Catallaxis

Integral Praxiology: Justification Considerations

Daniel O'Connor  |  Integral Ventures, LLC

Continued from Integral Praxiology: Integral Practices

How exactly does one justify the thesis that a specific set of perspectives, practices, and propositions, however counterfactual it may appear in people’s worldly action, is nevertheless always already essential for their worldly action and, therefore, represents an integral knowledge possessed by all people, regardless of the extent to which they realize it? Appeals to authority or popularity simply will not suffice, for they are logical fallacies of the highest order and ironically supportive of the thesis they might seek to quickly dismiss. Beyond the demonstrative justification of integral reconstruction itself—that which I express in the course of my writing—there are at least two additional approaches to justification worth considering.

Integral Praxiology: Integral Practices

Daniel O'Connor  |  Integral Ventures, LLC

Continued from Integral Praxiology: Integral Perspectives

Having thus clarified what essential perspectives must be pre-supposed by people in order for them to act in any situation, I now turn to the second portion of the inquiry concerned with the essential practices that constitute such action. If my interest was limited to framing an integral meta-theory with the capacity to describe human action in its many forms, then Triadic Quadratic Perspectivism would suffice. But the conditions that must be pre-supposed by people in order for them to act in any situation must be more than descriptive in nature, as descriptive conditions take as a given whatever it is that is animating this multi-perspectival action. Any theory of human action that merely describes action, regardless of how integral that description may be, falls short of its inherent potential if it does not also prescribe action that can guide people toward a direct, personal experience of that which has been so clearly described.

Integral Praxiology: Integral Perspectives

Daniel O'Connor  |  Integral Ventures, LLC

Continued from Integral Praxiology: Introduction

Inspired in part by Wilber’s (2007) recent proposals regarding Integral Perspectivism, my first proposal is to consider that action can only be understood from some perspective and that this leads to a worthwhile inquiry into what perspectives are possible and, furthermore, what perspectives are truly universal to all action. In other words, what perspectives must be pre-supposed by people in order for them to act in any situation?

The first part of my answer is based on my interpretation of Jürgen Habermas’s (1979, 1984, 1987, 1992) Formal Pragmatics, which is the core of his Theory of Communicative Action and his Critical Theory of Society. Habermas (1979, p. 1) introduced this research program as an effort “to identify and reconstruct the universal conditions of possible understanding. In other contexts one also speaks of ‘general presuppositions of communication,’ but I prefer to speak of general presuppositions of communicative action because I take the type of action aimed at reaching understanding to be fundamental. Thus I start from the assumption that other forms of social action—for example, conflict, competition, strategic action in general—are derivatives of action oriented toward reaching understanding. Furthermore, as language is the specific medium of understanding at the sociocultural stage of evolution, I want to go a step further and single out explicit speech actions from other forms of communicative action.”

Integral Praxiology: Introduction

Daniel O'Connor  |  Integral Ventures, LLC

Integral Praxiology is an inquiry into the possibility of an integral science of human action. My approach to the study of human action is a form of integral reconstruction. As a reconstruction, my intent is to clarify and formalize the tacit knowledge and intuitive competencies that must, logically, be pre-supposed by people in order for them to act in any situation. In other words, I am attempting to make theoretically explicit those pre-theoretical perspectives, practices, and propositions that appear, on very close examination, to be governing the actions of people in the full variety of worldly contexts. As a distinctively integral reconstruction, my intent is to acknowledge and integrate all the essential pre-conditions necessary for a theory of human action that honors the full potential of the human experience. Hence, I will attempt to demonstrate that these distinctively integral perspectives, practices, and propositions are themselves pre-supposed by people in all their actions, however unrealized their full human potential may be expressed in these actions, and therefore unavoidable elements of this theoretical reconstruction.

Hello Again

Daniel O'Connor  |  Integral Ventures, LLC

It's been a long hiatus here at Catallaxis due to some major personal and professional commitments of a more fundamental nature. I appreciate all the inquiries I've received over these countless months regarding if and when I might be returning. I've been reluctant to make any such commitments, though now I will say that I'm really looking forward to beginning regular writing in the coming months.

As a way of re-launching Catallaxis, I'll be publishing in the interim some fairly long articles that present a more complete version of the integral market theory I originally published in 2002 and again in 2005. In the past several weeks, I have enjoyed the first sustained opportunity to think and write in nearly five long years. It's been an indescribable pleasure to be able to finally outline the thesis in such a way that people might have the opportunity to grasp it as a whole, without having to wait for a full-length book that might never be completed.

Fair warning: I've written these articles in a dense, academic style in order to convey a huge thesis as concisely and rigorously as possible and also because they are first drafts of expanded articles, monographs really, that may eventually find their way into some lucky academic journal. For those with an interest in reading them, I recommend a steady supply of caffeine at the ready. For those who might just as well wait for the more accessible essays to come, please stay tuned.