Mark wrote: >The critique of Wilber's work is in a book called: "Ken Wilber in Dialogue -- Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers" by Rothberg and Kelly; 1998; Quest Books; ISBN: 0-8356-0766-6 Wilber's latest works take into positive consideration the criticisms and observations that were made in "Dialogue".>
Tho this may become extraneous to the work of the list, I want to respond. I've been studying with Jurgen Kremer, one of the scholars from the ReVision magazine series which became that book; he's the scholar whom Rothberg and Kelly noted as having the most sustained unresolved disagreements with Wilber. Among the critiques is that Wilber's intention, a true intercultural synthesis of human knowledge, is best produced through real dialogue among people with different worldviews, rather than through one brilliant and limited man's interpretation of those different worldviews. Before he pronounces a theory and history of everything, he has to talk to more people. Wilber seems too steeped in the 19th century evolutionary thinking which influenced important spiritual-evolutionary scholars like Aurobindo. Tho he once embraced Habermas as his favorite contemporary philosopher, I think Habermas offers a critique of the usefulness of his developmental-stages framework for the purposes of intercultural understanding. And, Wilber has not engaged indigenous scientists sufficiently to grasp the implications for his models - his models would have to change, in my opinion. Because Wilber does not seem to honor his own ancestry or the lifeplace where he lives, I fear he overlooks their importance. He seems to try to fit real life into his models in a way that degrades the specificity of cultures and lifeplaces. For example, to say that the holon Hawaii is enriched through its participation in the larger holon United States is to me a clumsy justification for empire. I'd like to hear Hawaiian sovereignty leaders exchange with him about their situation. When I read Vine Deloria's book God Is Red; Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel; and James Clifford's book Routes: Travel and Translation in the 20th Century - especially the final essay "Fort Ross Meditation" - I find sharp critique of such (capital-H) History as Wilber writes. I have not read his most recent works and would be happy to find him responding to such critiques. A project like the United Religions Initiative, which brings widespread networks from different religions together into self-organizing dialogue, seems to honor the difficulty of the work of actually generating intercultural exchange. I want to bring Wilber and several indigenous scholars and URI participants together in a long Open Space process to hear what they say in the closing circle. * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html =========================================================== osl...@egroups.com To subscribe, 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign up -- provide an email address, and choose a login ID and password 3. Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions To unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@egroups.com: 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign in and Proceed