Consciousness, empiricism, and democratizing knowledge

To begin my project of mapping the topics related to the democratization of knowledge Ive looked at the psychology of wisdom and postmodernism. To conclude this foundational phase, Ive turned next to theories of human consciousness as presented by Ken Wilber in Eye to Eye (2001, Shambhala Publications, Boston, MA). While I had read this book three years ago, in advance of the very first residency for my PhD program, I just couldnt grasp many of Wilbers ideas then. Sensing it would be useful to me now, I brought it on a long plane ride to my final residency, and reading it again provided a nice bookend to my formal studies. Below are a few ideas from Wilber that resonated with me in relationship to efforts to democratize knowledge. How do they resonate with you?

As a short synopsis, Wilber writes of an integral paradigm, or overall knowledge quest, that would unite three modes of attaining knowledge: empirically through the physical senses (as in the natural sciences); rationally/mentally through logic and thought (as in philosophy-psychology); and contemplatively giving rise to transcendent knowledge (as in religion-mysticism).

Wilber (2001, p. 6) describes gathering these three types of knowledge through three eyes saying, empiric-analytic science belongs to the eye of flesh, phenomenological philosophy and psychology to the eye of the mind, and religion/meditation to the eye of contemplation.

The rise of scientific empiricism was a great leap forward in replacing feudalism and superstition with rational knowledge. At the same time, Wilber points out it decimated philosophy as a rational system and, at that point, human knowledge was reduced to only the eye of the flesh. Gone was the contemplative eye; gone the mental eye and human beings had enough collective low self-esteem to restrict their means of valid knowledge to the eye of flesh the eye we share with animals. Knowing became, in source and referent, essentially subhuman (2001, p. 11).

Here Wilber is challenging head on what Eisner described as, one of the intractable legacies of the Enlightenmentthe separation of mind from body including the view that emotion was regarded as a contaminant to understanding. (1997, p. 264). I wonder, in what ways are proponents of the movement to democratize knowledge (large and disaggregated as the pieces and actors are) considering whether and how we are supporting empiricism and its extensions of scientism/positivism? Is there anything inherent in our desires to democratize knowledge that supports knowing through our mental eyes and contemplative eyes? Do you have examples of this to share? How is HASTAC itself an example?

When gathering knowledge with our eye of the flesh, we can easily measure physical objects, their length, width, height, and weight. But what about hope, envy, pride, joy, understanding? What is the length of a concept? How much does insight weigh? What is the width of an idea? For what characterizes intelligibilia is not so much their extension as their intention their meaning, their value, their intersubjective understanding. Physical space-time no longer quite applies to them, and thus physical measurement and quantification are of rather limited use. (Wilber, 2001, p. 25).

For me, this passage raises many questions. How do we describe the democratization of knowledge? Do we try to measure it empirically? Are we using the measures of extension: What does it cost to provide an open access article? How many page views are there of open courses? How quickly does open peer review speed up publication? Instead, perhaps we should ask questions to measure intention: How intense is our desire to see wide access to knowledge? How much do we invite student/reader contributions in order to co-create knowledge? To what degree do we value peoples right to participate in the production of knowledge that directly affects their lives? Are questions like these, which focus on intention instead of extension, useful? Or are space and time so subtle in the mental realm that measurement of any type is becoming increasingly difficult and ultimately meaningless? (As Wilber suggests on p. 72.)

I know there is more to mine from Wilber and others who look at human consciousness and the effects of scientism/positivism on the social sciences and humanities. What questions arise as consider how your epistemology influences your efforts to democratize knowledge? To what extent are these types of conversations happening in the projects with which you are involved?

Reference:
Eisner, E. W. (1997). The new frontier in qualitative research methodology. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3), 259-273.