1

MetaReality and the Dynamic Calling of the Good

This essay emerges out of the dialogue and exchange betweencritical realism and integral theory. It is a contributionto and within critical realist discourse, philosophicallyunderlaboring for the senses of the good and goodness with ametaReality schema, arguing for, in performing the necessityof, the intimate intertwining of transcendental andphenomenological methods. One implication of the study isthe recontextualizing of the singular philosophical statusof the axiology of freedom.

KEYWORDS good, freedom, responsibility, justice, ethics,perspectives, integral theory, metaReality

‘The World is perfect as it is, including my desire tochange it.’ – Ram Dass

Introduction

This paper draws upon ongoing work in integral moral philosophy,deriving in part from a book chapter (written several yearsago),1 that lays out a Levinasian-inspired sense of the silentcalling of the good reverberating through differentiatedperspectives. It rewrites aspects of this earlier formulation interm of critical realist and metaRealist insights. It is aninitial attempt to point to and philosophically underlabor forthe good (and goodness) within a non-dual metaReality schema;where the good is a necessary condition of values in both theirhealthy-emancipatory and unhealthy-ideological expressions.Certain presuppositions of the axiology of freedom are re-examined within this formulation.

The essay opens with what might be broadly calledphenomenological considerations. Doing so turns on the view that1 Schwartz, forthcomiong..

2

the self-showing of empiricities is an irreducible condition ofpossibility of exploring a given domain of generative mechanisms;and that empiricities, in their very self-showing, are by nomeans simply pre-given or naively present, in instancespossessing sedimented and clouded dimensions that requiresurfacing and clarification.

My initial cue is taken from the ethical thought of EmmanuelLevinas who champions the ‘good beyond being’, such that one isalways already called to responsibility through the face of theOther; this relationship of I to Other (for us, I to Thou) isalways already asymmetrical and irreversible – one cannot escapethe call through appeal to an intersubjective reversal ofpositions.2 And yet, while taking my lead from Levinasianinsights, I also critique this constellation of ethical thought(which includes Derrida on justice),3 questioning: (1) making theI-Thou perspective primary in all cases, a move critiqued as amoment of perspective-fixation; (2) interpreting the Platonictrope of the good beyond being in a manner that hazards adiremption between ontology and the moral call (parallel to themodern fact-value split); (3) the lauding of the infinitecharacter of the ethical call as ‘prior’ to and over and beyondthe more mundane and concrete calls of finite everyday social-cultural circumstances in which we are always already situated;and (4) the Self as finite only, hence always already stressed –‘traumatized’ is Critchley’s term4 -- by the overwhelm of theembodied personality encountering this infinite call of the good;which downplays the specificity of the situation, in lieu of theconcrete universal ↔ concrete singular, that at any given momentcan more or less wisely be addressed by and from the enhancedcapacities of actualizing our transcendental selves.

One of the many strengths of metaRealism (and of integral theory)is the embrace of a non-dual view that includes duality, suchthat ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’, both the non-duality of ourground-state as transcendental Self and its dualistic expression

2 Levinas, 1969. For a later refinement of this scheme, see Levinas 1981. 3 Derrida 1992.4 Critchley 2007.

3

through our unique embodied personalities are ‘not two’ –metaReality is at once infinite and finite, boundless andlimited. In actualizing an embodied non-dual way of existence,all arises as natural perfection, nothing has ever happened,nothing needs to change or be different – as we sense theinherent and radiant goodness of all that is or could ever be.5

And at the same time there are limits to all forms, inclusive oftheir impermanence and the inherited splits and ills of the demi-real, attesting to what Zen teachers have so long pointed to asthe great sorrow of the world, the divine and beautiful sadnessof actuality nakedly as it is.

There is thus a rub between non-dual perfection and dualisticimperfection, igniting holy sparks: an incessant murmur that‘there ought to be something better, something more’. This is thestirrings of the good as a silent and ever-present call-ing --the good as otherwise than actuality, calling actuality to be otherwise. This call,analogous to a verbal performative (if non-reductivelylinguistic), exceeds yet affects manifest being, inviting andinciting change and transformation in the flows of non-dual love.What deconstructive lines of thinking tend to miss, by focusingon the ‘impossibility’ of an adequate response to the vastness ofthe moral call, is being’s radical and chaotic-creative fecundityas incited and enticed by the good, which can lead to wise actsin the moment that generate ‘something better’ -- the moral callsounding a regulative orientation and direction within concretesingular circumstances, calling forth determinate absences toredress some lack or ill.

Adapting terms that John Milbank has forwarded, thedeconstructive sense of the call of the good,6 as with Derrida onjustice, leans towards a ‘gnosticism’ in dirempting the highaltitude status of the moral call from the concreteness of our5 This view of goodness, which diverges from the classic articulations of thephilosophy of metaReality, is inspired by the Dzogchen tradition of TibetanBuddhist (as in its phrase ‘the Great Perfection of all that is’), consonantwith Wilber’s notion of (absolute) ground value and perhaps less so withCollier’s view of the inherent worth of being. See Wilber 2000, 545-546 andcf. Collier 1999.6 Milbank 2010.

4

lives; whereas a more ‘incarnational’ approach, to pick upMilbank’s terms if not the specifics of his argument,acknowledges, on the one hand, that the call can never be met inits infinitude while, on the other, the call is always alreadyresonating with and referencing specific circumstances. The goodis always already calling manifest being to be otherwise, a callat once infinite and finite, open and directed in its appeal,incessant while at the same time situational and singular,regularly able to be met in comparatively better or worse ways.

Inherent goodness and the call of the good – as proper to one’sliving an embodied non-dual existence, where the egoic illusion(and its causal efficacy) falls away, afflictive emotions clearup revealing their love-core potencies, and the embodiedpersonality matures and relaxes into seamless integration with,while being empowered by, the transcendentally real Self.

Perspective basics

While we can train ourselves to attune to the good directly(beyond Plato’s claim, couched in visual language, that we canonly catch a glimpse7), we regularly do so as the call of thegood reverberates and resounds through differing perspectives.Integral theory posits perspectives as what can be forwarded,following John Sallis, as irreducible elementals of the actual.8

For the sake of parsimony, we explore three basic perspectives:first person, as the I of the embodied personality; second7 Sallis 2008, 50-52.8 An elemental is at once (1) conditioning of and (2a) in part immanent to,(2b) while withdrawing from, what is conditioned – Sallis articulating thisview with philosophical nuance and precision. In Sallis 2000, the naturalelements, especially those of earth and sky, are the primary focus. In Sallis2012, this exposition is extended, such that, in his terminology, the sundrynatural elements, along with seclusion as sheltering retreat as well as birthand death, are proper elementals of one’s ownmostness; with the cosmologicalelemental exceeding even more so than do the natural elements the constitutionof being human. Sallis’ work is a case in point that phenomenology can be morethan descriptive, offering novel modes of transcendental insight, fleshing outdimensions of the actual that enrich understanding of the constellated three-fold depth strata of the real.

5

person, as the thou of the embodied personality of another; andthird person, inclusive of going beyond a literal third person inthe constitution of social order. Per insights from integral mathand developmental psychology,9 these basic perspectives compoundinto chains, generating combinations (about which more below).

The three basic perspective are irreducible to one another, eachan elemental conditioning of distinctive domains of actuality asessential for inquiry into the generative mechanisms of thosedomains.10 Each of these perspectives reverberates with adistinctive sounding of the good, according to integral theory.The first person perspective resounds with the call of freedom.The second person perspective -- in this essay’s account, therelation to an irreducible thou prior to any meta-subject or we(the latter as plural first person) – resounds with call to anirreversible and unlimited responsibility for the sake and well-beingof another. The third person perspective resounds with the socialorder called to justice. Freedom, responsibility, and justice arethe callings of the good resounding in and through the basicfirst-, second-, and third-person perspectives.

Let us take a brief tour of each.

The first person or the I of the embodied personality (and beyondthat, of the transcendental Self) is called to freedom. There arevarious folds of freedom, four of which are: (1) freedom from asnegative liberty, the lack of external constraints and bounds;(2) freedom to as positive liberty, the vitality, health, andskill-capacities for our thinking and embodied acts; (3) freedomthroughout via reflexive self-integrity and self-coherence,reducing internal conflict and thereby enhancing transformativeaction flows; and (4) freedom as per transcendental identificationwith one’s ground-state in actualizing the non-dual Self.11 9 Fuhs 2010.10 For example, the first person actualities of the cognition of the embodiedpersonality are a necessary condition of possibility for scientificallyexploring the generative mechanisms of that cognition, as proper todevelopmental psychology and the neurosciences. For elaboration, see Schwartz2015.11 On freedom, cf. Bhaskar 1993, 282-283.

6

The second person calls one to responsibility, a formulationechoing Levinas’ expounding of the ethical relation as ‘prior’ toa We as meta-subject or to reversible exchange proper to theintersubjective – the other as a radical thou. Self and the otherare not primordially the Same, since there is no common basis forthe exchanging of my position for yours, your position for mine –an irreducible transcendence within and of the seamless immanenceof the boundless non-dual ground-state. The ethical relation isthe one-to-the-other in an irreversible asymmetry -- through theFace of the Other a mysterious-transcending thou-ness calling oneto responsibility, a silent call incessant and in SimonCritchley’s apt phrase ‘infinitely demanding’.12

The third person perspective calls systems and institutions ofsocial order to justice13 -- where institutions possess (followingintegral theory14) systemic meshworks of distributed rights (whatis due the individual) and obligations (what the individual membersowe to others and to the whole) as these are encoded as norms.Justice is the call to rectify and intensify the sense offairness proper to this distribution of rights and obligations inlieu of effective systemic, structural, and institutionaloperations proper to four-planar social being. Especially withincreasing complexity, tensions readily exist amongst rights,obligations, and specific institutional imperatives (e.g. make a12 These two perspectives - expanded as meta-perspectives, about which morebelow - bear upon and offer a different interpretation of the notions ofground-state and the cosmic envelope as presented in the classic articulationsof the philosophy of metaReality. The cosmic envelope, gathering andsustaining all ground-states, is enfolded in each and every ground-state. Ingod-realization all is within what I AM, while at the same time what I AM, isenfolded in the ground-states of others from their side, constituting acomplex folding, enfolding, and unfolding of the god-realized Self that isalso the Self non-dual with Others-as-Thous – each ground-state as uniquelysingular and universal. This Otherness as other ground-states in their ownperspectival I-ness is what then ‘escapes’ and ‘transcends’ the absoluteenfolding of the cosmic envelope in any god-realized Self: as the encompassingof the entire cosmic envelope in the non-dual Self is relative to that Self’slocus on the cosmic envelope.13 A formulation echoing Levinas’ notion of the ‘third person’ (Levinas 1987,106).14 Wilber 1995/2000, 545.

7

profit) – justice calling this constellation towards greaterfairness. Nor is fairness inherently a flatland sense ofevaluation animating our deliberations and reflections, whichwould be to hold forth one-sidedly what integral theory callsground value, but needs to include intrinsic value, extrinsicvalue, functional efficiency, and more, in fairing-out the meshof rights, obligations, and institutional effectiveness.15 Thecritical realist distinction between generalized equality and coreequity is in this regard crucial,16 as it countermands an abstractuniversalism of individuals, as numerically interchangeable, inlieu of concrete singularities of the members of the socialtotality. This discrimination highlights how the distribution andpatterns of reciprocity, exchange, and mutual recognition, underthe regularity of fairness, cannot be reduced per simpliciter toindividuals as numerical and substitutable equivalents.

Perspective Dynamics

Perspectives are not only elemental of the actual (and byextension condition what generative mechanisms can beinvestigated), but also of metaReality. Listening to the good islike attuning to a silent call that comes from another, from avast, unfindable, non-separate transcendental Thou (in parallelto the transcendental Self). The first-, second-, and third-person perspectives that reverberate as freedom, responsibility,and justice are embraced and conditioned by this second personmeta-perspective (about which more below) that is elemental forattuning to the call of the good itself.

Perspectives and meta-perspectives therein combine – here thesecond person meta-perspective embracing the first-, second-, andthird-person perspectives, designated as 2(1), 2(2), 2(3); wherethe lead outer number is the meta-perspective, the numbers withinthe parentheses the dualistic perspective. For example, ‘2(1)’signifies and references a second-person meta-perspectiveembracing a first person perspective resounding with the call of

15 Wilber 1995/2000, 543-7.16 Bhaskar 1993, 181.

8

freedom to the embodied personality cum transcendental Self. Inaddition, this first person perspective can relate itself to asecond-person perspective, this chain signified by 2(1-2) asreferencing the call of freedom to a first person as precedingand pre-orienting that person’s call to responsibility for asecond person. In this instantiation of perspectival dynamism,responsibility is conditioned through a prior sense of freedom,muting the infinite demand to the other in lieu of the resoundingof liberty. Nor is this necessarily ‘selfish’, as that call toliberty includes incitement to actualize ever more so the freedomof the transcendental Self and its ‘qualities’ of co-presence andnon-dual love. Perspectival dynamics as elemental of the actualmoral field orients the valuing of certain kinds of action in agiven circumstance, therein having causal potential for our beingin the world with others.

The perspective chain can expand from two to three terms (leavingopen as question whether more than three terms is warranted orpossible). Here are the basic combinations:

9

Complexity

Basic Perspective Combinations of the DynamicCalling of the Good

1st

Order2(1), 2(2), 2(3)

2nd

Order2(1-2), 2(1-3), 2(2-1), 2(2-3), 2(3-1), 2(3-2)

3rd

Order2(1-2-3), 2(1-3-2), 2(1-{2+3}), 2(2-1-3), 2(2-3-1), 2(2-{1+3}), 2(3-1-2), 2(3-2-1), 2(3-{1+3})

For 3rd order combinations the movement from the foundingperspective to a second perspective and then to a thirdperspective is to be distinguished from moving from that samefounding perspective to the other two without any strong prioritybetween these (the latter is indicated by ‘+’).17 For example,2(3) is the call of justice as fairness, where the moral sensesof freedom and responsibility do not explicitly come forward,such that concern for justice might be focused through a primaryconsideration of the functional efficiency of the system. Indistinction, the combination 2(3-1) expands to include freedom –as proper to certain Western democratic articulations of theunalienable rights of citizens (where there is often minimalpolitical-theoretical foundation for the unalienable obligationto others). The combination 2(3{1+2}) would come closest to theformulation of justice presented in the previous section of thispaper, where given the primacy of the call of justice, freedomtranslates as rights and responsibility as obligations.

In this initial presentation – delimiting complexity, as theperspectival combinations can quickly get unwieldy -- there areno less than eighteen perspective chains that are elemental of17 A question arises about the first term in the perspective chain being notsingular but itself doubled (or tripled), such that there is no strongpriority for the opening and founding term in a combinatory chain. The answeris that this is possible but entails an initial forestalling at the start ofany clear moral orientation, in effect a short-circuiting of the call of thegood having any clear direction. This would be a case of pathology in theperspectival dynamics of the moral field -- a kind of undirected calling thatdoes not effectively call.

10

the actual moral field. These perspectives orient agency and itsdirections/directives. Their going unnoticed in our everydaylives as well as in our theoretical reflections and moraldeliberations constitute a lacuna. Especially when entangled withdemi-real splits and ills, this absence of explictness of themoral perspectival landscape hazards less than optimally clearand effective transformative action. Importantly, reflexiveattunement to and take up of the perspective dynamics of theactual moral field of our lives sharpens moral clarity andenhances moral flexibility per changing situational flexes andflows, empowering socio-cultural transformative praxis itself.Directly accessing the dynamic calling of the good is itself amoral developmental exercise (for which, see the Appendix).

When freedom is to the fore the moral orientation is existential;when responsibility is to the fore, the moral orientation isethical; when justice is to the fore the moral orientation ispolitical.18 The speculation is that no one of these stances has ana priori priority – a claim explored below in our discussion ofthe axiology of freedom. But this pluralism is not a badrelativism. To offer a metaphor: for 3rd order combinations, theinitiating perspective is the organizing node of a three notemoral chord as that chord’s center of gravity. If no chord is the chordof all chords, as the necessary foundation of the others, theyall share the same notes, intervals, and relata, overlaying oneanother in their respective soundings, making translationsbetween and amongst them possible.

Many philosophies heed and enact the dynamic calling of the goodthrough a specific moral center of gravity. For Levinasian moralphilosophy, the second person of one’s asymmetricalresponsibility to the other is primary, the other callings of thegood regulated through this predominate note -- such that one’sembodied vitality is in service to and for the other, freedomcoming ‘later’ than and ‘activated’ by the infinite demand ofresponsibilty; while justice, through the appearance of otherOthers, is ‘founded’ on complicating the singular ethicalrelation. While inflecting and shifting throughout the immense18 On the political, cf. Bhaskar 1994, 156-7.

11

Levinasian corpus, the operative combinatory may be generalizedas 2(2-3-1).

If Levinasian philosophy begins with the second person and theethical relation, Nietzsche, in certain key texts, affirms lifeand power as oriented from the first person and its primacy ofempowered and empowering freedom. Bhaskar begins with the firstperson perspective of freedom and via the axiology of freedomgenerates a 3rd order combination (more about which below).Derrida in his turn seems at moments to move with a nod to thethird person and its primacy of justice as what is beyonddeconstruction. These are complex and nuanced philosophies, thepoint not to be reductive through the use of perspectiveanalytics, but only to obtain some initial bearings on therespective moral orientations as aid for comparison andfurthering discussion, opening into a genuine dialogical-dialectical encounter of mutual learning. This essay in part thenis an underlaboring for the dialectical-dialogical moral field ofmutual learning and enrichment – pointing to the need torecognize and honor moral types. Rather than a problem, thediversity of such types enriches moral life and deliberation.Even as I enact a typology of the good different from yours, weare able reflexively to thematize this difference, enhancing ourmoral communication.

Within this dynamic moral field, the moral call proper to aperspective-domain can be transposed to another domain ingenerating moral metaphors. For example, we speak of the ‘health’of a system, which borrows its terminological force from thestatus of the embodied personality’s degrees and modes ofenabling freedom as vitality, transposed to that of third personactuals and their generative mechanisms. Moral metaphors finelyadjust and nuance our attuning to the differential callings ofthe good. Complementing moral metaphors are moral translations, aswhen a second or third term in a combinatory chain is inflectedin lieu of the first and initiating term in that chain, e.g. whenthe third person perspective of justice is first term, freedomtranslates as rights, responsibility as obligations.

12

Moral types, moral metaphors, and moral translations areirreducible components of the actual moral field of perspectivedynamics.

Meta-perspectives and transcendental modals of the metaReal

Building on insights of Bhaskar’s philosophy of metaReality, Iwish to expound the notions of meta-perspectives and transcendentalmodals of the metaReal.19 Bhaskar argues that the transcendental Selfis necessary condition for agency, social life and other domainsof what Bhaskar calls relative reality. Agreeing in general withthis view, I wish to raise two matters in brief. First, thattranscendental argument offers knowledge claims that arerevisable rather than irrefutable, suggestive rather thandefinitive, in that philosophy can never expunge a speculativemoment of intuitive knowing from its rational deliberations.20

Second, that with regard to the philosophy of metaReality,transcendental argument is necessarily woven withphenomenological method -- for without the latter, we are leftadrift in a theory-practice imbalance. Direct experience astranscendental non-duality is a needed referent for the clear androbust enactment of the semiotic triangle (even as it collapsesin the direct recognition of the metaReal). Otherwise we land ina head-trip, the semiotic triangle collapsing into a discursive-argumentative idealism of signifier-signified alone.

Bhaskar is himself eloquent on the need for both transcendentalargument and phenomenological analysis. He writes:

If the first mode can be established (positively) bytranscendental argumentation and (negatively) by reductio adabsurdam; and the second mode can be established both bytranscendental argument and retroductive or phenomenological

19 Bhaskar himself speaks of ‘modalities’ of metaReality if in a differentregister of analysis.20 Bhaskar says as much – that transcendental arguments are not a final formof certainty (especially when moving beyond the domains of physical andbiological nature) and that intuitive knowing is a requisite moment increative thought – the issue being to take these insights seriously into ourtheoretical practice.

13

analysis of the genesis or constitution of any situation orcomplex in life; the third mode can probably be establishedmost easily only in a phenomenological or experiential way,as (most classically) in mystical experience, buttranscendental and other philosophical grounds can also beadduced for it and the interconnection of all three modes.21

Summarizing and simplifying: the twining of transcendentalargument and phenomenological analysis is essential frombeginning to end for a robust philosophy of metaReality –phenomenological analysis is necessary to move past theHusserlian exemplar, as made clear in Justin Hewitson’s brilliantreading and extension of Husserl’s transcendental reduction inlight of meditation practice.22

If direct experience as the non-dual Self is an indispensablereferent for transcendental argumentation, there are,phenomenologically speaking, degrees of such referentiality.People do not automatically or regularly experience non-dualitydeeply. It is even likely that without sustained practice of somekind, what someone believes is a non-dual experience or glimpseis ‘not quite it’.23 Further, glimpses are different in kind fromever-ripening actualization; where the latter, as Bhaskar rightlyindicates, leads to an upsurge in capacities, love animating ourtransformative praxis oriented towards bringing forth theeudaimonistic society to come.

There is a typological distinction to be made between two kindsof metaReal transcendentals: T0 and T1. T0 is transcendental torelative reality, plain and simple. T1 entails in addition strongor stable abiding as transcendental non-duality. Reflexive uptakeand actualization (T1) of what heretofore had been ‘in thebackground’ (T0) – a process akin to what Lonergan callsappropriation24 – recursively intensifies the transcendental force21 Bhaskar 2012, xlii.22 Hewiston 2014.23 Hence the need for a community of practitioners, as a moment in integraltheory’s three stands of knowing (Wilber 2006, 267) – ‘knowing’ delimited in amega-phenomenological sense.24 Lonergan 1957/1992 and 1972

14

of the metaReal for everyday life, the import of which has beenunderappreciated in CR circles if not in Bhaskar’s writings andgentle admonitions. In contrast, reflexive awareness of thegenerative mechanism of gravity does not intensify theconditioning force of gravity; nor does reflexive take-up of thegenerative mechanisms of a discourse regime intensify the forceof that discourse’s generativity. In both cases there is anincrease in objectification, causal purchase obtained forinstrumental and normative ends; but the referent in itsimmediate transcendental force is not amplified.

If things and processes of the real have qualities or properties,metaReality has what we shall call modals as there is nosubstance-accident constitution to the non-dual.25 These modalsare directly accessed in the first instance, rather than inferredvia transcendental argument alone, through first-, second-, andthird-person meta-perspectives (here adapting the integral view ofthe 1-2-3 of spirit).26 Perspectives are proper to relativereality, meta-perspectives proper to absolute reality or themetaReal. There are specific modals proper to the each of thethree basic meta-perspectives:

1. Transcendental identification is that modal directly accessedthrough the first-person meta-perspective of the non-dualSelf.

2. Transcendental hearkening is that modal directly accessedthrough the second-person meta-perspective of the non-dualThou.

3. Transcendental releasement is that modal directly accessedthrough the third-person meta-perspective of the non-dualAll.

Moving from the intransitivity of a modal, inferred mentally viatranscendental argument (coupled with at least a minimum ofphenomenological insight), to the transitivity of appropriatingthat modal, achieved directly via radical and ongoingintensification of phenomenological actualization, we see:

25 Cf. Bhaskar 2000, 3, 39-50. 26 On 1-2-3 of spirit, see Wilber 2006, 158-161.

15

16

MetaReal Modal / Meta-Perspective

Appropriation Expression

TranscendentalIdentification / 1st

TI0 TI1 … I am

Transcendental Hearkening /2nd

TH0 TH1 … THOUart

TranscendentalReleasement / 3rd

TR0 TR1 … ALL is

To repeat the point: TI0, TH0, and TR0 are always already pre-given as transcendental in relation to relative reality, i.e.they pertain to absolute or non-dual reality; TI1, TH1, and TR1

are not, being appropriations that reflexively amplify thetranscendental force of a given modal.

Since Bhaskar has discussed many facets of transcendentalidentification, we shall move directly onto the other two.Hearkening is a term adapted from David Michael Levin’s study ofthe four developmental levels of listening.27 For Levin, dasHorchen (a Heideggerian term) is the highest of the four stages,a non-dual mode of listening to a non-separate other. For us,transcendental hearkening is the modal of non-separate othering,can complement the co-presence of TI (as discussed by Bhaskar),in that one is not only listening to one’s own TranscendentalSelf (TI) proper to identity and unity, but to an othering thatis non-opposed to nor cancelling of seamless unity. Releasement(adapting Heidegger’s term Gelassenheit) signals that in thetranscendental step back, all subjects and objects, all noumenaand phenomena, self-release – as does identity itself. In itsphenomenological amplification this falling away of any strong ordeterminate sense of self/Self has long been recognized in thevarious spiritual and religious lineages through expressions like‘no-self’. This auto-releasing of all that is (and all that isabsent and not-yet) is a transcendental condition of objectivityin scientific inquiry, for example a condition of accessinggenerative mechanisms of nature as independent of human being;while the weakening or bracketing of any strong sense ofself/Self is a condition of dispassionate inquiry, such that27 Levin 1989.

17

truth, rather than unconscious identity-formation throughattachment to a given view, holds sway.

Moral source, moral motivation, practical wisdom

Whereas transcendental hearkening is intransitive to human praxis(i.e. TH0), direct accessing and reflexive appropriation of thecalling is transitive (TH1). One can be stuck in a delimitedconstellation of perspective-taking and therefore only open tocertain notes in a chordal sounding. Or one can open more fullyto the call and its perspectival dynamism, yet ignore, shun, anddeny, rather than accept, this call. Or one can open and approvethe call and yet not respond in timely and effective action.There are three moments of fleshing out and extending TH1 at theintersection of duality and non-duality, of actuality and themetaReal: (1) attuning to the call (in degrees of greater orlesser fullness); (2) accepting (inclining and leaning towards)what one has opened to; and (3) attending in wise act.28

Echoing a distinction introduced by Charles Taylor,29 the dynamiccalling of the good is the moral source providing axiologicalorientations proper to the actual moral field of human being.Non-dual love is the ground-state moral motivation for attuning,attending, and acting – fueling power1 transformative capacitiesin the dialectic of power1 and power2 ways of social being.30 Yetclarity of moral orientation and the motivation of non-dual loveare not sufficient for skillful action. One can still be devoid ofpractical wisdom in one’s acts. The question of wisdom is beyondthe scope of the present study.31 Nevertheless, as attested by28 Critchley 2007, Chapter 1, on the two-fold distinction between the demand(the call) and approval. 29 See Smith 2014 on the terms of moral source and moral motivation as properto both of Taylor’s major books: Sources of Self (1989) and A Secular Age (2007).30 Along with moral source and moral motivation, there is also moral will as theground intentionalities that only come forth in flow upon non-dualactualization and the healing of splits of the embodied personality. Suchground intentionalities are the ways one inclines uniquely and creatively torespond in act to the moral call. Moral will is the singular directionality ofone’s creative responsiveness in act.31 On wisdom in the world lineages, see Walsh 2014.

18

the evidence of the world’s spiritual, religious, andphilosophical lineages, accessing or developing some modality ofpractical wisdom profoundly enhances skillfulness in respondingto the moral call. In relation to critical realism itself,training up in dialectical competency (to be distinguished fromtalking about dialectical notions) can lead, following thepracticum of Otto Laske,32 to a type of practical wisdom in its ownright. And Bhaskar, proper to the philosophy of metaRealityitself, advances the view that spontaneous right action comesforth more and more ‘mindlessly’ as the ground-state capacitiescome forth – which is, to be sure, a crucial insight.33 In theend, love and practical wisdom are the two wings needed forbalanced responsive action, oriented by the dynamic calling ofthe good.34

32 Laske 2008. 33 Acknowledging that spontaneous right action comes forth as we become moreand more transparent to ground-state capacities, a question remains as to theeffective limitations of such action per the capacities proper to a givenembodied personality. Ken Wilber was once asked about the difference betweenhis awakening and that of the historical Buddha. His reply was that he coulddrive a Jeep, the Buddha could not. Wilber’s playful comment contains a coredictum of his integral theory: that upon god-realization, all potentiallybeneficial capacities of the embodied personality do not immediately comeforth. And here is perhaps a fault-line between certain sectors of IT and ofCR: many integralists seeing god-realization as complemented by continuingcapacity training to enrich the skillful means of the embodied personality’sacts of wise love; whereas some critical realists would seem to see suchtraining in integral circles as more or less unnecessary in the end, evenegoically driven in lieu of relaxation into ground-state know-how, prone to goastray into beautiful soul syndrome.34 If we attune, approve, and attend to the call of the good, there can beimpact on our sense of who or what we are. Simon Critchley (2007, 19-23) hasmade the case that (1) ‘the self shapes itself through its relation towhatever it determines as good’; while going further to claim that (2) ‘thisdemand of the good founds the self; or, better, that the demand of the good isthe fundamental principle of the subject’s articulation’. For us, whereontology and the moral call are on more intimate terms than in Critchley’soften Levinasian-inspired formulations, the self-sense – or Self-sense (asregards agency and co-agency) can be said to be co-constituted through the playof perspectives and the ways one engages the good.

19

On the axiology of freedom

As presented in Dialectic and in Plato Etc.,35 the axiology of freedomdialectically and metacritically demonstrates the unfolding offreedom from primal scream to the eudaimonistic society of thefree flourishing of each as the condition for the freeflourishing of all. Critical realism’s stated root concept isfreedom as autonomy, alethic truth equaling the morally goodequaling freedom. Its distinctive moral chord is centered infreedom, expanding to include all the notes of dynamic call ofthe good. Inherent in its updated Marxian moral axiom of theflourishing of each and all – in the eradication all forms ofmaster-slave interactions in the coming forth of power1 ways ofbeing together – is, as interpreted within the scheme developedin this paper, responsibility to the flourishing of others asproper to the second person moral perspective. Since master-slaverelationships and their attendant moral ideologies are bound tomodes of alienation generated by capitalism, there comes forththe third person call of justice for a new socio-economic system,one that is to be increasingly fair in honoring the concretesingularity of all of society’s members.

To gain purchase on the philosophical status of the axiology offreedom, it is instructive to compare it to Habermas’ theory ofcommunicative action as regards Kantian regulative ideas ofreason.36 For Habermas, the regulative idea of the strongerargument is a Kantian principle no longer proper totranscendental subjectivity but instead always already embodiedbetween interlocutors in communicative action, hence less an‘idea’ and more the force of an ideal inherent within actualinteraction. For Bhaskar, the axiology of freedom ‘does notpredict the future course of events, only the rational directionality ofgeo-historicity’.37 It is an ideal that goes beyond the limitedscope of speech acts, real if not necessarily actual, thoroughlypermeating all dimensions of four planar social being. It is

35 Bhaskar 1993, 377-82; Bhaskar 1994, 144-58. 36 For an explication of the moral dimensions of dialectical critical realism,see Norrie 2010, 121-157.37 Bhaskar 1993, 381, original emphasis.

20

distinctive as moral ideal in its temporalized constitution – amulti-dimensional ‘rhythmic as an irreducibly tensed spatializing process’38– a pulse saturating human life with promise of what is tounfold, without predicting or ensuring any specific course ofunfolding or final outcome.

Its dialectic starts ‘from absence in the context of primarypolyadization manifesting itself as desire’.39 Its focus on thechild’s desire for what is absent and the attendant ‘primalscream’ centers in the first person freedom of the child. Onecould however just as readily begin with a centering in the careof the parents founded in the call of infinite responsibilityprior to their freedom, inaugurating a rational reconstruction ofthe pulse of responsibility. One begins not focused on the first personperspective of the child and his or her primal scream and desire,but with the perspective of the caregivers called by that scream.Within this pulse of responsibility, the child himself or herselfis called to infinite responsibility, but cannot heed or respondto that call until there is further maturation. This entails thatthe opening of the terms of freedom comes to the fore first inthe child’s life. Within the moral pulse of responsibility, thisgenerates an antinomy that in early life displaces responsibilityin lieu of one’s own self-focused freedom (contributing to theforce of the illusory egoic sense) -- justice coming forth incalling for the eudaimonistic social-formation to resolve thistension. Leaving to the side the question whether or not theeudaimonistic society proper to the pulse of responsibility isthe same as that for the pulse of freedom – an important and hugetopic in its own right – its rhythmic path is different and haspractical import. For what we can say is that when responsibilityis the orienting note of a moral chord, it contributes with acertain directness to cutting the self-focused obsessivecharacter of the illusory egoic separation – an insight andhallmark of Tibetan Buddhist compassion practices. The Mahayanaphases of Tibetan Buddhism posit the root of suffering asgenerated by the twined habits of self-focus and of self-grasping– resulting in the core ignorance underwriting the illusory sense

38 Bhaskar 1993, 380, original emphasis.39 Bhaskar 1993, 381.

21

of a separate substantial self; where self-focus is unwoundthrough loving kindness and compassion practices that are other-focused, exercised through the procedures of tonglen (exchangingself and other) and lojong (mind training).

On this analysis, the axiology of freedom is not the only idealmoral pulse of four-planar social being. For the axiology offreedom as proper to the real is dependent on the calling of thegood as proper to the metaReal. It is in effect a logical-dialectical articulation of a rhythmic affecting geo-history, atemporalized-rhythmic ideal always already real if not actual inhuman affairs; where the reality of the axiology of freedom – aswell as any other regulative axiology (be it centered inresponsibility or justice) -- is always already dependent on andconditioned by the metaReal’s calling of the good and itsdifferentiation as a constellation of elemental moralperspectives.

Conclusion

If the metaReal call of the good and its dynamic interplay offreedom, responsibility, and justice are transcendentalconditions of our historical values and moral practices in boththeir healthy-emancipatory and unhealthy-ideological iterations(the latter due to splits, ills and absences), then too it isalso the condition of the evolution and repair of our less thanoptimally moral ways. Directly appropriating the dynamicresounding of the moral call in our lives orients us with arenewed force, clarity, and flexibility to redress the geo-historical ills and splits of four-planar social being – as theever deepening appropriation of transcendental hearkening,conjoined with loving and skillful responsiveness to the dynamismof moral perspectives, is this paper’s founding plea.

Appendix

22

This appendix is a brief pointing out exercise to help one accessdirectly phenomenological inquiry into the dynamic calling of thegood and therein to begin to flesh out the referential node ofthe semiotic triangle. As regards developmental practice, itadheres to the integral view of the three strands of ‘knowing’:injunction (‘do this’), evidence (actuality), and communalconfirmation/rejection.40 A similar set of exercise instructionshas been used in a private practice community for the past twoyears, with promising results – where repeated practice is theway. As Peter Sloterdijk puts it:

Practice, or exercise, is the oldest form of self-referentialtraining with the most momentous consequences. Its results donot influence external circumstances or objects, as in thelabor or production process; they develop the practicingperson himself and get him [or her] ‘into shape’ as thesubject-that-can. The result of practicing is shown in thecurrent ‘condition’, that is, in the practicing person’s stateof capability. Depending on the context, this is defined asconstitution, virtue, virtuosity, competence, excellence, orfitness. The subject, seen as the protagonist of his [or her]training sequence, secures and potentiates his [or her] skillsby putting himself [or herself] though his [or her] typicalexercises. Exercises at the same level of difficulty should be evaluated asmaintenance exercises, while increasingly difficult ones should be regarded asdevelopmental exercises.41

For most of us, these exercises in accessing the dynamic callingof the good will count as the latter kind, developmentalexercises. And to be sure, per integral theory’s notion of thedogmatic, to refuse the injunction, to refrain from taking up thepractice sufficiently to generate results of some kind, is to optout of accessing, failing to secure the place of the referent inthe semiotic triangle, inclining instead to a kind of discursivedogmatism that voids the data needed for further transcendentalconsideration. Here is a brief version of the exercise:

40 Wilber 267-9. 41 Sloterdijk, 2012, 6, emphasis added. On the anthropotechnic parameters ofthis cited passage, see Sloterdijk 2013.

23

1. Sit upright. Gently close one’s eyes.2. Rest; letting all be as it is, relaxing into the effortless non-dual state (to whatever

degree that comes forth).3. Imagine oneself in the clearing of a field, standing at the center of this circular

field.4. Visualize or feel the presence of sentient beings below the ground, on the earth,

and in the sky – humans, to be sure, and, if you wish, other beings as well(whomever and whatever counts for you as a being worthy of moral regard).

5. Beginning. Listen to, attune to, feel the call to your I-ness, to your selfhood, to befree. Freedom resounds, calling your I to be free. To be free of the impedimentsof other sentient beings who in some ways, as other bodies, impede your movingthis way or that. To be free as full of capacity to act, vital, skillful – the callingforth of all the aspects of freedom. Feel this call too admonishing recognitionand identification as your own always already vastness, your own radical I-am-ness. This IAMness is beyond all form and sees all form. It is not a form, it is amode of supreme identity. All forms are within you. Notice how freedom calls youto this identification as IAMnesss, a vastness, such that the entire imaginal field,the entire sensory world, all thoughts are objects in You – the sense perhaps thatyou are god-like. Freedom calls you to this supreme identification.

6. Shifting. Now notice that all the imagined sentient beings face you. Each face

sees you, is aware of you; you are not aware directly of their inner awareness of

you, only that you are a kind of object of their awareness. Even if you feel that

the same consciousness is looking through their eyes as is looking through

yours, the perspective, their mode of seeing and cognizing, is not truly available

to you – you are seen in some sense by a mysterious other, a mysterious Thou,

who sees you but whom you cannot in the end see. Selecting one of the beings,

notice the face of this other. This face betrays a vulnerability, there is to this face

a kind of skin that expresses this vulnerability, that is a primordial nakedness

hence the vulnerability of this other, this other whom one cannot know from

their side but who is felt to see and know oneself. Notice now that what calls

through the face of this other, from its mysterious and vast thouness, and

aligned with the nakedness and vulnerability of the skin, is a call to attend to this

24

other with infinite care -- you are called to an infinite responsibility to care for

this other. This relationship of the other as Thou and you as a me or I is

irreversible. There is no escape, no outside, not relief, only avoidance – but the

call is always already, the call to responsibility endless and infinite with no

bounds. Do not pretend you do not hear the call, because you now, perhaps for

the first time stand in this relationship to this other as thou in responsibility. You

are called by this face into responsibility for this other without reserve, without

exchange, asymmetrically. Now allow this sense to expand to other faces, and

eventually to all faces, and then to all of manifestation as a kind of face calling

you infinitely. You are infinitely, endlessly responsible to and for each being and

all of manifestation. Shifting. Notice all the surrounding sentient beings. Notice

your own embodied personality and presence – and note further that all these

body-minds or the like, including yours, are arranged in relation to each other,

forming a network of bodies. This network is dynamic, changing, shifting in its

relationships and positions; a network of shifting patterns of exchange, a vast

system or systems, patterning exchanges as well as shifting positions of these

exchanges. Hear now and heed the call of justice that breaks into being, calling

for evermore fairness and justice in these systems and patterns of exchanges

amongst all sentient beings. Justice calls these systems and patterns of exchange

to greater and greater fairness, aligned with the core equity and singularity of

each and every one.

7. Shifting. Rest now in the dynamic calling of the good, the ever resounding callingof freedom, responsibility and justice.

8. Carry this resounding in the dynamic-call of Good throughout the day, openingmore and more, moment to moment, situation to situation, to its calling

A more advanced exercise would include the various perspectivechains, which conducted over time fluidizes our moving through

25

and living as the shifting valences and nuances of the moralcallings.

There is no one correct language for pointing out one’s directaccess to the dynamic calling of the good. The discourse abovehas an Asian, and especially Vedantic and Tibetan Buddhist,inflection; but other languages can be generated. (Allergies to aparticular language used for the pointing out is not to beconfused with some purported rational reason for refusing theexperiment!) The practice is typically performed with someone whoalready has competency in the fruits of the practice and readsout loud the instructions for another or for a group. Theessential point is that to take up the injunction is to open tothe coming forth of the referent that is signified by terms like‘freedom’, ‘responsibility’, etc. And that with ongoing practice– as attested to by our communal take-up of the exercise over thepast two years – there is a deepening into the direct sense thatthe silent call comes from the midst of the metaReal, thephenomenology of the dynamic calling of the good being anecessary counterpart to transcendental considerations.

BibliographyBhaskar, Roy. 1993. Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. London and New York:

Verso.Bhaskar, Roy. 1994. Plato Etc.: The Problems of Philosophy and their Resolution.

London and New York: Verso.Bhaskar, Roy. 2000 East and West: Odyssey of a Soul. London and New

York: Routledge.Bhaskar, Roy. 2002/2012. The Philosophy of MetaReality: Creativity, love and

freedom. London and New York: Routledge.Collier, Andrew. 1999. Being and Worth. London and New York:

Routledge.Crtichley, Simon. 2007. Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of

Resistance. London and New York: Verso.Derrida, Jacques. 1992. ‘Force of Law: ‘The Mystical Foundation

of Authority’, trans., Mary Quaintance. In: Deconstruction and thePossibility of Justice, eds., Drucilla Cornell, Michael Rosenfeld,and David Gray Carlson, New York: Routledge, 3-67.

26

Fuhs, Clint. 2010. ‘An Integral Map of Perspective-Taking’. In:Integral Theory in Action, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens. Albany: SUNY, 273-302.

Hewiston, Justin M. 2014. ‘Husserl’s Epoche´ and Sarkar’s Pratya´ha´ra: Transcendence, Ipseity, and Praxis’, Comparative andContinental Philosophy 6 (2): 158–177.

Laske, Otto E. 2008. Measuring Hidden Dimensions of Human Systems:Foundations of Requisite Organization (Volume 2). Medford, MA:Interdevelopmental Institute Press.

Levin, David Michael. 1989. The Listening Self: Personal Growth, SocialChange, and the Closure of Metaphysics. London and New York:Routledge.

Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans.Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.

Levinas, Emmanuel. 1981. Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, transAlphonso Lingis. The Hague, Boston and London: MartinusNijhoff.

Levins, Emmanuel. 1987. Diachrony and Representation’. In: Timeand the Other, trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: DuquesneUniversity Press, 97-120.

Lonergan, Bernard. 1971. Method in Theology. Toronto: University ofToronto Press.

Lonergan, Bernard. 1957/1992. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding.In: Collected works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 3, eds, Frederick E.Crowe and Robert M. Doran. Toronto: University of TorontoPress.

Milbank, John 2010. Paul Beyond Biopolitics’. In: Paul’s New Moment:Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology, eds. JohnMilbank, Slavoj Žižek, and Creston Davis. Grand Rapids.Michigan: Brazos Press, 21-73.

Norrie, Alan. 2010. Dilaectic and Difference: Dialectical Critical Realism and theGrounds of Justice. London and New York: Routledge.

Sallis, John. 2000. Force of the Imagination: The Sense of the Elemental.Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Sallis, John. 2008. The Verge of Philosophy. Chicago and London: TheUniversity of Chicago Press.

Sallis, John. 2012. Logic of the Imagination: The Expanse of the Elemental.Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

27

Sloterdijk, Peter. 2012. The Art of Philosophy: Wisdom as a Practice,trans. Karen Margolis. New York: Columbia University Press.

Sloterdijk, Peter. 2013. You must change your life: On anthropotechnics,trans. Wieland Hoban. Cambridge UK and Malden, MA: Polity.

Schwartz, Michael. 2015. “After Integral Gets Real: On Meta-Critical Chiasma of CR and IT.” In: Metatheory for the 21st- Century:Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue, eds. Roy Bhaskar et.al.. London and New York: Routledge.

Schwartz, Michael. Forthcoming. “Tetra Call of the Good.” In:Dancing with Sophia: Integral Philosophy on the Verge, eds. MichaelSchwartz and Sean Esbjörn-Hargens. Albany: SUNY.

Smith, James K. A. 2014. How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor.Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans.

Walsh, Roger. Ed.. 2014. The World’s Great Wisdom: Timeless Teachings fromReligions and Philosophies. Albany: SUNY.

Wilber, Ken. 1995/2000. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution,revised edition. Boston and London: Shambhala.

Wilber, Ken. 2006. Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in theModern and Postmodern World. Boston & London: Integral Books.

Notes on contributorMichael Schwartz is Professor in the Department of Art at GeorgiaRegents University. He is the co-founding executive director ofthe Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, serving asAssociate Editor of both its journal Comparative and ContinentalPhilosophy on Maney Press and its books series on NorthwesternUniversity Press.Correspondence to: Department of Art, Georgia Regents University,2500 Walton Way Augusta, Georgia, 30904 USA. Email:mschwartz@knology.net.