Integral Praxiology: Integral Perspectives

Daniel O'Connor  |  Integral Ventures, LLC

Continued from Integral Praxiology: Introduction

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

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

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.

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

Continue to Integral Praxiology: Integral Practices

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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.