Integral Praxiology: A Primer

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.

Integral Praxiology, therefore, represents an attempt to make theoretically explicit those pre-theoretical perspectives, practices, and propositions that appear to be governing the actions of people in their efforts to realize their full potential in real-world situations. In pursuing this line of inquiry, I gratefully incorporate and, where necessary, reformulate the extraordinary insights of three primary theorists—Ken Wilber, Jürgen Habermas, and Chris Argyris—and a host of secondary theorists whose collective body of work already delivers most of what one might wish to discover through such an inquiry. Thus, in my preliminary efforts to frame an integral science of human action that is as realistic as it is idealistic and as fallibilistic as it is humanistic, with a pragmatic focus on how people can, should, and already do act in the world, my contribution may be little more than a clarification of my own particular vision of integral philosophy. Nevertheless, the novelty of this vision and its demonstrated capacity to re-interpret and re-focus established views within the field of integral philosophy should justify the effort required of the reader.

Beginning with the self-evident reality of human action—that people act—the question arises as to the ideal conditions that must be pre-supposed by people in order for them to act in any situation. Is it possible to articulate any fundamental pre-suppositions of human action that can withstand our efforts to invalidate them, through logic as well as direct experience, and at least approach a believable universality?

Integral Perspectives

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.”

As a theory of language use, Formal Pragmatics is rooted in part in the pioneering work of Karl Bühler, who developed a model of language functions that positions the linguistic expression in simultaneous relations to the speaker, the hearer, and the world, thereby framing three distinct functions fulfilled by every linguistic expression: expression, appeal, and representation. (Figure 1) (Habermas, 1992, p. 57)

As Habermas (1992, p. 58) interprets Bühler’s theory, “language represents a medium… that simultaneously serves three different, although internally related, functions. Expressions that are employed communicatively serve to express the intentions (or experiences) of a speaker, to represent states of affairs (or something the speaker encounters in the world), and to establish relations with an addressee. The three aspects of a speaker coming to an understanding with another person about something are reflected therein.” Building on this triadic model of language functions, particularly via the speech act theory of Karl-Otto Apel, Habermas (1979) proposes that all communicative actions either explicitly or implicitly raise and redeem three validity claims that correspond with three domains of reality, or three worlds, to which the action relates as well as three performative attitudes, or modes of communication, that can be adopted by the actor.

With regard to validity claims, an actor “claims truth for a stated propositional content or for the existential presuppositions of a mentioned propositional content. He claims rightness (or appropriateness) for norms (or values), which, in a given context, justify an interpersonal relation that is to be performatively established. Finally, he claims truthfulness for the intentions expressed.” (Habermas, 1979, pp. 65-6) Language is thus fundamental to Habermas’s view of human action not so much because of what is said with language but because the use of language itself raises these validity claims and structures the domains of reality to which actors relate as well as the performative attitudes they can adopt with every action. As he (1979, p. 67) sees it, “language can be conceived as the medium of interrelating three worlds; for every successful communicative action there exists a threefold relation between the utterance and (a) ‘the external world’ as the totality of existing states of affairs, (b) ‘our social world’ as the totality of all normatively regulated interpersonal relations that count as legitimate in a given society, and (c) ‘a particular inner world’ (of the speaker) as the totality of his intentional experiences. We can examine every utterance to see whether it is true or untrue, justified or unjustified, truthful or untruthful because in speech, no matter what the emphasis, grammatical sentences are embedded in relations to reality in such a way that in an acceptable speech action segments of external nature, society, and internal nature always come into appearance together.” Similarly, with regard to performative attitudes, “language is the medium through which speakers and hearers realize certain fundamental demarcations. The subject demarcates himself: (1) from an environment that he objectifies in the third-person attitude of an observer; (2) from an environment that he conforms to or deviates from in the ego-alter [second-person] attitude of a participant; (3) from his own subjectivity that he expresses or conceals in a first-person attitude; and finally (4) from the medium of language itself.” (Habermas, 1979, p. 66) Habermas (1979, p. 67) regards the medium of language itself not as a fourth performative attitude nor as a fourth domain of reality comparable to the first three, but as a “special region; precisely because language… remains in a peculiar half-transcendence in the performance of our communicative actions…, it presents itself to the speaker and the actor (pre-consciously) as a segment of reality sui generis.”

Action, therefore, may be understood in terms of the three validity claims it raises or redeems—truthfulness, rightness, truth—the three validity domains to which it unavoidably and irreducibly relates—one’s inner world, our social world, the external world—and the three performative attitudes that can be adopted by the actor—expressive-participant, normative-participant, objectivating-observer. The three perspectives thus represented by each set of action interpretations are the first-person, second-person, and third-person perspectives that co-arise in every actor’s awareness and find immediate expression in the system of personal pronouns at the pre-conscious root of language itself.

Continuing the present line of inquiry, what other perspectives must be pre-supposed by people in order for them to act in any situation? The second part of my answer is based on my interpretation of Ken Wilber’s AQAL Integral Theory (2000b; 2000c; 2000d; 2000e; 2007), an unusually multi-disciplinary meta-theory in which he proposes that the development and evolution of human consciousness and in fact all of existence can be understood through four interdependent, irreducible perspectives: the intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social. By his own account, Wilber (2000d, p. 373) “examined over 200 developmental sequences recognized by various branches of human knowledge—ranging from stellar physics to molecular biology, anthropology to linguistics, developmental psychology to ethical orientations, cultural hermeneutics to contemplative endeavors—taken from both Eastern and Western disciplines, and including premodern, modern, and postmodern sources.” Through an inductive rather than deductive approach, he “noticed that these various developmental sequences all fell into one of four major classes—the four quadrants—and, further, that within those four quadrants there was substantial agreement as to the various stages or levels in each.” Wilber’s (2000d, p. 374) reference to “quadrants” is due to the particular graphical illustration, a two-by-two matrix, he consistently uses to depict these four perspectives on the many levels of existence, with intentional being upper left, or UL, behavioral being upper right, or UR, cultural being lower left, or LL, and social being lower right, or LR. (Figure 2)

This spacial arrangement of the quadrants reveals the underlying logic that gives Wilber’s model its considerable explanatory power. From upper to lower, the intentional and behavioral are both individual perspectives that focus on the development and evolution of individuals, while the cultural and social are both collective perspectives that focus on the development and evolution of collectives comprised of individuals. From left to right, the intentional and cultural are both interior perspectives that focus on the subjectively experienced aspects of development and evolution, while the behavioral and social are both exterior perspectives that focus on the objectively experienced aspects of development and evolution. Thus, each quadrant can be characterized not only as it’s own unique perspective on existence, but also as a pair of secondary perspectives, each of which is shared with one of its adjacent quadrants: intentional being the individual-interior of existence, behavioral being the individual-exterior of existence, cultural being the collective-interior of existence, and social being the collective-exterior of existence.

These logical connections between the quadrants, based on the underlying shared perspectives within each, lead to the most insightful and provocative aspect of Wilber’s theory: the correlations across all quadrants at each level of existence. Not only does Wilber infer an emerging consensus regarding the nature and sequence of levels within each quadrant of developmental and evolutionary theory, but he also infers a strong correlation among these sequences of levels across all quadrants such that each level within one quadrant has direct correlates in all the other quadrants. He therefore hypothesizes a mutual-causal correspondence among all the quadrants at each level of existence, indeed at each moment of existence, such that every occasion manifests as, and can be understood in terms of, its interdependent intentional-behavioral-cultural-social aspects. This forms the basis of an all-quadrant, all-level meta-theory—AQAL Integral Theory—with proposed quasi-universal applicability to every field of theoretical endeavor. (Wilber, 2000d; 2000e; 2007)

Wilber (2000b; 2007) has also incorporated into his AQAL Integral Theory additional components addressing the multiple lines of psychological processing (e.g., cognitive, moral, affective), multiple states of consciousness (e.g., gross, subtle, causal, nondual), and multiple types of personality (e.g., masculine/feminine), all three of which appear to apply primarily, if not entirely, within the realm of human consciousness, in contrast to the rest of existence. In my interpretation, the quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types each represent a particular kind of multi-perspectival frame of reference for human action and therefore each has a place in Integral Praxiology. That said, my primary concern is with Wilber’s quadrants, so I will propose that unless specifically drawn out for consideration in this article, these additional multi-perspectival frames of reference are implied in the quadrants, like so many additional dimensions are implied in four-dimensional space-time.

Action, therefore, may be understood in terms of four interdependent and irreducible perspectives—intentional, behavioral, cultural, social—each of which represents a pair of constituent perspectives that form a secondary set of four interdependent and irreducible perspectives—individual, collective, interior, exterior.

The question now arises regarding the precise relationship between Wilber’s quadratic perspectives and Habermas’s triadic perspectives. Wilber (2000b, 2000c; 2000d; 2000e; 2007) considers them to be one and the same, with the first-person perspective being identical to the intentional perspective (which he labels with the pronoun I in the UL quadrant) the second-person perspective being identical to the cultural perspective (which he labels with the pronoun We in the LL quadrant, sometimes after explaining that it is intended to represent the relationship between I and You), and the third-person perspective being identical to the combined behavioral and social perspectives (which he labels with the pronouns It in the UR quadrant and Its in the LR quadrant). Wilber (2000d, p. 380; 2000e, p. 430) also incorporates Habermas’s triadic validity claims into the same corresponding quadrants, with truthfulness in the intentional-UL, rightness in the cultural-LL, truth in the behavioral-UR, and a fourth claim to functional fit in the social-LR.(1) From his first publication of the Quadrant Model in 1995 (2000c) to his latest publication in 2007, he has consistently used the two models interchangably, sometimes as the Quadrants, sometimes as the I, We, and It, sometimes as the Beautiful, Good, and True, and sometimes as the 123 of Consciousness Studies. In every instance, the correspondence between the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives and the UL, LL, and UR-LR quadrants, respectively, is exactly the same. Moreover, his definitions of each quadrant and his examples of the theories that each quadrant frames and the phenomena that each quadrant reveals are fused with his understanding of the corresponding definitions, theories, and phenomena framed by the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives, informed as it certainly is by his extensive study of such triadic theorists as Habermas and Kant. All this is just as it should be if one interprets these two meta-perspectives as one and the same.

However, I interpret Habermas’s triadic perspectives and Wilber’s quadratic perspectives as two entirely different, yet nevertheless tightly integrated, multi-perspectival frames of reference for human action. As I see it, each of the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives has within it all four intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social perspectives, which are experienced or understood by each one of us from within each of the three personal perspectives we use to frame our actions in our worlds. The easiest way to understand this is to recognize that the system of personal pronouns that represents the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives includes singular and plural pronouns as well as subjective and objective pronouns for each of the three personal perspectives. These four types of pronouns—singular and plural, subjective and objective—correspond perfectly with the four secondary perspectives in Wilber’s quadratic model—individual and collective, interior and exterior. Moreover, just as each of Wilber’s quadratic perspectives is comprised of a unique pairing of these secondary perspectives, so too are the specific pronouns comprised of their own unique pairings of singular-subjective, singular-objective, plural-subjective, and plural-objective. Therefore, each of the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives is its own quadratic perspective represented by what I refer to as a Quadratic Pronoun that perfectly tracks the intentional-behavioral-cultural-social aspects of each personal perspective. Finally, just as both the triadic perspectives and the quadratic perspectives are interdependent and irreducible in their own separate ways, the integration of the two models as just described produces a single set of interdependent and irreducible Triadic Quadratic Perspectives. (See Figure 3)

Action, therefore, may be understood in terms of three interdependent and irreducible perspectives—first-person, second-person, third-person—each of which includes four constituent interdependent and irreducible perspectives—intentional, behavioral, cultural, social—all of which are experienced intrapersonally, interpersonally, and impersonally from within each of the actor’s three distinct personal perspectives, thus forming a set of Triadic Quadratic Perspectives that co-arise in every actor’s awareness and find immediate expression in the system of Triadic Quadratic Pronouns at the pre-conscious root of language itself.

The Triadic Quadratic Pronoun and the approach to Integral Perspectivism it represents did indeed arise in my own direct awareness, not in the first instance as an effort in meta-theory construction, but in response to a process of self-inquiry into the specific perspectives that I was already taking in my moment-to-moment awareness. I simply paid close attention to what I was seeing, thinking, and speaking, and asked myself what perspective it implied and how this perspective related to all the others. As the answers became clear, the whole meta-pattern formed rather quickly. As a secondary process, I have attempted to explicate some of the implicit rules or design principles I am discovering in this meta-pattern. At the risk of digressing, I will nevertheless outline some of my hypotheses regarding rules that appear to be universally operative in order to convey the non-arbitrary nature of the model just presented and preclude any immediate misinterpretations:

• All Quadratic Pronouns are comprised of an internally consistent set of singular-subjective, singular-objective, plural-subjective, and plural-objective pronouns corresponding, respectively, with the intentional-UL, behavioral-UR, cultural-LL, and social-LR perspectives. All Triadic Quadratic Pronouns are comprised of an internally consistent set of first-person, second-person, and third-person Quadratic Pronouns.
• The use of any particular pronoun (or noun) in thought or communication always implies three other pronouns that constitute the specific Quadratic Pronoun and eight additional pronouns that constitute the remainder of the specific Triadic Quadratic Pronoun already operative in the action situation. Some formulation of Triadic Quadratic Pronouns is always already operative in the action situation. It is not that you must construct it as such; it is already here, right now, in your own active awareness.
• The first-person perspective represented at the center of the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives is always the person who is taking the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives and this first-person is always represented in the intentional-UL and behavioral-UR by the singular-subjective and singular-objective pronouns I-Me (e.g., the I-Me at the center of my applications of this model refers to the real I-Me at the center of my own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives). Likewise, the first-person perspective is always represented in the cultural-LL and social-LR by first-person plural-subjective and plural-objective pronouns (e.g., I-Me is always associated with We-Us and never associated with a plural You-You, They-Them, or These-Those).
• The second-person perspective is always represented in the intentional-UL and behavioral-UR by second-person singular-subjective and singular-objective pronouns (e.g., singular You-You). However, the second-person perspective can be represented in the cultural-LL and social-LR by either the standard second-person plural-subjective and plural-objective (e.g., plural You-You, or Y’all-Y’all) or a first-person plural-subjective and plural-objective (e.g., We-Us, as for example when I am discussing my relationship with You and We are both focused on our two reciprocal perspectives on We-Us).
• The third-person perspective is always represented in the intentional-UL and behavioral-UR by third-person singular-subjective and singular-objective pronouns (e.g., She-Her, He-Him, It-It). However, the third-person perspective can be represented in the cultural-LL and social-LR by either the standard third-person plural-subjective and plural-objective (e.g., They-Them, These-Those), a second-person plural-subjective and plural-objective (e.g., plural You-You, as for example when I am discussing with You your relationship with Him or Her and therefore the plural You-You could be used in the cultural-LL and social-LR of both the second- and third-person), or a first-person plural-subjective and plural-objective (e.g., We-Us, as for example when I am discussing with You my relationship with Him or Her, which may or may not include singular You, so the second-person in this example could also be the same We-Us inclusive of the third-person or the standard You-You).
• Subjective and objective pronouns used side-by-side (e.g., intentional-UL and behavioral-UR or cultural-LL and social-LR) in any particular Quadratic Pronoun are always matching in terms of either singular or plural. They are also always matching in terms of either first-person, second-person, or third-person (e.g., I is never paired with It, We is never paired with Them), and, within third-person, they are always matching in terms of either gender (e.g., She-Her, He-Him) or personal/nonpersonal (e.g., We is never paired with It, only with Us).
• There is another type of Quadratic Pronoun comprised of indefinite pronouns, which still form internally consistent patterns of singular-subjective, singular-objective, plural-subjective, and plural-objective (e.g., anyone-anyone-everyone-everyone; anything-anything-everything-everything; one-one-many-many). The precise relationship between the Indefinite Quadratic Pronoun and the Triadic Quadratic Pronoun remains uncertain, though it does appear that one might find it expedient to use the Indefinite in place of the Triadic when one desires a less complicated application for which one might therefore avoid any undesirable accountability for one’s actions. Actually, I suspect the Indefinite Quadratic Pronoun has a particular place in Integral Praxiology that will be clarified in the forthcoming expanded version of this article.
• Reflexive pronouns are operative in the singular and plural halves of all three Quadratic Pronouns (and the Indefinite Quadratic Pronoun), as they are the means by which I make reference to I-Me as Myself, literally acting reflexively, and the means by which I attribute the capacity for reflexive action to others (e.g., Yourself, Himself, Herself, Ourselves, Yourselves, Themselves).
• Possessive pronouns and their fraternal twins, the possessive adjectives, are operative in the singular and plural halves of all three Quadratic Pronouns (and the Indefinite Quadratic Pronoun), as they are the means by which I act possessively, laying claim for myself and on behalf of others, to the specific content framed by each of the twelve perspectives (e.g., My intention is Mine, as is My behavior; Our relationship is Ours to explore; Your feelings are Yours to express; Her story is Hers alone; They have Their own problems that are Theirs to deal with; etc.). More interesting still, the first-person singular possessive pronoun and possessive adjective, Mine and My, are a means by which I can act possessively with regard to all the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, which are, in a sense, Mine as they have clearly arisen in My awareness.

Given this formal presentation of the basic features of Triadic Quadratic Perspectivism, it bears emphasizing that anyone reading this article is already fully capable of following these rules, for the most part pre-consciously, as a necessary pre-condition for taking all these perspectives, for the most part quite consciously. Moreover, this is just the most basic form of the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives. For within each of the second-person and third-person perspectives, there is a derivative Triadic Quadratic Perspective owing to the fact that whomever is acknowledged as a second-person or third-person in relation to some first-person is a person in his or her own right and therefore the center of his or her own unique Triadic Quadratic Perspectives.(2)  (Figure 4)

Thus, in relating to you within my second-person perspective, I acknowledge that you are your own center of consciousness and therefore possessor or your own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, the first-person of which is you, whom you obviously experience as an I, the second-person of which includes, for the moment, me, whom you obviously regard as a you, and the third-person of which includes any third-persons to whom, or to which, you are referring. In my efforts to understand you and to help you understand me, I will have to pay attention to these derivative perspectives, just as you will have to pay attention to my Triadic Quadratic Perspectives as derivative aspects of the second-person perspective in which you regard me. Likewise, in referring to some third-person, such as her, I acknowledge that she is her own center of consciousness and therefore possessor of her own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, the first-person of which is her, whom she obviously experiences as an I, the second-person of which may include, but certainly need not necessarily include, you or some other second-person, and the third-person of which includes any third-persons to whom, or to which, she is referring.

It is in this second derivative of the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives that the distinctions between each of the triadic perspectives with regard to all of the quadratic perspectives can be briefly explored. From within the first-person perspective, action can be understood personally in terms of:

• the intentional or subjective I, which is experienced personally as the root of consciousness and source of my own actions—consistent with Wilber’s (2000b, p. 465) proximate self;
• the behavioral or objective me, which is experienced personally as the expression of my actions as seen by the I reflexively coordinating my behavior in relation to my intention—consistent with Wilber’s (2000b, p. 465) distal self;
• the cultural or intersubjective we, which is experienced personally as the meaningful context of shared identity established through a lifetime of enculturation and engaged by the I often to justify action or diffuse responsibility; and
• the social or interobjective us, which is experienced personally as the functional context of shared conduct established through a lifetime of socialization and often referenced in relation to the behavior of me or reflexively in relation to the culture of we.

From within the second-person perspective, action can be understood interpersonally by:

• attributing to other persons the same general quadratic perspectives as, for them, personally experienced facets of their own first-person world, interpersonally experienced facets of their own second-person world, and impersonally experienced facets of their own third-person world;
• engaging and interpreting the specific content of the second-person Triadic Quadratic Perspectives; and
• receiving feedback and learning about one’s own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, which are expressed and experienced as one participates interpersonally.

From within the third-person perspective, action can be understood impersonally by:

• attributing to other persons the same general quadratic perspectives as, for them, personally experienced facets of their own first-person world, interpersonally experienced facets of their own second-person world, and impersonally experienced facets of their own third-person world;
• observing and drawing inferences about the specific content of the third-person Triadic Quadratic Perspectives; and
• reflecting and learning about one’s own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, which are expressed and experienced as one observes and infers impersonally.(3)

Therefore, all four quadratic perspectives on action are understood:

• personally within the first-person perspective (e.g., expressed and reflected);
• interpersonally within the second-person perspective (e.g., engaged and interpreted); and
• impersonally within the third-person perspective (e.g., observed and inferred).

The Triadic Quadratic Perspectives seamlessly integrate the observational perspective on the quadratic world represented by the system of third-person pronouns with the participatory perspectives within the quadratic world represented by the systems of both second-person and first-person pronouns. The most important shift of mind necessary to understand Triadic Quadratic Perspectivism is the continuous shifting of mind through observational and participatory perspectives while engaged in action oriented toward mutual understanding, partaking of the breadth of the whole quadratic world, while simultaneously taking part in the depths of the whole quadratic world.(4) Although Habermas (1990, pp. 296-7) does not conceive of the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, he does emphasize that “fundamental to the paradigm of mutual understanding is… the performative attitude of participants in interaction, who coordinate their plans for action by coming to an understanding about something in the world. When ego carries out a speech act and alter takes up a position with regard to it, the two parties enter into an interpersonal relationship. The latter is structured by the system of reciprocally interlocked perspectives among speakers, hearers, and nonparticipants who happen to be present at the time. On the level of grammar, this corresponds to the system of personal pronouns. Whoever has been trained in this system has learned how, in the performative attitude, to take up and to transform into one another the perspectives of the first, second, and third persons.”

Once again, the formal explication of performative rules belies the tacit knowledge of such rules that many of us reveal whenever we make a concerted effort to understand one another or reflect on the difficulties we have understanding people with very different ways of seeing themselves and their worlds. It should come as no surprise now that each of the new second-person and third-person perspectives just derived within each of the second-person and third-person perspectives of the original, that is to say, my Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, can be further differentiated into their own unique Triadic Quadratic Perspectives owing to the fact that each person just referenced is a unique center of consciousness. These derivatives may seem unduly complex, but they include such believable examples as my understanding of your understanding of his understanding of me (which could very easily be initiated when I ask you “what does he think of me?”) and my understanding of her understanding of his understanding of her (which might be my account of a conversation I had with a woman who told me how her husband feels about her choice of career).

And so it continues, with every second-person and third-person perspective being potentially differentiated into yet another unique set of Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, simultaneously deepening and broadening the experience framed within the one original set of Triadic Quadratic Perspectives, without ever exceeding the limits of this one original set of Triadic Quadratic Perspectives. While there is in principle no limit to the number of derivatives that one can conceive, there is in principle a person who sets the limit each and every moment, who sets the focus each and every moment, choosing who and what warrants attention and what sort of attention to offer, and therefore what kind of knowledge to gain and the extent to which it will be shared. That person is the I who limits the otherwise limitless derivations of my own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives and thereby limits the otherwise limitless derivations of anyone else’s Triadic Quadratic Perspectives that refer to me. And when I inquire into who I am, persistently, my own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives dissolve into what might be described as the Integral Awareness from which, in the next moment, my own Triadic Quadratic Perspectives co-arise once again to continue the action.(5)

Action, therefore, may be understood as that which derives the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives within the Integral Awareness that is nowhere to be found as long as one is actively searching, yet now-here as long as one inquires deeply into the identity of the actor.

Integral Practices

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.

Moreover, any integral meta-theory comprised entirely of descriptors, whether they be perspectives, archetypes, holons, fields, or some other type of construct, seems to contain an inherent self-contradiction in that it does not account for the action of the integral meta-theorist who is attempting to know some aspect of reality from some presumed meta-perspective, meta-archetype, meta-holon, or meta-field. This infects the integral meta-theory with a very subtle form of what Wilber (2007) and Habermas (1990) before him have called the philosophy of consciousness or subject-centered reason in their critiques of modern science and philosophy, which in its pursuit of valid truth takes as given the world it represents and fails to account for the people who represent it, except to the extent that they can be represented in the world. In my view, the myth of the given is fundamentally a failure to account for the third-person act of truth-representation within a Triadic Quadratic Integral Theory of Action in which every such third-person act is always already just one perspective on an integral action that must be simultaneously viewed as a second-person act of rightness-appreciation and a first-person act of truthfulness-expression, each with its own fully quadratic, multi-level perspectives always already active. In order for any proposed integral meta-theory to escape the myth of the given, even if it is the myth of a wonderfully complete and holistic given, it must contain prescriptors that correspond with its descriptors—some actionable principles to guide the interpretation and application of the otherwise purely descriptive meta-theory and preclude the spread of this philosophical virus. Only then can students of integral meta-theory genuinely participate in that which a purely descriptive integral meta-theory merely presents to them as observers, only to be reduced irretrievably upon receipt to a third-person representation of a reality so much more.

My inquiry into Integral Praxiology is therefore taking place on two levels. As stated at the outset, it is an attempt to make theoretically explicit those pre-theoretical principles and perspectives that appear to be governing the actions of people in their efforts to realize their full potential in real-world situations. It is primarily concerned with the integral reconstruction of human action in general. However, as suggested above, and as an unavoidable implication of the primary inquiry, it is also an attempt to frame a secondary inquiry into the nature of integral meta-theory itself, with the lightly-held but nevertheless provocative proposal that in order for an integral meta-theory to be authentically integral, it must be an integral meta-praxis. Hence, the two-fold meaning behind my neologism: Integral Praxiology.

Therefore, in light of the subtle complexity of integral perspectives that appear to be always already activated in the Triadic Quadratic Perspective, what are the integral practices that appear to be always already activating the Triadic Quadratic Perspective? In other words, what is the integral know-how implied by the integral know-what that can combine to form a Triadic Quadratic Integral Theory of Action?

My proposal is based in part on my interpretation and reconstruction of the Action Science of Chris Argyris (1978; 1985; 1990; 1993) and such colleagues as Donald Schön, Robert Putnam, and Diana McLain Smith. Action Science constitutes “an inquiry into how human beings design and implement action in relation to one another.” (Argyris, Putnam, & Smith, 1985, p. 4) It is a rigorous way of understanding how adults reason, act, and learn in the midst of social situations. Even more than a descriptive theory, it is a powerful prescriptive theory that helps people reflect on the social world they create and learn to change it in ways more congruent with the values they espouse.

Argyris’s work can be situated within a larger field of more general Action Science, or Dialogical Praxiology, that includes a variety of complementary alternatives such as: Bill Torbert’s Action Inquiry (2004), Reg Revans’s Action Learning (Marquardt, 1999), Kurt Lewin’s Action Research (1999), Douglas McGregor’s Theory X/Y (1985), Donald Schön’s Action-Reflection Learning (1983), Edgar Schein’s Process Consultation (1987; 1988), Stew Shapiro’s Action-Reflection Inquiry, David Kolb’s Experiential Learning (1984), Malcolm Knowles’s Adult Learning (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 1998), William Isaacs’s Dialogue (1999), Robert Kegan’s and Lisa Leahy’s Immunity to Change (2001), and David Cooperrider’s Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider, Sorensen, Whitney, & Yaeger, 2000). What they all have in common appears to be a focus on helping mature, self-directed adults develop even greater capacity for effective action in the world through enhanced self-awareness, reflective inquiry, collaborative learning, and more constructive, less defensive patterns of communication.

Within this extraordinary field, I have found Argyris’s work to be particularly insightful with respect to the way people design their actions in order to achieve their own desired results and yet, in so doing, unconsciously enact patterns of actions that impair their ability to learn from experience and ultimately undermine their capacity to achieve the results they desire. The significance of this basic insight for an integral science of human action concerned with the tacit knowledge governing the actions of people in their efforts to realize their full potential in real-world situations cannot be easily overstated.

Habermas (1975, p. 15) once summarized his views on the role of learning in the evolution of society as follows: “It is my conjecture that the fundamental mechanism for social evolution in general is to be found in an automatic inability not to learn. Not learning, but not-learning is the phenomenon that calls for explanation.” Taken out of context, one might interpret this as an optimistic, perhaps naïvely optimistic, assessment of human potential, as if Habermas was arguing for the presence of a universal and automatic ability to learn that effectively negates the possibility of any inherent obstacles or impediments to learning.

Yet Habermas (1975; 1979; 1984; 1987; 1990) himself has spent decades studying and describing in voluminous detail both the function and dysfunction of modern society and the ever-present crisis-potential so many of us unwittingly endure—evidence, according to Habermas, of the difficulty we all seem to have with communicative action and the deep social learning it requires. Habermas is no naïve optimist. His acknowledgement of a bi-directional process of social evolution unfolding over generations in anything but a uniform, evenly distributed, problem-free manner, at least implies that the social learning at the heart of this evolution is something more complex, more nuanced, and less certain than a perfectly efficient and effective mechanism. If social learning was this easy and automatic, we would have done it all by now.

I tend to think that Habermas was trying to shift our attention away from the all-too-common focus on how people succeed in learning, developing, and evolving, perhaps because an exclusive focus on the many ways we can succeed in these endeavors may inadvertently blind us to the many ways we can also fail to learn, develop, and evolve. If this is the case, then he was actually trying to preclude naïve optimism by calling for a more careful study of people’s tendency to not learn, despite their inherent capacity to learn. Indeed, “not learning, but not-learning is the phenomenon that calls for explanation.” (Habermas, 1975, p. 15, emphasis added) To my knowledge, the work of Argyris and his colleagues is all-but-unique in offering a balanced, rigorous, and practical treatment of people’s tendency to not learn, despite their inherent capacity to learn, as essential aspects of human action.

The central concept in Action Science (Argyris, et.al., 1985, pp. 80-1) is the theory of action. A theory of action is a tacit value system that tells people how to design their actions in order to achieve their intended results within particular social situations, including how to learn from experience to design more effective actions. It represents a taken-for-granted way of perceiving, thinking, judging, and communicating that has been so successful in meeting past challenges that it is now assumed to be the best way to engage with one’s social world. The main reason people develop these tacit theories of action is because the daily challenge of interpreting real-world social situations and designing actions to achieve desired results would otherwise be very difficult and time-consuming. Therefore, people simplify the challenge by drawing on a repertoire of tacit design principles that they have learned throughout a lifetime of more-or-less-effective socialization. We each have at least one dominant theory of action, socially-constructed over many years as we’ve learned to maneuver in the world.

This idea of the theory of action is frequently illustrated in terms of a process model, the basic structure of which includes a three-step sequence of values, which govern the design of specific actions, which interact with the situation to generate certain results. The results include both the intended and the unintended consequences of action, each of which can generate positive feedback for more of the same or negative feedback indicating the need for a change. Both positive and negative feedback are incorporated into the single-loop learning that either validates or invalidates the previous action strategy.  In the event that the current action strategy is invalidated, people may design any number of new action strategies consistent with the governing values until they produce the results that validate the latest action strategy. (Figure 5) (Argyris, et.al., 1985, pp. 80-8; Argyris, 1990, p. 94; Argyris, 1993, p. 50.)

In the event that none of the action strategies are validated by the single-loop learning, an additional feedback loop may be activated and the governing values that informed the original selection of desired results and the original set of designed actions may be brought into question. But because these governing values are largely tacit to begin with and are intertwined with our well developed (yet zealously guarded) story of who we are in the world, they are very difficult to surface, critique, and revise without some dialogue and the pressure that only crisis seems to provide. If successfully revised, new values lead to a fundamentally new interpretation of the situation and new possibilities for action strategies, which, in turn, generate entirely new results. This is called double-loop learning because of the additional feedback loop that invalidates the original governing values and eventually validates the new governing values. (Argyris, et.al., 1985, pp. 80-8)

Overall, the continuous, rapid, and largely tacit dynamics of a theory of action can produce an extraordinary variety of results, from creative innovations to destructive misunderstandings, all of which can be traced back to the action strategies and governing values of all the people who created them, as well as the more or less effective processes of single-loop and double-loop learning that supported them. And because theories of action guide both individual action and collective interaction, it is possible to envision very large-scale dynamics of action-learning based on this relatively simple model. As I interpret it, this is a way of understanding the socio-technical development of organizations, markets, governments, social movements, and whole societies.

The general hypothesis with respect to the theory of action is that people demonstrate a propensity to espouse values consistent with open, honest, responsible communication while nevertheless engaging in systematically distorted communication (i.e., subconscious or latently strategic action and consciously or blatently strategic action) that undermines their performance and their relationships—and they are at best only partially aware of the discrepancy and its unintended negative consequences. Action Scientists therefore make a distinction between a person’s espoused theory of action—what the person claims to follow—and that person’s theory-in-use—what can be inferred from the person’s actions—and remain open-minded about the degree of fit between the two. Because the theories they’re referring to are not merely people’s descriptive theories of the life they want to create but their own prescriptive theories of how best to create the life they really want—in other words, prescriptive theories of action rather than descriptive theories of results—we can see that what Action Scientists are framing is the hypothesis that most people tend to espouse a personal praxis that is very different from the actual personal praxis they’re using in the world, and they are almost entirely unaware of the discrepancy. It’s as if they already have an intuitive idea about how to create more of the results they want, in personal meaning, interpersonal relationships, the organizations in which they work, and the social, market, and political contexts in which they participate, yet they follow a very different and far less effective praxis that secretly undermines their efforts at every turn.

While it might seem natural to expect a great variety of theories of action to surface from their research with clients, Argyris and his colleagues have discovered just one general model, with two variations. The most common, by far, is Model I, the governing values of which are: (Argyris, et.al., 1985, pp. 90-1)

1. define goals and try to achieve them;
2. maximize winning and minimize losing;
3. minimize generating or expressing negative feelings; and
4. be rational.

These governing values may be thought of as action design principles, which are employed in varying degrees from one person to the next, from one situation to the next, in the design of their own particular action strategies.

Regardless of the particular ratios of these governing values, the action strategies that people design in pursuit of their own desired results almost always include: i) advocating courses of action in ways that discourage inquiry; ii) claiming ownership of the task and of the definition and execution of the task; iii) treating their own views as obviously correct while ignoring inconsistencies between their words and actions; iv) making unillustrated and often covert attributions and evaluations about other people and the action situation; v) withholding critical information, creating rules to censor information and behavior, and holding private meetings; vi) acting defensively with regard to oneself and selected others by blaming, stereotyping, and leaving potentially embarrassing facts unstated; and vii) intellectualizing difficult situations while suppressing one’s own and ignoring other people’s negative feelings. (Argyris, et.al., 1985, pp. 89-91)

It is worth noting that these governing values and action strategies may be interpreted as, respectively, the intentional-UL and behavioral-UR perspectives of the Model I theory of action. Furthermore, note that what all these action strategies have in common is the underlying motivation to gain unilateral control over other people—being the second-person perspective—and the impersonal action situation—being the third-person perspective—in order to protect the actor and achieve the actor’s desired results—being the first-person perspective.

The predictable consequences of Model I action strategies include “defensive interpersonal and group relationships, low freedom of choice, and reduced production of valid information. There are negative consequences for learning, because there is little public testing of ideas. The hypotheses that people generate tend to become self-sealing. What learning does occur remains within the bounds of what is acceptable. Double-loop learning does not tend to occur. As a result, error escalates and effectiveness in problem solving and in execution of action tends to decrease.” (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 89)

“Most people hold espoused theories inconsistent with Model I; and, when confronted with our predictions about the strategies they will use, seek to demonstrate that our predictions are not valid. But even when Model I has been explained and people are trying to produce action that does not fit the model, they are unable to do so. This result holds whenever people are dealing with double-loop issues, which is to say whenever they are dealing with threatening issues. At best, they are able to produce strategies consistent with opposite Model I, the mirror image of Model I.” (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 91-2) The governing values of Opposite Model I are:

1. participation of everyone in defining purposes;
2. everyone wins, no one loses;
3. express feelings; and
4. suppress the cognitive intellective aspects of action.

Whether it appears as an espoused theory or as a theory-in-use, Opposite Model I suggests people’s growing awareness of their own problematic communication and an attempt to remedy the situation by adopting an antithetical approach—the rationale apparently being that if doing things one way has created such a mess, perhaps doing just the opposite will clean up the mess. Of course, this is not an adaptation that occurs in the calm, clear light of reason, but rather as a largely subconscious adaptation to an untenable situation calling for drastic measures. Opposite Model I seems to form a necessary complement to Model I in the sense that all the actions designed from its governing values conform to the basic strategy of unilateral dependency within an underlying covert strategy of unilateral control. Specific actions are typically designed to overtly limit unilateral control of oneself by others while, ironically, engaging in dependent behavior that masks a more subtle form of unilateral control over others. Regardless of the specific action strategies employed, the consequences of Opposite Model I for personal effectiveness and satisfaction, interpersonal relationships, and double-loop learning are the same as for Model I. Thus, although Opposite Model I typically arises in a deliberate effort to overcome the recently discovered deficiencies of Model I, because its consequences are remarkably similar and equally disappointing, it is often used in oscillation with Model I, further complicating the interpretation of, and resolution to, the dysfunctional dynamics.

“Action takes on the features represented by Model I [and Opposite Model I] especially in situations that agents perceive as potentially threatening or embarrassing. It is in such situations that agents are most oriented to controlling others and to protecting themselves. Self-protection frequently takes the form of attributing responsibility for error to others or to the situation rather than to oneself. The very situations that most require double-loop learning are the ones that most evoke Model I [and Opposite Model I] action—action that inhibits double-loop learning.” (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 92)

As individuals who have learned Model I and Opposite Model I over many years of socialization come together to form collaborative groups, organizations, and networks, they tend to enact socio-cultural patterns called limited learning systems. Once established, these limited learning systems guide the socialization and performance of new members, indoctrinating them into the particulars of each system’s version of Model I and Opposite Model I. Argyris and Schon (1978) created a model of a limited learning system congruent with Model I theory-in-use, called Model O-I (with “O” signifying “organization”).

Model O-I “states that when individuals programmed with Model I theory-in-use deal with difficult and threatening problems, they create primary inhibiting loops… in the form of conditions of undiscussability, self-fulfilling prophesies, self-sealing processes, and escalating error, and they remain unaware of their responsibility for these conditions. Primary inhibiting loops lead to secondary inhibiting loops such as win-lose group dynamics, conformity, polarization between groups, and organizational games of deception. These secondary inhibiting loops reinforce primary inhibiting loops and together they lead people to despair of double-loop learning in organizations.” (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 93)

Because of these inhibiting loops, limited learning systems tend to camouflage their own dysfunction via organizational defensive routines that protect their members from the embarrassment that would result from the awareness of their own tacit conspiracy in creating the dysfunctional system performance. “All organizational defensive routines are based on a logic that is powerful and that has profound impact on individuals and organizations. The logic is to: i) craft messages that contain inconsistencies; ii) act as if the messages are not inconsistent; iii) make the ambiguity and inconsistency in the message undiscussable; and iv) make the undiscussability of the undiscussable also undiscussable.” (Argyris, 1990, p. 27) Thus, for example, when one person becomes aware, in the moment of interaction, of the deceptive, distorted, or dysfunctional action of another person in the same limited learning system, he or she is likely to act, in the moment, as if the actions are acceptable. However, because both parties realize tacitly that neither person’s conduct is now acceptable in relation to their own espoused theories of action, both will tacitly act so as to cover-up the mutual dysfunction and make the entire situation undiscussable. All this will happen in just a moment—and the limited learning system is enacted by countless moments just like this, the prevalence of which is that much greater when poor system performance and personal accountability are at issue.

We can now see that the individual perspectives of the Model I theory of action—the intentional-UL governing values and behavioral-UR action strategies—are matched with collective perspectives of the same Model I theory of action—the cultural-LL defensive routines and social-LR system dysfunction associated with the limited learning system. Furthermore, although it isn’t highlighted in the Action Science account, I infer that much of the shared motivation behind the limited learning system is to be found in the collective effort of organization members to gain collective unilateral control over other organizations with which they engage—being the collective second-person perspective—and the collective impersonal action situation—being the collective third-person perspective—in order to protect the organization and achieve the desired organizational results—being the collective first-person perspective. In other words, our limited learning system, of which we are almost entirely unaware, nevertheless exists in order to protect us and help us achieve our desired results by unilaterally controlling the collective you with whom we directly engage and the collective them with whom we do not engage but whose actions impact our ability to succeed. Many an organizational strategy has been created on the basis of this underlying motivation.

Finally, because each of the individuals and collectives regarded within second-person and third-person perspectives possesses at least some theory of action, and according to Argyris and his colleagues most likely either Model I or Opposite Model I, we can see that a complete account of any particular theory of action would have to include the actor’s understanding of other people’s theories of action. “When the situation that the actor frames involves other people, then the framing will include the agent’s belief’s about the intentions and beliefs of other people. The consequences of action include the reactions of those others, which themselves depend on how they frame the situation and on their beliefs about the intentions and beliefs of the original actor.” (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 51) “The consequences of action depend on the theories-in-use of recipients as well as those of actors. One’s theory-in-use includes a vast store of information about what people are like and how they will respond in various situations.” (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 85) Therefore, Model I and Opposite Model I can be reasonably interpreted and carefully reconstructed into two distinct, yet interrelated Triadic Quadratic Theories of Action with unprecedented explanatory power.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of Action Science for most people to understand upon first reading about it is that these insights into Model I and Opposite Model I, with all their unfortunate implications about the way we work and live with one another, are the product of a fully informed, completely democratic collaboration among Action Scientists and their thousands of clients around the world—including business executives and management consultants. In line with the basic tenets of Action Science, observations and interpretations of Model I and Opposite Model I governing values, action strategies, defensive routines, and dysfunctional dynamics are presented to clients in the form of empirically disconfirmable propositions that clients can readily evaluate. If their judgment leads them to do so, clients may disconfirm these propositions on the basis of superior interpretations, which are then put to the test in real action situations. The fact that such powerful insights were developed with the full cooperation and acknowledgement of clients lends considerable credibility to the method and its results. Furthermore, the fact that Action Science uses the real world of human decision making, indeed management decision making, as its proving ground distinguishes it from the decision science research (Kahneman & Tversky, 2000) conducted in controlled environments.

Fortunately, there is an alternative. If the assessment represented by Model I and Opposite Model I is a descriptive approach to observing and interpreting clients’ own prescriptive theories-in-use, Model II is a prescriptive approach to engaging and transforming their Model I and Opposite Model I theories-in-use. Model II is a dialogical praxis based on three governing principles: (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 99)

1. valid information;
2. free and informed choice; and
3. internal commitment to the choice and vigilant monitoring of its implementation in order to detect and correct error.

Model II is normative, but in an unbiased and impartial way, without regard to who is engaged in dialogue or what is at issue. The challenge for the action scientist is to partner with clients to create conditions in which these normative ideals can be fully realized in what might be described as an extraordinary conversation about the clients’ own patterns of communication—patterns which, as the action scientist openly hypothesizes, indicate some degree of systematically distorted communication and impaired double-loop learning. Toward that, specific action strategies emphasize “sharing control with those who have competence and who participate in designing or implementing the action. Rather than unilateral advocacy or inquiry that conceals the agent’s own views, in Model II the agent combines advocacy and inquiry. Attributions and evaluations are illustrated with relatively directly observable data, and the surfacing of conflicting views is encouraged in order to facilitate public testing of them.

“The consequences of Model II action strategies should include minimally defensive interpersonal and group relationships, high freedom of choice, and high risk taking.” (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 98-102) Additional consequences include the establishment of empirically disconfirmable processes, public testing of theories, learning both within and across frames of reference, improved quality of life characterized by high authenticity and freedom of choice, greater effectiveness in solving difficult problems, and increased long-run effectiveness. (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 99)

When members of a group or organization practice Model II, they enact a more effective learning system, Model O-II, in which inquiry replaces inhibiting loops and defensive routines, previously undiscussable issues are brought to the surface, assumptions are tested and corrected, self-sealing processes are interrupted, single-loop and double-loop learning occurs, dysfunctional group and intergroup dynamics decrease, deception, camouflage, and defensive reasoning are reduced, and overall organizational performance improves. (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 102)

Model II looks simple enough in writing, but it is very difficult to implement consistently because practicing Model II involves triggering Model I and Opposite Model I. This is threatening to people who have come to regard them as normal ways of communicating and decision making, while simultaneously confusing them with their own espoused theories of action, the social virtues of which are broadly consistent with Model II principles. In other words, people practicing Model I or Opposite Model I often imagine themselves to be already practicing something generally consistent with Model II, which makes the actual practice of Model II a rather challenging proposition from their perspective—simultaneously unnecessary, yet paradoxically quite difficult and threatening. Nevertheless, Model II can be learned with diligent practice and used to transform Model I and Opposite Model I theories-in-use. The most impressive fact with respect to this method is that it has been validated, both empirically and normatively, by the clients with whom Argyris and his colleagues have engaged over the years. The method itself not only allows, but requires, that the method be evaluated in the natural course of its application.

Model II thus incorporates the same essential quadratic perspectives—intentional-UL, behavioral-UR, cultural-LL, and social-LR—in its approach to generating mutual understanding across first-person, second-person, and third-person perspectives, systematically transforming one’s own and other people’s reactive strategies of private self-protection and unilateral control into creative strategies of public self-reflection and multi-lateral control—and all within real action situations. Therefore, Model II can also be reasonably interpreted and carefully reconstructed into a Triadic Quadratic Theory of Action with unprecedented normative and transformative power—transcending, yet including within its purview, Model I and Opposite Model I.

Just as significant in light of the present inquiry is that this exemplary method of communication (Argyris, et.al., 1985, p. 74) is an exemplar of the communicative competence defined by Habermas (1979, p. 29) in his Formal Pragmatics. “By ‘communicative competence’ I understand the ability of a speaker oriented to mutual understanding to embed a well-formed sentence in relations to reality, that is:

1. To choose the propositional sentence in such a way that either the truth conditions of the proposition stated or the existential presuppositions of the propositional content mentioned are supposedly fulfilled (so that the hearer can share the knowledge of the speaker);
2. To express his intentions in such a way that the linguistic expression represents what is intended (so that the hearer can trust the speaker);
3. To perform the speech act in such a way that it conforms to recognized norms or to accepted self-images (so that the hearer can be in accord with the speaker in shared value orientations).

Habermas conceives of communicative competence not just as an ideal to be sought in actual communication situations, but as a universal human capacity to be developed as an integral feature of one’s cognitive, moral, and ego development (e.g., Piaget, Kohlberg, Loevinger). As Thomas McCarthy (Habermas, 1979, p. xx) so clearly summarizes, Habermas proposes “a competence-development approach to the foundations of social action theory; the basic task here is the rational reconstruction of universal, ‘species-wide,’ competences and the demonstration that each of them is acquired in an irreversible series of distinct and increasingly complex stages that can be hierarchically ordered in a developmental logic. The dimensions in which he pursues this task correspond to the universal-pragmatic classification of validity claims, that is, to the four basic dimensions in which communication can succeed or fail: comprehensibility, truth, rightness, and truthfulness. Each of these specifies not only an aspect of rationality, but a ‘region’ of reality—language, external nature, society, internal nature—in relation to which the subject can become increasingly autonomous. Thus, ontogenesis may be construed as an interdependent process of linguistic, cognitive, interactive, and ego (or self-) development.”

Habermas (1979, p. 89-90) proposes as his highest level of communicative competence a universal ethics of speech, corresponding with a post-post-conventional level of moral consciousness beyond Kohlberg’s highest post-conventional level. “Only at the level of a universal ethics of speech, can need interpretations themselves—that is, what each individual thinks he should understand and represent as his ‘true’ interests—also become the object of practical discourse.” The domain of validity for the universal ethics of speech includes not only all people as private persons—and therefore the domains of truth, rightness, and, truthfulness as they are understood by each person—but also all private persons as members of a fictive world society. Action Science Model II is certainly capable of meeting this highest standard of post-post-conventional communicative competence—authentic communicative action in contrast to the strategic action of Model I and Opposite Model I.

Therefore, it is also an exemplar of the discourse in which communicative competence is put to good use. For Habermas (1981, p. 42), a discourse ensues whenever one participant’s specific validity claim to truth, rightness, or truthfulness is challenged by another participant in communication. As the two attempt to come to a mutual understanding of what really is true, right, and sincere, for the first as well as the second participant, who raises his or her own validity claims in response, the discourse itself is at least implicitly evaluated in terms of how well it fulfills the characteristics of an always already pre-supposed ideal speech situation. The ideal speech situation is “a situation of absolutely uncoerced and unlimited discussion between completely free and equal human agents.” (Geuss, 1981, p. 65) Hence it is an idealized discourse in which what it means for a statement to be true, right, and sincere is that all agents would agree that it is true, right, and sincere if they were to discuss all of human experience in absolutely free and uncoerced circumstances for an indefinite period of time.

More recently, Habermas (1990, pp. 85-6) described his 1973 formulation of the ideal speech situation as “a reconstruction of the general symmetry conditions that every competent speaker who believes he is engaging in [a discourse] must presuppose as adequately fulfilled. The presupposition of something like an ‘unrestricted communication community,’ an idea that Apel developed following Peirce and Mead, can be demonstrated through systematic analysis of performative contradictions. Participants in [discourse] cannot avoid the presupposition that the structure of their communication, owing to certain characteristics that require formal description, rules out all external or internal coercion other than the force of the better argument, and thereby also neutralizes all motives other than that of the cooperative search for truth.” In other words, to argue that we arrived at a mutual understanding after I coerced you into recognizing the validity of what I said or that we are pursuing a mutual understanding to see which one of us is right and which is wrong is to commit a performative contradiction. Recognizing this logic is rather powerfully suggestive of a deeper intuitive know-how that participants in discourse demonstrate even in the absence of explicit rules.

Habermas (1990, pp. 84-6) elaborates further by drawing approvingly on the pragmatic rules of Robert Alexy (1990, pp. 151-190), including: i) no speaker may contradict himself; ii) every speaker follows the basic rules of logic; iii) different speakers may not use the same expression with different meanings; iv) every speaker may assert only what he believes; v) a speaker who disputes a proposition or norm not under discussion must provide a reason for wanting to do so; vi) everyone with the competence to speak and act is allowed to take part in a discourse; vii) everyone is allowed to question any assertion whatever; viii) everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into the discourse; ix) everyone is allowed to express his attitudes, desires, and needs; x) no speaker may, by internal or external coercion, be prevented from exercising his rights as laid down in vi-ix.

As clear and comprehensive as Alexy’s pragmatic rules appear to be, they remain somewhat too idealistic to be of practical use with clients whose normal patterns of communication are characterized by systematic distortion and remarkably durable defensive routines that make it normatively inappropriate and personally threatening to even begin such a discourse. These are the standard conditions found by Argyris and his colleagues and the primary reason why the action scientist as interventionist with the high level of communicative competence reflected in Model II can be so important in the conduct of effective discourse. The Model II praxis is sufficiently idealistic as to approach the Habermasian ideal speech situation, while being sufficiently realistic for practical application in real speech situations dominated by Model I and Opposite Model I. To my knowledge, Action Science constitutes the single best dialogical praxis to emerge from the larger context of Habermas’s (1971; 1975; 1979; 1984; 1987; 1990; 1992) breathtaking developments in epistemology, formal pragmatics, communicative rationality, discourse ethics, postmetaphysics, and, most far-reaching of all, the critical theory of society.(6)

By positioning Action Science Model II within Habermas’s developmental hierarchy of communicative competence, indeed at the highest level, I raise the larger question of how the various Action Science models relate to the always already implicit levels of consciousness within my emerging Triadic Quadratic Integral Theory of Action. While Argyris does not acknowledge levels of psychological development as even a background for Action Science, I think it is reasonable to interpret Model I, Opposite Model I, and Model II as consistent with three sequential levels of consciousness in Wilber’s (2007) scheme: Orange, Green, and Teal. Similarly, I interpret them as being generally consistent with: Bill Torbert’s (2004) Achiever-Individualist-Strategist; Susanne Cook-Greuter’s (2002) Conscientious-Individualist-Autonomous; Robert Kegan’s (1994) 4th Order-“4.5th Order”-5th Order; Don Beck’s and Christopher Cowan’s (1996) Orange-Green-Yellow; and Jenny Wade’s (1996) Achievement-Affiliative-Authentic.(7)

Therefore, as I have attempted to demonstrate, Action Science can be reasonably interpreted and carefully reconstructed into a Triadic Quadratic Theory of Action comprised of three distinct theories of action, each in and of itself a Triadic Quadratic Theory of Action, enacting, and enacted by, a particular level of consciousness. Any combination of these three distinct theories of action—Model I, Opposite Model I, Model II—can activate the entire Triadic Quadratic Perspective. The specific content framed by these perspectives will depend upon who is referred to in the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives and what theories-in-use they bring to the discourse. I might, for example, be acting in a manner consistent with Model I while you are attempting to address my skilled incompetence with your own Opposite Model I, all the while this rather presumptuous observer is, unbeknownst to us, using her Model II in order to assess our dysfunctional dynamics and plan her impending intervention to help us all realize together the latent potential for mutual understanding of what is true, right, and sincere for each one of us. As the action unfolds, all three of us would attempt to understand this action as it is being experienced from my perspective, your perspective, and her perspective, because each one of us is the center of our own Triadic Quadratic Theory of Action. If we had a comparable degree of clarity regarding the Triadic Quadratic Theories of Action associated with additional levels of consciousness, pre-Orange and post-Teal in Wilber’s (2007) scheme, we would see the perspectivism and explanatory power within the overall Triadic Quadratic Theory of Action increase geometrically.

With this substantial foundation established, I now return to the questions that opened this section. In light of the subtle complexity of integral perspectives that appear to be always already activated in the Triadic Quadratic Perspective, what are the integral practices that appear to be always already activating the Triadic Quadratic Perspective? In other words, what is the integral know-how implied by the integral know-what that can be combined to form the deep structure of a Triadic Quadratic Integral Theory of Action? Based on the role these integral practices are supposed to play within the integral meta-praxis, they would seem to have certain features worth articulating, however provisionally. For example, if they are always already activating the Triadic Quadratic Perspective, then:

• They are always already available for discovery—right here, right now—implied in every action one takes.
• They are relatively content-free in the sense that they do not convey knowledge of what we can, should, and do know, yet radically content-oriented in the sense that they encourage the sharing of information and the generation of knowledge.
• They are deceptively counter-factual in that most human action appears to be a contradiction of their ideal form, yet reassuringly intuitive in that most human actors idealize themselves acting this way.
• They describe what human development and evolution looks like from the perspective of observers, while prescribing how human development and evolution happens from the perspective of participants.
• They are fractal by design and generative on all levels of depth and scale in the domains of what is true, right, and sincere—generative, that is, of the Truth, Justice, and Freedom we all seek.

Consistent with these features, I propose that regardless of the specific circumstances, people act through the mutual practice of transparency, choice, and accountability with respect to all relevant perspectives: (O’Connor, 2002; 2005)

• Transparency generally means disclosing and acquiring all the relevant information within the relevant perspectives pertaining to a particular action, free of any deception or distortion that may undermine people’s judgment.
• Choice generally means taking perspectives and making decisions in the context of one’s awareness, free of any coercion that may force one person or another to make choices against their will.
• Accountability generally means assuming responsibility for one’s choices, following through on commitments made, sharing responsibility for the intended as well as unintended consequences of action, and learning from experience in all perspectives to enhance future action.

Action, therefore, may be understood as the mutual practice of Transparency, Choice, and Accountability with respect to Triadic Quadratic Perspectives (i.e., mp TCA wrt TQP or TCA/TQP). Action constitutes the effort to understand one’s own self-generated kaleidoscope of ever-shifting perspectives on everyone else’s self-generated kaleidoscope of ever-shifting perspectives, the naturally increasing depth and scale of which are mutually determined through action itself.

Conclusion

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.

The first method of justification is that of performative contradiction, which involves systematically contemplating and demonstrating that if people were to act in a manner that expressly violated any or all of the perspectives, practices, and propositions, then they would be engaged in some form of performative contradiction. This is a method advanced by Apel (1990) in his approach to speech act theory and the unrestricted communication community and employed further by Habermas (1979; 1990) in his formal pragmatics and discourse ethics. Thus, one way to justify the mutual pursuit of Transparency, Choice, and Accountability with respect to Triadic Quadratic Perspectives is to consider the validity claims raised in various contemplated human actions in which these principles and perspectives are expressly denied. For example:

• People make adequately informed decisions by ignoring relevant information needed to make the decisions.
• We developed a mutual understanding by systematically deceiving ourselves and one another.
• People are free to act in their own best interests only when they’re being forced to do so.
• I don’t have any desire to express myself to you.
• His actions are of no interest to me.
• My problems are not mine.
• The best way to validate my interpretation of you is to avoid discussing it with you.
• People learn best when they ignore the consequences of their actions.
• The best way to understand someone’s perspective is to discuss it only with someone else.
• People build trust by refusing to honor their commitments to one another.
• I can interact with you without distinguishing between first-person and second-person perspectives.
• We can know the world without ever taking a third-person perspective.
• There really are no collectives, because we are all individuals.
• We can act as a unified collective by ourselves.
• I can act beyond the limits of all language.

While this list is by no means definitive, it does suggest that it is rather easy to contemplate actions inconsistent with TCA/TQP the performance of which appear to violate one or more of the three primary validity claims to truth, rightness, or truthfulness. The more compelling the list of performative contradictions, the more compelling are the claims to validity of the propositions being contemplated.

Turning this around, it is perhaps impossible to contemplate any human action that does not presuppose and that could not be described in terms of the mutual pursuit of Transparency, Choice, and Accountability with respect to Triadic Quadratic Perspectives. What would human action be without at least some prospect of it being seen and informed without deception or distortion from oneself or others? What would human action be without at least some capacity to choose for oneself, to express oneself, and to receive others’ expressions in the absence of coercion or a presumed pre-determination? What would human action be without at least some sense of responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions, even if nothing more than the capacity to feel some satisfaction or regret? What would human action be without the most fundamental perspectives we all take in the course of ordinary conversations and decisions? It is difficult to conceive of human action that does not pre-suppose these ideal conditions because it seems likely that all real conditions of human action can be interpreted as being more or less congruent with these principles and perspectives.

The second method of justification is that of paradigmatic validation, which involves articulating the specific action one would have to take in order to discover for oneself the knowledge that is being proposed for consideration. This is an idea introduced by Kuhn (1970) and advanced by Wilber (2000a; 2000c; 2000d; 2000e; 2007) as an essential feature of what has gradually evolved into his Integral Methodological Pluralism. As Wilber (2000d, p. 379-80) articulates, “each valid mode of knowing consists of an injunction, an apprehension, and a confirmation. The injunction is generally of the form ‘if you want to know this, do this.’ This injunction, exemplar, or paradigm is, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out, an actual practice, not a mere concept… The injunction or exemplar brings forth a particular data domain—a particular experience, apprehension, or evidence… This apprehension, data, or evidence is then tested in the circle of those who have completed the first two strands; bad data or bad evidence is rebuffed, and this potential falsifiability is the third component of most genuine validity claims; it is not restricted to empirical or sensory claims alone: there is sensory experience, mental experience, and spiritual experience, and any specific claim in each of those domains can potentially be falsified by further data in those domains.” Recently, Wilber (2007, p. 258) builds on this durable insight with a more challenging one: “the meaning of a statement is the means of its enactment.” By this he means that any assertion of knowledge that does not include an injunction by which others can enact the evidence or experience to justify the assertion is open to the charge of being a mere metaphysics. Thus, the only potentially valid knowledge is paradigmatic knowledge. Translating Wilber’s axiom into the language of this article, I arrive at the following: the potential validity of a proposition is the act of its validation.

The potential validity of my proposed integral meta-praxis is therefore to be found in the act of its validation. Given that I have intentionally designed the mutual practice of Transparency, Choice, and Accountability with respect to Triadic Quadratic Perspectives in meta-paradigmatic form, the act of its validation is to mindfully engage mp TCA wrt TQP. Furthermore, given that I am essentially defining human action as mp TCA wrt TQP, the act of its validation is none other than mindful human action itself. Any such effort in mindful action can proceed with the aim of either validating or invalidating the proposed meta-praxis. Thus, one simply pays close attention to how one acts—pays close attention, that is, to the paradigms one acts out—and attempts to either validate or invalidate mp TCA wrt TQP as a transcendent, yet inclusive meta-paradigm. If nothing else, such mindful inquiry into the nature of integral meta-praxis should greatly enrich the Integral Discourse that is, in my own view, the ultimate expression of the mutual practice of Transparency, Choice, and Accountability with respect to Triadic Quadratic Perspectives.

© 2008 by Daniel J. O'Connor.  All Rights Reserved.

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(1) Interestingly, functional fit is a special type of validity claim that Habermas (1987) uses in his two-level Lifeworld/System theory of modern society, wherein the consequences of action are deemed valid to the extent that they are a functional fit within the System aspect of society. The three primary validity claims included in his Formal Pragmatics and his Theory of Communicative Action—truthfulness, rightness, and truth—are associated with the Lifeworld aspect of society. As Habermas uses them, the three validity claims of the Lifeworld, which Wilber associates with the intentional-UL, cultural-LL, and behavioral-UR, represent a categorically different level of analysis than the one validity claim of the System, which Wilber associates with the social-LR. In the forthcoming expanded version of this article, I will propose a place within Integral Praxiology for functional fit in relation to truthfulness, rightness, and truth that is consistent with Habermas’s Lifeworld/System theory of society, while still preserving what I regard as Wilber’s correct insight into the equal validity of all four quadrants at all levels of existence.

(2) To put a finer point on this, note that I am using the interrogative pronoun whomever rather than whatever. To the extent that a third-person perspective is referencing a sentient whom rather than an insentient what, the sentient whom is understood to possess a Triadic Quadratic Perspective.

(3) The full implications of the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives for our understanding of the basic triadic perspectives--being first-person, second-person, and third-person--and the basic quadratic perspectives--being intentional-UL, behavioral-UR, cultural-LL, and social-LR--not to mention the levels of consciousness that unfold throughout all twelve perspectives, are beyond the scope of this introductory article. However, with regard to the triadic perspectives, it is worth emphasizing that the perennial philosophical ideals of (first-person) Beauty, (second-person) Goodness, and (third-person) Truth have each been rendered quadratic within the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives and will therefore reveal some interesting new ways of understanding the nature and pursuit of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. With regard to the quadratic perspectives, it should be clear that there are now three distinct perspectives on each quadrant corresponding with the first-, second-, and third-person perspectives within which one can understand each quadrant. In a sense, there are validity claims to Beauty, Goodness, and Truth associated with each and every quadrant. This greatly expands the number and variety of theories and methods that can be framed within each quadrant and within each personal perspective without apparent contradiction.

(4) The Triadic Quadratic Perspectives frame a type of Methodological Integralism (O’Connor, 2002) with twelve distinct methodological zones that, among other things, offer an alternative to the eight zones of Wilber’s (2007) Integral Methodological Pluralism. For those who are familiar with Wilber’s (2007) terminology, I will offer the briefest possible re-interpretation. Wilber’s zones 5, 6, 7, and 8 are incorporated within, respectively, the intentional-UL, behavioral-UR, cultural-LL, and social-LR of the standard third-person perspective of the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives. Wilber’s zones 1 and 3, and to some extent zones 2 and 4, are incorporated into the four quadratic perspectives within the standard first-person perspective of the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives. Wilber’s zones 2 and 4, and to some extent zones 1 and 3, are incorporated into the four quadratic perspectives of the standard second-person perspective within the Triadic Quadratic Perspectives. The great challenge in such a reformulation is that Wilber's definitions of the eight zones and his choice of methodology for each zone are directly influenced by his equation of first-, second-, and third-person perspectives with, respectively, zones 1 and 2, zones 3 and 4, and zones 5, 6, 7, and 8. The forthcoming expanded version of Integral Praxiology will address this Methodological Integralism with the care it requires.

(5) The Triadic Quadratic Perspectives also frame a new version of Wilber's (2007) Integral Mathematics of Primordial Perspectives, wherein Action can be denoted in Triadic Quadratic Perspectival terms and in any number of multiple derivatives of the Actor's own non-dual Integral Awareness. The strength of this Integral Calculus is that the terms are purely perspectival and entirely consistent with the integral/differential geometry of the conceptual model presented above. Therefore, it will denote very clearly the specific methodological approaches, or paradigms, incorporated into the Triadic Quadratic Methodological Integralism. The forthcoming expanded version of Integral Praxiology will address this Integral Calculus in more detail.

(6) While Argyris’s application of this method has, to my knowledge, been limited entirely to the domain of organizational learning, I believe it can and should be used to generate hypotheses regarding the larger contexts addressed in Habermas’s critical theory of society. My own proposal (2002, 2005) for an integral critical theory of the market and science of economics is one such application.

(7) The correlations between the Action Science theories of action and the levels of development from these different theorists are too important to omit from this article, and yet the more complete presentation they deserve, particularly with respect to the definitions of the levels and the distinctions between these theorists, is unfortunately beyond the scope of this primer. The forthcoming expanded version of Integral Praxiology will attempt to remedy this with an expanded discussion of levels.

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