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?
© 2008 by Daniel J. O'Connor. All Rights Reserved.
Continue to Integral Praxiology: Integral Perspectives
