A smorgasbord of universal human knowledge

Ken Wilber is one of the interesting living American philosophers. He is very different from the British Analytical philosophers on whom I cut my teeth. For starters Wilber is not an academic. He is not attached to any university having dropped out after his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology. He reads extremely widely and at age 24 wrote his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness in which he sought to integrate knowledge from various, disparate fields. This has remained his broad goal in everything he has subsequently written (many books and articles) and done (he formed The Integral Institute in Denver, Colorado). The Integral Institute seeks to identify and understand the “moments of truth” and insights of many disciplines, East and West, and to weave these partial truths into an integrated vision of reality.

So, for example, his Brief History of Everything tries to integrate the partial visions of specialists into a new understanding of the meaning and significance of life (no small task!). His book A Theory of Everything seeks to present an integration of Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality. And his book, The Marriage of Sense and Soul strives to reconcile religion and science.

Here are a few of his insights.

First insight: our modern era has successfully differentiated the three major spheres of knowledge (art, morals and science), thus giving us freedom from religious, cultural and political oppression. Pre-modern society did not make this distinction. Consequently, Galileo had the Church censoring his scientific experiments and forcing him to change his tune on pain of death. And Michelangelo was in constant conflict with Pope Julius II about the types of figures he was allowed to represent in his art.

Today the dignity of modernity means that artistic expression is separate from the control of either morality or science. Art has its own rules of excellence. So, too, the field of morality and ethics. Questions of what is the right thing to do are decided by reasoned discussion and dialogue in each culture and society rather than imposed by any ecclesiastical or political institution. Similarly, scientific research takes place according to the methodologies decided by scientists – not by anyone else. 

The early Greeks, always worth consulting, got it right in talking about the Good, the True and the Beautiful, each sphere having its own language of discourse. Beauty (art, individual expression, contemplation) uses “I” language, it is the subjective domain with beauty in the “I” of the beholder. The Good, ethics, uses “we” language; it is part of the inter-subjective domain, of collective interaction and social awareness and justice. Truth, in the sense of objective, scientific truth is described in “it” language. Your brain and your cells are “its” whereas you are a unique “I”.

Second insight: the modern era has also dissociated the knowledge spheres of art, ethics and science; and science has colonised the other two. Wilber calls this the disaster of modernity. He wishes to accept the differentiation and integrate the three spheres of human reality; and he argues strongly against the move to totally dissociate the three, especially when science claims its truth is the sole one.

Like most modern philosophers Wilber is pro-science and wants to integrate its many truths in his vision of reality. However, he also gives full status to each individual’s interior life and argues strongly for our subjectivity and experiences of transcendence as being a valid source of knowledge. Also, morals and ethics are decided by communities and science has nothing to offer in this area of human knowledge because morality has its own legitimate methodology separate from that of science.

The bottom line is this: science is king in its own sphere – it is the only legitimate way of getting at the truth about the objective universe. And morality and ethics are correctly debated and decided by communities’ leaders, political/intellectual/legal, to discover the best way for them to conduct communal affairs equitably for all. Thirdly, artistic judgement and personal meditation have their own reasoned rules – usually encouraging people to act according to the rules if they want to know what is claimed by those who experience this sphere through the eye of contemplation.

Third insight: a universal spirituality requires that both science and religion give up a little. Our modern, current experience may well include deep, direct spiritual union with what we regard as the divine; God, Allah, Yahweh, The Absolute etc. This subjective experience cannot be pushed aside nor overridden by science.

However, pre-modern mythology must be given up if religion is to make sense to modern and post-modern cultures like ours. Moses did not part the Red Sea and Jesus was not borne by a biological virgin. Those claims in the light of scientific knowledge are bogus, and don’t do religion any good. Similarly, science must give up any pretence that the material universe that it deals with is the only reality there is. The spiritual knowledge obtained by direct experience rather than by dogmatic proclamation is an area of human knowledge that can be investigated and the evidence assessed.

Look, Wilber is not an easy cookie! He takes quite a bit of digesting, and as is probably obvious from my attempt to distil some of his essence, swallowing his thoughts is not without effort! But he does provide us with a stimulating smorgasbord of the True, the Good and the Beautiful and his challenge is that we try to experience the universe in all its richness rather than as a monochromatic flatland!