Wilber observed a phenomenon called “quadrant absolutism” where a champion of one particular field claimed sole possession of the truth and would cast aspersions on disciplines from different quadrants. This is one potential explanation for the rift between science and religion. Instead, Wilber contends that every discipline has something to contribute.

As an aside, it is indeed strange to live in a world where one has to claim whether one “believes” in science when the purported aim of science was to subtract belief effects in the pursuit of discovering what is “real.”

On the other hand, science is conducted by humans and institutions each with their own agendas, motivations, biases and incentives. History has indeed demonstrated their fallibility and is in the midst of a replication crisis, where reproducibility underpins the scientific credibility of experimental findings. Simply being aware of all our manifold cognitive biases (e.g. the quadrant absolutism mentioned above, though I doubt it would be found in any list), while necessary, is insufficient in arresting their influence. This is to say nothing of malicious or deceptive intent on top of that, like the example of the sugar lobby’s influence on science in the 1960’s.

Wrapping up, I would say the framework of quadrants has and continues to facilitate openness to differing perspectives and contributes to a heightened capacity for empathy. In a way, it is like a grammar for empathy.

May it do the same for you.

Part 2 can be found here.