Integral Ecology Reading Group - Week 1

“We define ecology as the mixed methods study of the subjective and objective aspects of organisms in relationship to their intersubjective and interobjective environments at all levels of depth and complexity” (2009:11).

For those of you interested and/or following along, Adam Robbert has posted an excellent opening summary with comments (here) on the Introduction and Chapter One (“Whose Ecology Is It?”) of Michael Zimmerman and Sean Esbjorn-Hargens’ 2009 book Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World.

Adam’s summary is succinct and he highlights the overall aims of the authors quite nicely. Simply put, Zimmerman and Esbjorn-Hargens seek nothing less than to integrate the core insights from all the major branches of the ecological sciences using a meta-framework developed over the last 35 years by American theorist Ken Wilber. Such integration, the authors believe, would be comprehensive enough to include the  wide range of perspectives and methods currently deployed which investigate the natural world.

The main thrust of Chapter One, however, is to argue that ‘interiority’ (or, more specifically, first-person and second-person perspectives) has been excluded from ecological thinking for quite some time. The authors’ suggest that in order for ecology to become as comprehensive as possible and mature as a research project it will have to take into consideration all dimensions of living ecologies, including the irreducible features of "interiors", perspectives and consciousness.

One of the most rewarding parts of reading Chapter One was going through the author’s arguments for ‘perspectives all the way down’. As Adam was right to explain, the authors’ are not simply arguing for a standard panpsychic view - which usually suggests that a particular type of interiority, say ‘consciousness’, is a basic feature of reality at all scales – but, rather, that all objects, or entities, or complexes have an intrinsic interiority based on their own constitution and appropriate to their capacities and functioning. I tend to be very suspicious of theories that entertain a strong perspectival focus, but the inherent perspectivism at the heart of the author’s framework is more nuanced and qualified than I had anticipated. The broad manner in which the authors’ frame their view of interiority leaves room for a far richer interpretation than the traditional subject-object schema. 

Here is a particularly striking passage with implications I would like to explore further as this reading group moves along:

“Although interiority – the capacity for opening a perspective or clearing – is not an exclusive human capacity, humans are endowed with a distinctively rich, linguistically articulated mode of interiority. Humans can even become aware that they are aware, thereby enabling them to deliberately alter how they think and act, and to question their origin, constitution, and purpose. This is a special evolutionary advancement” (2009:41)

I won’t comment on this now, but expect that i will be coming back to this passage and topic to discuss in more detail by Chapter Three.

For now here is Adam weighing in on the topic and asking strong questions with regards to how we are to understand ecology from an integrationist perspective:

Interiority is perhaps the most central and unique contribution integral ecology is making to the larger field of ecological theory. Recent studies in cognitive ethology suggest that there is a great deal of scientific reasoning for attributing interiority to all animals, as the forward by Marc Bekoff can attest to. The larger question is then an ontological one: what does it mean for atoms to have interiors?

[…] Integral Ecology is positing both a multiple epistemological and ontological system, and yet, despite this nod to ontology, are we really talking about anything more than “multiple perspectives?” Second, if we accept that interiority is a fundamental feature of the cosmos, operating at different levels, how do we approach the relationship between internal and external dimensions of a given entity? The AQAL approach seems to imply a consistent, geometric symmetry between inner and outer, or individual and collective, in what sense is this accurately descriptive of the terrain it is trying to map? Third, integral theorists are generally critical of those who are themselves critical of hierarchical or developmental schemes. Without rejecting the hierarchical nature of many natural phenomena, how do we critically think the notion of “levels” in the AQAL model with specific regard to how these distinctions manifest in intercultural environments and other contested areas of dialogue, where difference is a significant feature of the encounter?

Go read the rest of Adam’s fantastic summary, as well as the excellent discussion taking place in the comments section, at Knowledge Ecology.

Another section I will be commenting on down the road is the authors’ discussion from page 23 to page 33 on the conception of ‘Nature’ among both Modernists and the Romantics. Tim Morton already commented on this topic on his weblog here and here. I will come back to these sections and Tim’s comments in my next post.  [also read Adrian Ivakhiv's comments on the Intro and Chapter One here]

Also interesting for me was the suggestion of prioritizing a willingness to enter into the cultural worldspaces of various stakeholders by those who seek to build solutions to today’s worse ecological problems. This is an important point, and one which I confront on a regular basis in my work. If we are to be successful solution-designers and collaborators it is essential to dialogically engage and attempt to understand the “interior” depths of those people participating and/or most affected by our designs and projects. Complex ecological issues are entangled with multiple perspectives, agendas, commitments and interests, and therefore require sensibilities and capacities that can assess and accommodate such diversity.

As a parting note, i must say i am finding Zimmerman and Esbjorn-Hargens’ presentation of the material so far very clear and concise. It’s obvious the authors’ are as intimately knowledgeable about the AQAL model as they are with ecological topics when they glide effortlessly from fine point to example.

I look forward to this week's reading on Chapter Two (“It's All About Perspectives: The AQAL Model”) as presented by Sam Mackey on Adam's site Knowledge Ecology. After that Adrian Ivakhiv takes the helm with Chapters 3 and 4 over at Immanence.  If you get a moment please let us know your thoughts, if you have  read the book or not. More perspectives the better, remember...