Integral Praxiology: Integral Practices

Daniel O'Connor  |  Integral Ventures, LLC

Continued from Integral Praxiology: Integral Perspectives

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

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.

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

Continue to Integral Praxiology: Justification Considerations

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(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.