Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism: A Closer Look | w/ Leigh Price, Nick Hedlund, Brendan Graham Dempsey

[00:00:01][music] The new story [music] of wholeness is emerging.

[00:00:12]Explore it at new story of wholeness.com.

[00:00:16]>> So, welcome to the integration podcast everybody. Great to be here with Lee Price today. Um, I'm Nick Hedland. I'm the uh editor and chief of the integration journal and the director of research at the Institute of Applied Meta Theory.

[00:00:30]>> I'm Brendan Graham Dempsey. I'm the managing editor of the uh integration journal and also director of research at the Institute of Applied Meta Theory. So today we're here with Lee Price and um to to just represent the context, we're in the midst of this series where we're working towards this synthesis lab symposium in Lake Tahoe and we're going through every other week um we have a research forum where one of these um brilliant integrative metaists is presenting on their approach and we're trying to gather kind of the ecology of all these perspectives that are contributing to this emerging integrative meta theory 2.0. Um Lee and Bruce Alderman presented on uh Bruce presented on an integral theory and Lee presented on critical realism in this last uh research forum. So here we are doing the deep dive into Lee's work and critical realism. So Lee is an associate professor at the Inland uh Norway University of Applied Sciences. Um she's also a senior research associate at Roads University and an ameritus associate at the University College London. Um she served as the editor of the journal of critical realism um for eight years and um she's her work really explores critical realism and its applications to ecology, climate change, social transformation, interdisciplinarity, human flourishing generally. Um, and Lee also was a participant in the ongoing dialogue uh between critical realism and integral theory. So she's been involved in this conversation for many years and uh so happy to have you here. Welcome Lee.

[00:02:10]>> Wonderful to be here. Thanks Nick. So yeah, to get started um in your presentation you went in more depth around um kind of the basic critical realism which is you know kind of transcendental realism um critical naturalism um the kind of first phase of critical realism um and I'm wondering if you could unpack a little bit more about the framework because um dialectical critical realism which is the sec second phase and then the philosophy of meta reality which is the third major phase and how that all um you know contributes to the gestalt of of what critical realism is.

[00:02:47]>> Yeah. Um I guess um you know it's uh dialectical critical realism was really where Roy Bascar started to be able to um put to good use the um the philosophy that he had developed in basic critical realism. And um he had always been um very interested in politics. Um uh so it [clears throat] was a natural step for him to wonder how his philosophy could apply to the question of dialectics.

[00:03:18]And um so he he he struggled or when I say struggled he it was it was an intellectual challenge for him. I guess maybe not the struggle is not the right word, but um he grappled with some of the contradictions in the dialectic as we had it um given to us by Marx and um Hegel and uh he he really worked on that. Um he he mentions how it was really hard intellectual work and uh eventually he he achieved a breakthrough moment when he realized that uh what was missing from the kind of more Marxist Hegelian version of the dialectic uh was this concept of absence.

[00:04:02]And so um really the dialectical um part of critical realism took off when Roy [snorts] Buscar um discovered this absence, the absence of absence you could say. Um and then with that he was able to kind of um deal with some of the contradictions in the dialectic as we had it at the time. And uh so um you know for example Hegel has this concept of the dialectic where you have the two opposites and they kind of sub and they um sublate into each other and you don't lose anything really. And Bascar was able to explain that that is um only one sort of subset of dialectic. Uh we you can also have a dialectic where something is completely wrong and you have to throw it out or it's um partially complete. and so you have to add to it. So um he he didn't he really hugely valued Hegel and Marx um but he expanded their perspectives and uh he always said um when people asked him who most who was your greatest sort of uh inspiration I think he once said something along the lines of the people who inspire me are also the ones I' I've critiqued the most. So really it's a comp he said it was a compliment for him when he critiqued somebody. So he he as I said he really valued Hegel and Marx and he developed their dialectic using this concept of absence. Um yeah >> well quick question on that front. So how does that plug into kind of the the earlier work that he'd been doing around you know framing out a a realism and and thinking science in these terms? How does dialectics enter into that? cuz it seems like going from sort of a philosophy of science to maybe I don't know is it is it through how ideas themselves get generated over time or yeah say more about the relationship >> that it's a question I had long before I ever met critical realism in fact before I even went to university um I remember um I grew up in uh in Zimbabwe and uh some of you may know that Zimbabwe was actually a communist country And uh as and you know communists were very proud of their concept of dialectic and so I just managed I picked up these books about dialectic that you know one just found um and I remember reading Hegel's dialectic and I remember thinking to myself um this is so weird because I understand this whole sublian thing but I don't understand how it goes from how can you apply the same dialectic to knowledge as you apply to social change and social transformation.

[00:06:51]It didn't make sense to me just as an, you know, as a young 16-year-old who had no theory, no background in philosophy.

[00:06:58]Um, and now you've just asked basically the same question. And um, and that's really what Roy Bascar resolves. Um because if you if you try and understand knowledge the change in knowledge and you're thinking as in what knowledge is it seems because it's such a totally different subject matter to social transformation you really can't see how they related but if you think in terms of absence then you can see how this dialectic is applyable. You can apply it to both because whether it's um going from um whether it's change in your knowledge, you're actually absenting your ignorance if you like. Uh so you so absence is central to that. But in social change as well, you're absenting certain social structures that aren't healthy hopefully. Um and so um so actually this this concept of absence makes it makes it clear why both you can use the same dialectic for both contexts of knowledge change and social change.

[00:08:00]>> Beautiful. Yeah. And I mean that really speaks to you know he's he I think you mentioned in the presentation that he's kind of ontologizing this this idea of absence right. He's saying that the absence is real and it's also um you know this a causal force. Um I mean and um and that's looks like you may have uh oh there you are froze for a second. Um so yeah I'm wondering like if you could elaborate on that a little bit more of like how absence is understood to be this kind of driver of the process of development change transformation.

[00:08:38]>> Yeah. Well, you know, um, another of Royy's quotes is that, you know, the positive is just a tiny ripple on the sea of absence of negative. Um, so everything, and we know this from physics, um, you know, that everything, you know, a molecule is mostly absent, space. Um, and of course, um, science hasn't really had an ontology for nothingness, for for space. And there's a difference between sort of nothing nothingness like and meaningful nothingness. So um hunger is a very meaningful absence of food. Um and um so these real absences are causally effective and they they affect us and or causally efficacious and um so if you define something as being real because it affects you then you can define an absence as being something real as well. So um so this was a massive ontological step and I think a lot of people aren't really prepared to take that step. It's because it's you you know to say that an absence a real there's such a thing as a real absence um kind of flies in the face of a lot of um philosophy.

[00:09:54]>> Yeah. I mean and I mean that phase of his work has also been construed as quite controversial. there's a lot of people that um are very much on board with the first phase of his work and acknowledge him as kind of a you know one of the greatest uh you know recent uh philosophers of science and whatnot but then once he came out with u um DCR that was construed as much more controversial and I'm wondering speak to to that like why do you see that as you know um having less uptake in the academy than than the first phase of his work? Yeah, I mean it's just, you know, because it really was quite um it's paradigm. It's a paradigmatic shift in the way that we perceive the world.

[00:10:41]And uh you know, if Kun is any is has was right about anything. Um he definitely showed us how paradigm shifts are hard hard for people to to take on board and that you know often we have to wait for some of the some of the die hards to actually literally die before a new paradigm can be taken up.

[00:11:01]Um so this is a huge paradigm shift and it's also a very scary one for um humanity because um you know if you go back to the enlightenment science was a science empiricist science was a reaction against um witchcraft and superstition. um and um a a a church that maintained its power um without any recourse to sort of truth, you know. Um and so we we we fought we people died uh trying to u argue for science as we have it now as a protection against the um the sort of irrationalism of that was allowed to sort of free play at one point. Um [clears throat] so for us to kind of let go of the certainty like okay we we now we have to sort of do a spiral back and we starting to say okay there is such a we we can't be as certain as we thought we could be we um it's a scary point for humanity I think and so a lot of people are you know when I come down when I actually say to them okay so you're going to trust that we're going to trust knowledge that is uncertain that feels scary for them they want the certainty of science of you know what we call empiricist science. Um but the irony of course is that empiricist science has never been certain. Um and we've we've always had to live with uncertainty and knowledge.

[00:12:33]So um so what happened what has happened because I believe that the you know our approach to science has largely um uh we can say it's um what Roy Bescar would say is a compromise formation. We find stuff out and we we really do learn things through science. But we can only do that because we're breaking our rules of science. And so we are because we're always um because our whatever our knowledge is is is breaking the rules of how we get knowledge. This is very useful ideologically.

[00:13:11]Um I I like to give this um example again from my very um eclectic and sort of varied history of experience. So I in about when I was in my 30s and 40s um Zimbabwe went through a terrible economic crisis and we had the highest inflation rates ever seen ever in the world ever.

[00:13:33]And um and what happened was that money meant nothing and um you had to buy everything on the black market. So anybody who was literally alive was breaking the law because if you had food in your house, you were buying it from the black market.

[00:13:47]So um so we were we were all criminal.

[00:13:51]All of us, every Zimbabwen was a criminal. And this was fantastic for the authorities because if there was anybody who they thought was a challenge to their authority, then they just said, "Oh, you've been, you know, you've been using the black market." And then they would throw them in jail. and they didn't have to even look that hard to find reasons to throw them into jail.

[00:14:10]And of course, this is the same with with um the way that we're doing science at the moment since every single scientist and I can show you I have evidence, you know, proof that this is the case. Every scientist who finds out something important has had to in a way break the rules of science. Um, it's very easy for anyone who disagrees with them to say point out to certain problems with their scientific method and yet turn a blind eye to people who find out science supposedly science that suits them. Um so so ideologically the fact that our current philos philosophy or science is basically incorrect um is kind of held in place because that's it's a useful thing and I don't think that people doing that on purpose necessarily but um it certainly is a useful kind of problematic uh in order to maintain the status quo.

[00:15:08]So all of this is, you know, I don't know. I don't know. It's um it's um it's amazing that we we're in this situation where so much of science as we know it is actually not very helpful. Um and Roy Bescar challenges that. Um yeah.

[00:15:28]>> Oh, question on the um sort of the developmental aspect of this. Um because I'm I'm kind of looking at both Hegel and Markx at the moment in work that I'm doing and kind of it's interesting you know that they're both these kinds of developmental thinkers. One very idealist, [clears throat] one very materialist. Um but uh I'm curious around uh you know Bashgar's relationship to Marx and Marxism um and and and his thoughts about uh development. Um I'm I'm just I asked because I'm totally unfamiliar. So I'm I'm I'm curious if that was uh an element of his thought of of thinking about social development. I know that a lot of uh his interest was certainly not just sort of thought for thinking's sake, but that there was an emancipatory uh element to to the to the work that you know this kind of critical thinking would do in the kind of critical social science that it would be able to uh assist. And so I know that that's a big aspect of his thought that maybe had uh influences from Markx in terms of you know philosophers aren't just trying to understand the world. we're trying to change it, that sort of thing. So anyway, is there anything around um uh critical realism and its relationship to uh sort of Marxist thoughts around social development uh that um that you could surface for us a little bit? And the last thing I'll say about that too is um in the context of conversations between integral theory and and critical realism of course development both uh kind of mental cognitive but also social and social formation development is a big aspect that that uh people pick up from integral thought and I'm just kind of curious in terms of some of the parallels or or lack thereof or absences from Bashgar and critical realism. Yeah, to be honest, um, this section of Roy Bascar's work is particularly challenging to fully grasp and it's difficult because if somebody reads his work who doesn't have a quite a strong background in Markx and Hegel, you probably it's very, you know, it's kind of it's a lot of hard work to get get through. Um, and I can't say that that is a section that I've worked through a lot. Um but um you know Markx um Roy Bascar felt that Markx um was onto a good thing. Uh there parts of his philosophy he felt that Bascar had an ontology for the sort of the certain social structures. Um so the whole um you know wage what's it the [clears throat] way that wage work the way that wages are paid um and people are not paid for the um value of their their work for example. So Markx was um was doing that depth realism and looking at structures and mechanisms and he certainly was in going in that direction that Roy Pascal was in but um I think Roy felt that Markx was a bit narrow and that he sort of focused on these particular issues like class and he didn't look at um some of the um broader things that were that are also related.

[00:18:31]So yeah, I think um again Roy Bascar extends marks um quite a lot um in that respect.

[00:18:39]>> Yeah. And it seems I'll just add that it seems to me he was like implicitly um arguing that there are these you know in addition to these um more economic structures and class and capital and whatnot that um that the fundamental philosophies, paradigms, worldviews that we inhabit are actually um a really important, you know, causal agent in the whole unfoldment process. And that that's a really important piece to it as well.

[00:19:10]Yeah, absolutely.

[00:19:11]>> Yeah.

[00:19:12]>> Um, yeah. I mean, I think if you take Bascar's perspective on all the Marxists, okay, so you have all the different ones. You have Aluser and Paul of Frra and I don't know um all the different Marxists. um he kind of sees he he he does this analysis of each of them and he kind of looks at each of their philosophies and tries to unpack them in terms of his philosophy and which ones. So some of them go down the more um you know some of them come quite postmodernist actually and quite relativist um uh especially some of the Frankfurt school for example um I think um I'm trying to remember I think it was Alphaser that he felt was sort of closest to him in terms of his philosophy in some ways um and he also very he very much valued those um some of the Marxist thinking that included Freud. Um because that was again an extension um sort of like not being too narrow and understanding the the um function of our minds and psychology and that sort of thing in in our emancipation as well. So um so Bascar includes Freud very a lot in his work actually um and his whole concept of the reality principle comes from Freud [gasps] um and he himself did have psychoanalysis he felt that psychoanalysis didn't didn't actually help him much but um he he did pick up some of the concepts from psychoanal from Freud um and in fact his Tina compromise is um again as a Freudian concept the compromise formations. So um so he added those to his the sort of emancipatory dialectic and um yeah he those philosophists who also included Freud are probably closer to Bascar than Marxists that didn't include Freud.

[00:21:16]>> Yeah that's great. So yeah, it's it I mean it seems like the whole Boscarian project is really it really is about social emancipation. It really is about uh creating a humanistic society. Um which is, you know, a kind of a concept that he um reconstructs inspired by Marx. Um and the first phase, you know, kind of does that deep in the in the heart of philosophy of science and um and and social science. And then he deepens that in with DCR, right? and and kind of radicalizes it and penetrates deeper into the heart of the kind of western worldview and um and critiquing ontological monovailence and um and and that that's you know that's hard for some people to take on and then maybe you now tell us a bit more about how he further extends and deepens uh that system as he articulates the philosophy of meta reality and takes the spiritual turn and what is happening there and and what does that add to the system? Royal will always tell say that um would always say that he people used to say oh that's that's your spiritual term he would say that's the so-called spiritual term because he didn't really feel that he suddenly had a spiritual term he felt that um the spiritual the spirituality of his work was implicit from the very beginning and for him to be able to say that um you know and it's quite obvious that when you read for example realist theory of science there's no spirituality ity in there overtly at all. So why would he say that there's an implicit spirituality? And then you have to understand what how does he define spirituality and um and so he I actually feel he has quite a secular definition of spirituality um which suits me quite well um because I don't tend I tend to be you know I don't tend to have a personal god um and um so this uh version of spirituality is really about um [gasps] getting beyond the dualisms getting beyond the splits that's his main objective with spirituality actually. And so when you when you see his his original work and he's avoiding like the dualism of say structure and agency um or um you know any of these um the dualism of facts and values for example he's his work is consistently breaking down the dualisms and and so he he said that basically almost all of the arguments and wars that we've ever had have been around some kind of dualistic thinking.

[00:23:56]And so for him, spirituality is to get beyond that dualistic thinking.

[00:24:02]And then in meta reality, he took the step, I guess, to kind of personalize that because he said, okay, so actually we are often in a nondual state and the non-duality is something that exists constantly. If you're listening to me and understanding, in fact, even if you're not understanding me, if you're just listening to my voice, in a way, you're non you're in a non-dual relationship with me. When we're reading a book and we kind of get totally lost in it, we're in a nondual situation.

[00:24:35][gasps] Um when um and you know, chick me talks about this uh in the the nondual experience of like if you was in the flow of things.

[00:24:48]Um so Roy Bascar really just that this concept of going beyond dualisms um is really what links all of his work and so meta reality isn't that surprising from that perspective. Um and so he felt that um in our cultures we have resources and that spirituality is a kind of a cultural resource that we need to draw on um if we're going to survive uh you know this the crisis and um so he felt that there are some really important things that we can pick up and use in um in terms of spirituality and of course he mentioned things like Ubuntu uh in the southern African this concept of um you are because I am or I am because you are. Um so there are certain you know sort of cultural spiritual concepts that we can make use of um and so he he wanted us to be able to use those resources in order to um sort of go forwards with our emancipation. So for him spirituality really was about an extension of his thinking about emancipation. Um and so he sometimes defined defined spirituality as your inwardness. So it's the emancipation of your inward self I guess. um finding your um uh ground state he would call it uh where you yourself and your best day which I always thought was perhaps a little bit of a simplistic way of thinking about it. Um but I understand what he's trying to say. It's like how do you achieve your greatest potential as a human being? Um yeah [gasps] so he kind of linked together our spirituality our personal growth and the world's immense and you know the well-being of the world and the well-being of each other um which is not surprising since this is a meta theor he is a meta theoretician so it's not not hard for me to explain this concept to um integral theorists >> um yeah no that's great I mean I yeah I always found it really inspiring that you know Roy articulated ated that he the reason why he he uh went into meta reality um was because he felt like it was absolutely essential if we're going to make it through the meta crisis or what he called the crisis system um you know in a good way and he knew that it was alienate him from uh elements a lot of elements in the academy and probably be you know the worst move he could make for his career but the best move he could make for the world and I just respect him so much >> for making that move. Um could you say a little bit more about the the actual model? So it's a secular spirituality.

[00:27:36]It's rooted in transcendental arguments that undergur this uh non-dual reality, right? Um so it's asking you to have you know uh any kind of you know onto theology or belief structure or anything like that. He's saying follow the transcendental arguments and you can uh transcend retroduce that there is this non-dual ground state and all the ground states are linked together through a cosmic envelope. and he has a whole tripartide model of the self. I wonder if you could just say a a little bit more about the structural elements of meta reality.

[00:28:07]>> You know, um again, I think I'm going to pass on that question because yeah, I haven't really Yeah. I mean, it sounds to me like you you can probably answer that question better yourself. I mean, um yeah, I I I've only read one of his metal books, meta reality books, and I was blown away by it. I think it's um very powerful.

[00:28:28]Um and um I certainly do use the I I see myself as being in a it changed how I deal with the world really in a practical way like oh okay this is this is a I'm in a non-dual state now and it did make me feel like life is more meaningful I guess I also picked up that concept from him um you know there is um value and meaning in the world and um that the world is um is uh what did he what was the word he used? Help me out here. It's um >> re-enchantment.

[00:29:04]>> It's inherited and enchanted. It's a it's a beautiful enchanted world.

[00:29:08]>> And um so, you know, he he created a space for that in my life. Um whereas, you know, of course, most philosophy when it's anti-ontology, it ends up down this awful you become nihilistic. Yeah.

[00:29:21]before I got before I found critical realism, it was really hard for me to even think that there was any possibility of hope. [laughter] Um, and it was I was, you know, it was easy to go down this nihilism. And I think critical realism gives you hope.

[00:29:39]Uh, it's definitely not. It's re-enchants the world for you. That's the word he uses, re-enchanting.

[00:29:45]Um and uh you know so in terms of meta reality um yeah it in some ways it's it seems to me also quite a common sense approach. Um you know he he says things like you you can never force somebody to learn something. At some point they just have to learn it. At some point you just have to do it. Um you can show them how to do the maths but at some point they just have to get it. And uh that's us with our spirituality. we can kind of talk about it but it's kind of something you just have to do. It's a it's not um that you know it's not um there is an aspect of it that is not thinking and in fact he he goes so far as to say you have to unthink you know if you're going to um develop to grow you also have to sort of at some point stop thinking and just do and um in and not and learning is part is also a process of un unlearning um and of course This is all what the great spiritual teachers, these are the sorts of things the great spiritual teachers have been trying to tell us for thousands of years.

[00:30:56]>> I'm curious for you. So this has been a a lovely sort of tour through the different phases and most of your presentation have focused a lot on sort of the the kind of the move from was it transcendental naturalism into critical realism kind of proper and then this has been a more thorough unpacking of the dialectical critical realism and the uh meta reality aspects. So there's phases here to this this this work. Um, do you I guess personally find that there's a a phase that is sort of the most relevant for the work that you do or the most the one that you connect with most or so that's kind of question one and then question two is like um is it is it all one thing as you read it or is it does it really have these kinds of discreet uh you know movements to it or do you just when you think critical realism you kind of think the whole shebang? I think that those phases were something that other people put onto Royy's work. He didn't think of it in terms of those phases himself, but they do certainly build on build on each other. And um and I always add another phase actually which is his phase of interdisciplinarity.

[00:32:06]Um and so that's I work most in that context of interdicciplinarity.

[00:32:11]Um and he that was a phase it he worked out he worked on that phase parallel to working with metality.

[00:32:21]Um and he worked on his interdisciplinary phase um unusually for him with other people as well. So almost all of his interdisciplinary uh publications are co-publications, co-authorships and um and I so I definitely work most with that and um >> one of those book you did with him, right?

[00:32:43]>> And that's the book I wrote with him.

[00:32:44]>> Yes, that's right.

[00:32:46]>> Well, right.

[00:32:47]>> That's right. Um and so I find that most useful for my work. And if I was to say the biggest uh confusion around Roy maybe is two things u come it comes up in two ways.

[00:33:01]First of all, I think his approach is really a kind of systems theory and I've written an article about this where you know I think that because he wasn't working directly with systems theory in a way um he hasn't been acknowledged as as a great systems thinker and um I think that he pushes systems theory into a different level. he gives it an ontology uh that it has to had before. I'm not the first person to say that but um I think that that is a I think if the systems theorists of the world were to realize what Roy Pascar has done for their discipline, I think it would be mind-blowing.

[00:33:44]>> Um so um that is what I'm hoping that uh we can do is to really develop the the implications of s of critical realism for systems theory. And I think that hasn't been done enough yet. Um, and then also one of the reasons I think Rascar hasn't been as well accepted as he could have been is because he um, and this is a theory I've been working on for a bit and this is probably the first time it's going to be published made public, but um, you know, if you look at the progression of um, our understanding of retroduction for example and the challenges to positivism and um, what you realize or what one realizes is is that uh Roy Bascar was wasn't actually working like out on a limb. He was a child of of the moment in a way. He was um part of a zeitgeist zeitgeist is that how it's pronounced where everybody in his philosophical world was thinking about these problems and I absolutely think that Roy Buscard took a step that no one else took. But that step was set up for him by the work that everybody else was doing at that time. And the problem is that because it was so obvious to him and he was talking to all these people at the time, he misses out things in his work that that isn't so obvious to some of us. So um yeah, so I think in order to fully understand his work, you really have to understand it historically. And that historicalness of his work uh isn't really has that careful historicity of his work hasn't been done. And so it's hard for people to place him like where does he come from? It's like so left field. What how did that happen? Um but that's not the case. He really is building on everybody else around him at the time. And um yeah and so once we see that uh we realize that um it's yeah it it's his work is not that um strange. It really does build on what was being what else was going on at the time.

[00:35:59]>> Yeah. It's interesting because I mean I think of him as you know an integrative or metaodern kind of thinker right and so he tends to defy these these typical categorizations. He's he's interested in bridging all these divides including the divide between analytic and continental philosophy, right? And there's just not that many philosophers that even attempt that like and so it kind of blows people's minds like wait is he is he a British analytic philosopher of science or is he a great you know worldchanging dialectician over here in the continent you know and so it's I think that's part of why he's sort of seen in maybe a a bit more obscure way than he should be.

[00:36:37]Um, but I also just wanted to underscore your your wonderful point about um Boscar as a systems thinker. I think that's so so and and uh and people really need to take that in. I would also mention um one of my favorite books in the critical realist field is by John Mingers and he wrote a book called um systems thinking, critical realism and philosophy and he really you know in great detail lays out exactly what you said. Why does systems theory actually need an ontology? Okay. and and he lays out that case then he articulates the ways in which Roy Boscar has done that in in in a lot of ways and >> um and so anyone who's interested in you know these concepts of emergence and causality and uh downward causality and all these kinds of things Roy has so much to offer um so that that connection is just really important so thank you for making that >> yeah so that gives us a wonderful sense of you know the the three primary movements of critical realism and how that all hangs together um in one system. Um and you know that one can um can sort of uh draw on these things in a scalable way.

[00:37:46]So if if someone is just inspired by the philosophy of meta reality, they can get into that. There's a lot of people that only draw on the first movement, right?

[00:37:55]That's kind of the main thing the main piece that's landed in the academy.

[00:37:59]>> Um but that that's all really wonderful.

[00:38:01]So, I'm wondering if you could now like reflect a bit on critical realism um and what you feel like critical realism brings to this uh broader table, we could call it an arc theoretical table of like in the ecology of integrative meta theories. Now, um what is it that uh critical realism uniquely brings to the table? uh what are its core kind of like strengths and contributions that you feel like are maybe not um well represented by some of the other integrative meta theories? If you look at what Ken Wilbur did to begin with, as of as I understand it, um, and he did this incredible work where he looked at all these different world philosophies and I mean honestly he must have an incredible mind um to have done that work. And then he put it together and he you know he came up with his um his different way of looking at you know the was it the four different ways of looking at the world. Um and in a way Roy Bascar has almost done identical work but he's just started at a different space. So instead of starting by looking at all the patterns he sort of started at in philosophy and uh but in the end he's kind of given an ontology to all the all those different uh spaces that um that Ken identified.

[00:39:32]What what's the name of those four the four equal >> the four quadrants? Yeah, >> the four quadrants. So Roy Bascar gives an ontology to those four quadrants and Wilbur sort of described them. Uh so I think that they're working on exactly the same issues in a way but just coming to them from very different perspectives but the proof of their work is that they should fit you know so if what Wilbur is describing is reality and then if what Roy is describing as reality then there should somehow be a match and I believe that there is I think that um some people have demonstrated how for example Bascar's different uh you know four planes of being for example might relate to the equal or you know people are often theorizing how these two things fit together and I think that they do fit together quite well so um in typical wilarian kind of spirit the spirit of Wilbur I would say that um you know they there's a space for all of them and they um they really do complement each other I think >> um I would say Yeah, please go ahead.

[00:40:45]>> No, no, I was just going to say that the main difference for me between um and I'm not sure if this is true of of integral theorists now because I know people change and I was and things change, but when I looked at some of the earlier integral theory um stuff, it seemed to me that the one of the biggest differences was how one judged judges truth in a way. Um and um I think the integral theorists have I think they tend towards more countenan kind of version of of truth making and uh Bascar has more this judgmental rationalism and um I would say that's probably one of the main differences between the two. Um >> that's that's an interesting thing. I'd like to yeah think more about that unpack that at some point. Um, no, I was gonna ask is, uh, yeah, as Nick mentioned earlier, uh, you were part of the integral theory and critical realism dialogues. Um, curious how that experience landed for you. Um, maybe not even just specifically around the kinds of outputs or or the the the kinds of synthesis that were generated, but also about the process itself, which I know a lot of people found um to be a significant aspect of the entire uh engagement. So, yeah. what what are some kind of takeaways um from your perspective on being involved in that process and also any anything related to that that also can inform what we're doing in this uh integrative meta theory 2.0 I know project would be would be interesting.

[00:42:14]>> I was completely inspired by how the integral theorists enacted their philosophy.

[00:42:23]It was a bodily experience for most of the integral theorists and you know just on a very practical level like I remember being blown away by the whole learning situation where we were like you would we were you know encouraged to be bodies as well as minds you know and that was so foreign to me coming from the sort of British system of education where your body just wasn't even considered you know if you were hungry that was something you kept to yourself.

[00:42:53][gasps] And here we went into these um [clears throat] teaching sharing situations and we'd start out with a meditation or with music. And so, you know, we were fulfilling a spiritual aspect. We were there was always food available. If you wanted to go and do yoga on the mat whilst people were talking, that was fine. And um it just felt to me like I was just I just thought of course this is how we're supposed to be. um we are living with a contradiction as critical realists because we talk about foreplay in a social being and our relationship with the material and yet most of us are just in our minds. So for me it was amazing to see um people walking the talk and I know that Roy Bascar often talked about how important it was to walk the talk that that was something he judged he used to judge things from as a young child where the people were acted uh without contradiction if they walked their talk and so for me I was really inspired by the integral theorists who to me were walking their talk. Um that was one takeaway I had.

[00:43:59]Um [gasps] yeah um just also what inspired me was how um well accepted the integral theorists were how well integrated you are into the spiritual communities many spiritual communities in America [gasps] and I felt that um that was really inspiring because we certainly haven't achieved that um here you know in England um critical realism is still very marginalized and I think it's um fantastic fantic that integral theory is not so marginal as far as I can see. Um it really has a a strong presence. Um and that's very inspiring and gives me hope. Yeah. And um I mean and of course there were these wonderful intellectual discussions as well you know like how does AQL fit with foreplayer social being or I I prefer to say that AQL is more similar to the seven layers of scale but [clears throat] these sorts of interesting discussions were really wonderful to have uh you know without the judgments and just open open dialogue and of course Edgar Moran was invited as well which was wow um so we got to to have discussions with him as well. So really it was an incredible experience and I just so grateful for it.

[00:45:16]>> Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. It was really have such fond memories of of that whole, you know, five-y year long series and um yeah and it it just was such an amazing way that we you know felt like there was almost at least in the honeymoon phase you might say there was this amazing sense of like wow it's like the yin to the yang you know like these few systems just are like soulmates they've just they complement each other so well um and where their absence in one the other one has something to say.

[00:45:51]Um and and that was kind of the first phase. It was, you know, the this very loveydovey vibe, you know, where we were uh just so happy to be together and dialoguing and and uh um becoming friends, you know, and that was such an important component of the whole thing.

[00:46:06]>> And then later in some of the subsequent symposiums, uh we kind of got into the some of the nitty-gritty where the where the rub is, right? and u you know this kind of as you said this kind of neocontian philosophy that um veers into the epistemic fallacy um arguably um and and how we kind of work through that that of course you know those dialogues inspired a lot of development and change and we were just talking with Bruce um in the earlier today in the podcast about kind of the postwarian diaspora of all these different um postwillbarian approaches and many of them have really taken those those critiques to heart and and seeing there are deep contradictions in the in the fundamental uh ontology of integral theory. And so there's this need for for transfiguration there. Um and and then the the whole theory of of dialectic um being such an important part and looking at these places where um you know there we were sort of talking past each other at times. um you know a lot of the critical realists were saying well integral theory is doesn't have you know isn't dialectical it's not dialectical and you know you don't have a theory of dialectic and um and then the many of the integral theorists were saying well you're not being very dialectical and how you're engaging this dialogue [laughter] and and it was kind of funny and I think you know both of those were kind of true and we were able to find the the generative uh the generativity in that tension you know and I think as as Boscar's theory would would sort of uh you know uh suggest you know the absences in both the theories the contradictions between both of theories were actually these powerful generative drivers of of new and more encompassing arc theoretical perspectives like complex angle realism visionary realism and others um which I thought was uh really wonderful and um yeah I mean and and and And I I think that there was just so much um value in in being willing to uh sit with the the contradictions. And um I remember being very touched at one point of like all of us sitting in the room and we were in London and and like many people were in tears because we all just care so much about trying to to change the world and help the world in this time of crisis and yet there was so much you know divergence in terms of how we're thinking about these things and just really beautiful and rare to bring people together in that in the kind of way that we did. So, I really uh I really appreciated, you know, having you there and getting to the chance to do that with you.

[00:48:51]>> Yeah, I appreciated that too very much.

[00:48:53]And um it was wonderful for Roy as well to have that time.

[00:48:59]Um you know, his life was really hard.

[00:49:02]Um and uh it was a it was a nice it was wonderful for him to be sort of celebrated in that way and to escape to another space. I remember him enjoying the sunshine and um it was it was a wonderful experience but also very meaningful I think for everyone who was there. And um I always I always feel a bit sad when um people set critical realism up against other meta theories or because it seems to me that you know that's quite contrary the whole point if you know if we're trying to get away from dualisms and away from conflictual thinking and just to have just to set ourselves up against something else is actually contradict.

[00:49:53]victory I think to the whole point of what Roy was trying to do. Um and you know he himself didn't do that. I remember at times being quite frustrated with him because somebody would say something which I thought was quite outrageous and quite wrong and and he wouldn't say anything and I thought why you know he he I mean actually I have to say that that there is there was a that was true in some ways in a personal level when he was um speaking at a public event he used to he would be quite um clear about his position and that could annoy people as well but on a more personal level, he was very reticent to criticize. Um, and um, I remember once saying to him, I had I'd found Andrew Collier's book and I said to him, "Well, Roy, should I read this or not? You know, is it is it any good?" And he said, "I I it's absolutely not me. It's not to for me to tell you that. You need to read it and decide for yourself." And he would not tell me what he thought of Andrew Collier's work. Um and uh yeah he he wanted us to think from for ourselves and that was one of his main points of his philosophy you know was that uh you should run anything that I tell you anything that he tells you by your own experience by your own understanding and you have to come to your own belief structure about it and he try he didn't want to impose on people in that way he didn't want to be palemical so sometimes he he would apologize if he was being polymical.

[00:51:27]Um he he he really didn't want us to fight each other.

[00:51:32]>> This is a beautiful window into the you know actual lived embodied interpersonal relationships of um that kind of of these different metaoretical communities coming together. And I I guess that all of that is something that we can certainly aspire to in the project that that we're um engaged in at at present.

[00:51:50]And so, uh, yeah, it's it's good to have that before us as a good, um, uh, something to aspire to. Um, I I was going to ask, um, I guess to come back to the conceptual though as well to kind of, uh, to zoom back up into into just heady theoretical space. um you know the one of the questions that we are are asking of these different models is um also uh what's missing I guess would be sort of uh the the basic way of of putting it. So I'm curious when you look at critical realism uh in that broader kind of ecology of of meta theories um uh if if there are things that you feel like maybe are particularly absent there or that could be benefited by more engagement with other kinds of models that might be stronger in some some other areas. Um yeah, how how would you uh how would you consider critical realism along those lines?

[00:52:48]>> Yeah. Um I think critical realism needs um more work in terms of its application.

[00:52:56]Um I think Roy Bascar didn't fully understand the full implications of his own work.

[00:53:05]Um and that's typical of many great inventors, you know. Um I don't think Einstein fully understood what his work would lead to. um you know the people who found out about DNA Watson and Crick and others um they had no I mean when you look about look where we've come with genetics since then um and I think that's the same with Roy Bescar he actually didn't fully understand um how powerful and he knew his work was powerful but I don't think he understood just how powerful it is and um I'll give you an example um you know when I was writing this book with him on interdicciplinarity and well-being. And he said to me, um, Lee, could you just, so we're writing a book on well-being, so we better have a chapter about well-being. Um, could you just could you write that chapter on what what you know what would be what it would be to to to flourish as a human being?

[00:54:04]So, um, I I said, "Okay, well, I'll try." And um and then of course you know he didn't live very much longer after that so I wasn't able to have this conversation with him. But what I discovered was that we can't actually write that chapter yet. Well certainly at that time. Um so and the reason that we can't couldn't write it was because our science is so limited by its empiricism that we actually don't know what human beings need to flourish. Um and um what I in fact discovered was this um terribly inadequate approach to uh science for for health and wellbeing.

[00:54:48][gasps] Um so but Roy Bascar didn't anticipate that. Um he was in a way yeah just like most of us he felt that you know he often say that science he wasn't really he wasn't trying to change what science was doing. he was just trying to change the philosophy of science and um under labor for what science was already doing. But I think that in fact his philosophy of science is and is going to and will need to change how we do science and how we perceive science. And I think he didn't realize that um and and that perhaps is a weakness of his philosophy. Um but [sighs] it's but he's left us with a legacy where we can potentially change science into something much greater, much more powerful.

[00:55:35]Um and I think that's what where we have to, you know, that's our job. We have to do that headwork.

[00:55:42]>> Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean I hear that as like he sort of laid the foundations for the possibility of um a kind of radically transformed notion of what science is like an integrated science >> and also his visions of the ways that we tend to think of philosophy over here in this lane and then there's science over here in this lane um in the modern world and they're kind of you know the they're a bit dissociated from each other but I think he articulated this vision of the this twin screwing um of of science and philosophy. um the sin categormatic nature of the two uh fields that I think is extremely powerful and that's I think that's part of what you're saying isn't that like well you know to do science in a way that really plays out the implications of what Boscar theorized would be a pretty radical transfiguration of what science uh actually is >> absolutely >> like you can't be a scientist without also being a philosopher um of some kind right kind of natural philosopher and and and vice versa, right? And that the philosophers be very interested in the findings of science >> and so on. So, yeah. Yeah. Great visionary and that's a wonderful that's a wonderful, you know, image of of what he's left us with to kind of continue.

[00:56:59]It's up to us to continue to unpack that.

[00:57:02]>> And he did he did in his book um enlightened common sense somewhere in there, he's actually written a couple of sentences saying this is what still needs to be done from his perspective.

[00:57:13]And um you know it was quite a long list actually. I can't remember all the details but he certainly did leave. He you know there's work to be done and he certainly didn't complete um his life's work. Um it was it was sad actually that he went when he did because there was still so much he wanted to do.

[00:57:32]>> Well quick question on that front. I'm I'm curious uh in terms of what the critical realist community is like at the moment. Um is it still flourishing?

[00:57:41]Do you still see it being this this framework being applied a lot? Um uh yeah, just I always also come back to these sociological questions around who's engaging these different meta theoretical models and in what way. So yeah, what's your read on the uh on the critical realist community?

[00:57:57]>> Um it's it's flourishing. It's growing >> and uh it's especially flourishing amongst the youth, the younger researchers, which is not surprising.

[00:58:08]that's where it normally happen, you know, that's where the uptake normally is. Um, and um, honestly, there's so much interest in critical realism amongst young people. Um, yeah. So, I think we don't have to worry about that.

[00:58:22]It's definitely growing.

[00:58:24]>> Yeah. I mean it seems like um when I went to UCL I mean and a lot of the education that we got around methodology and philosophy of science basically presented uh the situation um to be okay you've you've got positivism and you've got social constructivism and those are pretty much your options. And then there's this third thing that's emerging that is critical realism, but it's really the only coherent like response um in terms of philosophy of science and methodology. Um and you know, I think it's a pretty it's an increasingly tough cell to be like, yeah, just be a a positivist naive realist or oh, it's all just in this radical constructivism and relativism. Those are increasingly tough cells in today's world. And I think uh you know the meta crisis is kind of like also a context that's driving like hey like we actually do need to to work these things out. Yes, humans do construct a lot of aspects of our social reality and there's clearly there there such a thing as truth and reality. Um and you know our experiments into what it looks like to construct a post-truth society don't seem to be going particularly well. [laughter] So uh yeah and then yeah I love that you mentioned the thing in the end of enlightened common sense that was a a wonderful moment of affirmation for me when he mentioned critical uh not only did he mention uh integral theory um but he mentioned the integral theory and critical realism dialogues and he said you know uh critical realism's epistemology and its and its tax taxonomy of epistemic structures and its understanding of developmental psychology and some of the human sciences is underdeveloped and really needs to be developed and uh I think that's that's true and it was so wonderful that he could acknowledge that and see that and um didn't have any kind of issue with that. Um but it was in in fact quite encouraging of it and that's another piece of critical realism that I think is somewhat unique is that he talked about autocritique and he talked about uh developing integrative pluralism. So uh that's you know and and and this criterion of like internal coherence to any philosophy. So philosophy has to walk its talk. It has to be serious. It has to be internally coherent. And if it's not then it's worth it. I mean this if we're not doing that then what are we doing?

[01:00:42]>> Absolutely. Absolutely.

[01:00:44]>> You know he was very much on board with the the notion that you know his philosophy was incomplete. He knew it's always going to be incomplete and it's always this project that keeps unfolding across the generations.

[01:00:56]>> Absolutely. And that's the whole point of his fallibism is that we have to we always have to acknowledge that some other information could arrive we didn't think about or didn't know about that could make us change how we do say you know how we understand things. So that is built into his philosophy. So it's a very humble philosophy I think. um it's not he's not making and he'll often say he'll often say um you know we need something something like critical realism if we're going to um survive the crisis. Um so he wasn't attached to it even being in fact he didn't even like the name critical realism.

[01:01:33]Um but he yeah he wasn't attached to it being his philosophy or any idea that it would you know it was some kind of absolute truth. Um for him it was always a work in progress. Yeah, that I mean that that reminds me of like one of the articles that I've been wanting to write for a while is to kind of make this case that one of the core kind of architectonics of this emerging integrative worldview or metaodern worldview is this uh return to a neo realalism or emergence of a neo-realism.

[01:02:03]So it doesn't have to be a, you know, subscribe to Roy Boscar's philosophy, but I think he's he probably does the best job of anyone I've seen of articulating what that, you know, the basic contours of what that looks like.

[01:02:16]And absolutely, I mean, uh, without some kind of a sophisticated realism that acknowledges the the constructivist element at play and the recursivities involved in that, um, you know, how are we supposed to navigate the the 21st century and all these crisis crises? So I guess that brings me to the next question which would be you know how do you see critical realism being relevant for addressing the the the planetary meta crisis. I know you've done a lot of work in ecology and climate change, but love to hear your thoughts on on kind of the relevance of this because in many ways that's how you got into this and why you find critical realism, >> right?

[01:02:54]>> Yeah. Well, I've touched on it already a little I think um which is that I think um critical realism gives us the tools to really challenge um false consciousness if you like.

[01:03:10]Okay, don't mind me calling using that phrase, but uh it allows us to challenge misconceptions to challenge false knowledge. Um and so ideologically speaking, I think it's hugely valuable. Um and it's complicated because you know as I said before if we've ever found out any if we've ever found anything out and if Royal Roy Bascar has given us a correct epistemology then we've used a correct epistemology even if we spoke about it incorrectly.

[01:03:46]So um so we are all if you like critical realists uh [sighs and gasps] if we if we're surviving at some level we're engaging in reality enough to continue living. I mean maybe we're not doing it well enough to for for future generations and that's the problem I guess. Um but what this means is that it's quite sometimes it's critical realism is a hard cell because when you try and give the philosophy of it people can always come back at you and say yes but in practice we're actually doing those things. Um so um somehow and that that kind of throws me sometimes um you know if you talk to a social constructionist or something and they all say yes but of course we don't really think that you know that there's no such thing as a rock um because of course in their lives they have to act as if they are such things as rocks. Um then that's a silly example really but still um so what am I trying to say? So trying to use critical realism to um to make the world a better place. Um really it it does require a lot of deep thinking. It's not like easy. It's not it's like I often think the the best way is never the easy way is it? And uh it's takes quite a lot of intellectual thinking through to work out you know what's what's the matter with a particular argument. for example. Um and um so I I personally think that we have to change the [clears throat] basic philosophy of the world which is not a small ask. Um, and that was my the conclusion my PhD came to was that we literally have to change how we interact with the world philosophically.

[01:05:37]um and come to a and um you know at the moment when I was writing my PhD the metaphors people always were using were about webs and you know the sort of um systems theory was all about webs and connections and um I wanted to change the metaphor to uh more emergent type metaphors of spirals and vortexes um relationships rather than the webs. Um but literally we have to change our whole understanding of what science is and philosophy change our metaphors even the way that we literally see the world I think um in order to um fully grasp the potential to protect our selves and all beings. That's beautiful and yeah uh well said and I have a lot of personal affinity with those metaphors that you just used as well and I think that's also not an accident that we see those cropping cropping up a lot in meta theoretical spaces. Um, one of the other things just, you know, Nick, you mentioned the sort of um, neo-realism being this light motif of a lot of integrative metaodern thought.

[01:06:47]And one of the things that I see is this kind of um, open-endedness uh, a kind of like it's built into the theory that the theory is incomplete, a kind of incompleteness theorem element to the to the theory. I see this in a lot of different contexts that make that very explicit. And so a lot of that then leads into a kind of epistemic humility and a kind of fallibleism and all of that. And these seem like really really core features of um of a lot of these different uh approaches and uh and also things that I think we take are taking very seriously as core to this project that we're that we're also working on.

[01:07:21]Uh so um this has been really lovely. Uh thank you so much Lee uh for all of your work and uh and for sharing your insights and expertise on critical realism with us and uh we are excited and uh to have you uh part of this journey and this integrative meta theory 2.0 effort and um and are are looking forward to continuing to collaborate with you and and uh and your expertise on that. So I'll just say that and thanks very much. But this has been really rich.

[01:07:48]>> It's been an absolute pleasure and um yeah, thank you so much for the invitation. Um, it's really been great to be here.

[01:07:55]>> Fantastic. Thank you so much, Lee. Yeah, really pleasure.

[01:07:58]>> Thanks, Nick.

[01:07:59]>> Really appreciate all the decades of work that you've put into this and all the the wisdom that you carry.

[01:08:05]>> Thank you. And to you as well, Nick, you've done amazing work and you're you've been a um what can I say? A um a great integrator. [laughter] I mean you you know you've really worked so hard to bring together the two ways of thinking and you've done it so carefully and so um responsibly and I really admire that. So thank you.

[01:08:31]>> Thank you so much.

[01:08:32]>> Appreciate that >> you're here. All right. Thanks everyone.

[01:08:36]Till next time.

[01:08:45]The new story of wholeness is emerging.

[01:08:49]Explore it at new story of wholeness.com.