Integral Review

A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal For New Thought, Research, and Praxis

Posts Tagged ‘ontology’

Becoming World Becoming: Embodied Practice in Psychology and Education

Ian J. Grand

Abstract: In the Integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and Haridas Chaudhuri, consciousness and knowing do not suffice. What is crucial is actual participation in the making of the world. Beyond transcendence, there is a creative emergence in historical time of new possibilities of being and becoming. When we meditate, or act in the world, or engage in other kinds of spiritual practices, we directly, concretely, change the ground of our being. We are changed in our bodies and we are changed in our interactions in the world. There is a creative spiral: changes in breath, changes in activity, become changes in consciousness. How we interact, do work, have feeling, changes us, as does our reflection upon them. The conditions, practices and tools of the historical era in which we live shape us as we shape them. What becomes important in practice is to learn tools and perspectives that expand our ability to participate in the making of the world.

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Integral Intelligence: A 21st Century Necessity

Anne Adams

Abstract: This article explores the critical role education plays in the attitudes, behaviors, results produced, and ultimately our every day experiences of our world. Integral education is introduced as a catalyst for transformation, moving our emphasis in education from gathering knowledge to growing consciousness. Expanding awareness provides a paradigm shift from epistemology to ontology, which would fundamentally alter where our attention is focused, from having and doing to being—providing an opening to directly experience ourselves as the creators of our reality.

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No Ontological Leaps: A Primer on Scientific Materialism

Christian de Quincey

Abstract: When the issue is intelligence in nature, arguments about whether science supports neo-Darwinian theory or intelligent design miss the point. The details of evolution or the structure of the brain are irrelevant because biology and neuroscience have nothing to say about consciousness. Science informs us only about the physical world. However, consciousness/mind/intelligence is non-physical, and no amount of evolution or complexity of purely physical processes could ever produce anything non-physical. There are no ontological jumps. You don’t get something from nothing—or, more precisely, you don’t get “no-thing” from anything. How, then, do we account for the fact that consciousness exists in an otherwise physical universe? It all comes down to our basic metaphysical beliefs.

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Advaita (Non-dualism) as Metatheory: A Constellation of Ontology, Epistemology, and Praxis

Latha Poonamallee

Abstract: Integrating contradictory and mutually exclusive positions is a challenge in building a metatheory. In this paper, I examine how advaita (non-dualism) philosophy is a metatheory. Based on a holistic, non-dualistic ontology, discovery based epistemology, and personal accountability-action-reflection oriented praxis, it provides a useful metatheory for embracing, learning from, and transcending the paradoxes of social life. I use the example of Gandhi as a practitioner of this approach to action and knowledge.

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