criticism wen wilber

january SG

from wikipedia
ken wilber

Wilber does not self-identify as a Buddhist

Criticism of Wilber's work

Technical criticism
One technical criticism of Wilber is contained in Falk's "Norman Einstein" critique, in which Falk charges that Wilber misrepresents certain high-school level ideas, particularly concerning evolutionary theory and Pythagorean geometry.

The Croatian esoteric philosopher Arvan Harvat has argued that attempting to integrate a thoroughly nondual approach like Zen with an evolutionary view is ultimately impossible: if your model includes absolutely everything, how can it change? Wilber's response is that it is only form that evolves; emptiness remains unchanged. Trans-conceptually, one can embrace one's own transrational (and hence ultimately ineffable) experience-awareness, and this is what constitutes true nondual enlightenment.

Others, including Georg Feuerstein, argue that Wilber's Neo-perennial Philosophy is a confusion between concepts of differentiated nondualist doctrines (such as Plotinus's neo-Platonism and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta) and truly unitary monism of Zen and Advaita Vedanta: the former philosophies distinguish between emanated or manifest reality and the unchangeable source, while for Zen or Advaita the Source and reality are essentially one and the same. This is expressed in a famous Zen saying of which Wilber is quite fond: "Nirvana is Samsara fully realized; Samsara is Nirvana rightly understood."[citation needed]

Wilber's response to criticisms like this is typified in this quotation from the extended audio interview Speaking of Everything: "...when I lay out the stages of development, I am giving what I explicitly called in SES a rational reconstruction of the trans-rational. Thus, differentiated non-dual doctrines and truly unitary monist doctrines are describing (or coming from) different levels of consciousness, the former from a causal perspective that differentiates between emptiness and form (and hence must see form as emanationary), and the latter from a nondual perspective that equates emptiness and form (and hence renders emanation a redundant concept).

Much criticism of Wilber's integral model (for example, some of the "Integral World Reading Room" essays) concerns specific technical matters and ignores the fact that Wilber's paradigm is based essentially on "orienting generalizations", the basic abstract common denominators of specific fields of human knowledge.However, in an online critique entitled Bald Ambition, Jeff Meyerhoff takes issue with Wilbers methodology and philosophy, arguing that Wilber does not actually use his own method of "orienting generalizations":

Wilbers unstated philosophical assumptions are both problematic in themselves and prejudiced against differing philosophical commitments which, because they contradict Wilbers assumptions, are excluded from his inclusive synthesis.

Jeff Meyerhoff,

Meyerhoff argues that people who are actually working in the fields which Wilber attempts to integrate strongly disagree with the way that Wilber portrays the consensus of those fields. Wilber's overall synthesis, on this view, is thus unreliable.

Criticism of Wilber's interpretations
These are not the only criticisms of various aspects of Wilber's work or his work as a whole. Chris Cowan, who has broken with his former co-worker, Don Beck, over his and Wilber's use of Spiral Dynamics theory, has written a strong rebuttal against Wilber's concept of the so-called "mean green meme" (MGM).So has Bill Moyer, who, in contrast, refers to the "Healthy Green Meme".(Cowan also responds to Wilber's reply to his and Moyer's positions.) Both Cowan and Ray Harris are critical of Wilber and Beck's "Boomeritis" analysis of culture; Harris argues that the critique is actually politically reactionary.

Wilber's arguments against Darwinism in A Brief History of Everything are said by David Lane, by a number of skeptics including Robert Todd Carroll, and even in discussion on Wilber's own Integral Naked forum to indicate a lack of scientific understanding on his part. As a result of the Integral Naked discussion, Wilber wrote a strongly worded reply (which appears on the "Vomiting Confetti" blog) which contains a number of controversial claims, and in which, among other things, he advises his students to read Intelligent Design theorist Michael Behe (a member of the Discovery Institute), rather than Richard Dawkins.

Wilber has also been taken to task regarding his interpretations of Shabd Yoga (by David Lane), Mahayana Buddhism (by Arvan Harvat ), and Sri Aurobindo (by Rod Hemsell and others). Matthew Dallman and Michel Bauwens have pointed out certain cultic elements associated with Wilber and some aspects of the current integral movement. They point to the lack of openness to criticism, the lack of analysis of Wilber's assumptions, and to the use of the Spiral Dynamics-based colour coding to dismiss arguments from critics. The emphasis on Wilber and his Integral Institute as the central focus of integral thought is seen as stifling to the development of integral as a diverse, participative process or, ultimately, as a dialectical worldview.

Criticism by transpersonal and integral theorists
William Irwin Thompson, who shares Wilber's admiration for Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, and Eastern philosophy, has harshly criticized Wilber's theoretical approach and scholarly achievements. In his 1996 book Coming into Being: Texts and Artifacts in the Evolution of Consciousness, Thompson characterized Wilber's approach as "compulsive mappings and textbook categorizations" and as excessively objectifying and "masculinist". In a subsequent interview, Wilber characterized his own work as that of "a storyteller" and "a mapmaker", rather than that of a philosopher or a theoretician.

A number of critics, such as integral theorist and developmental psychologist Mark Edwards(who, incidentally, is very critical of Meyerhoff's critique), also complain that it is frustrating to try to debate Wilber, not because his arguments are difficult, but because of his manner of arguing. For example, Wilber often charges that his critics are distorting or misreading his ideas, or that what they are criticizing is not what he himself is saying and that it is necessary to read and understand all of his books, but that even his own books do not communicate the complexity of his ideas, so that the critics must be in personal dialogue with him in order to understand the complex development of his philosophy. Compounding the issue, Wilber is very selective regarding whom he communicates with and rarely engages those who are critical of his theory.

Jorge Ferrer criticizes the Wilberian approach from the point of view of a relational and participative spirituality and proposes non-authoritarian forms of spirituality. To him, Wilber's system is inherently authoritarian in intent and effect, forcing a synthesis from above on what should be the result of an open dialogue. His book Revisioning Transpersonal Theory critiques and deconstructs Transpersonal psychology, perennialism, and Wilber's own theories, in favour of a more participatory approach to spirituality.

january SG

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John Heron finds that Wilber's account of integral psychology in terms of lines and levels of development is fundamentally incoherent because of an untenable status afforded to nondual individualism and a failure to acknowledge the centrality of relational spirituality.

Christian de Quincey considers Wilber's integral theory to be an intellectual edifice that denigrates emotion. This statement (made in 2000 in "The Promise of Integralism: A Critical Appreciation of Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology" in the Journal of Consciousness Studies ) and others in the same essay led to a bitter exchange of replies and counter-replies between Wilber and de Quincey, which can be found on de Quincey's and the Shambhala websites.

In June 2006 Wilber wrote a controversial series of blog posts in which he used profanity, attacked critics, compared himself humourously to Wyatt Earp, and said that those offended by his postings were in the "lower tier" levels in the development of consciousness. His actions in this regard have been variously condemned as cultic, misleading, puerile, and not in the spirit of mature academic dialogue by Matthew Dallman , Geoff Falk , Michel Bauwens , Jim Chamberlain , Frank Visser by some posts on Wilber Watch , and by others. Wilber's supporters have been more positive, responding, for example, that this type of discourse is appropriate for the blog medium. Moreover, Ken Wilber himself stated that he chose such a form of blog post to engage people in "shadow work"; in other words, according to Wilber, most of the critics were criticizing their own shadow projections, not Wilber's arguments, and Wilber's opinion is that it is important to complete shadow-work self-therapy in order to further advance in one's own development.

january SG

from my point of view, i think ken wilber is not grounded in basics of science and logic.

january SG

i remember some poster putting up some of wilber stuff right?

An Eternal Now SG

Ken Wilber has also done counter-critics/replies.

Any popular philosopher will definitely receive criticisms (and will also offend many other people in the process who held different views), and just because of criticisms doesn't mean they are not grounded in science and logic.

You must read his works before passing such comments.

P.s. you spelt his name wrongly in the topic title.

Herzog_Zwei SG

Ken Wilber doesn’t make sense.

An Eternal Now SG

Another sweeping statement without reasoning.

Though I haven't read much of his books (only one and a half), what he writes makes total sense, unless you don't understand him. I'm not saying whatever he said must be right, but he doesn't write non-sense.

Herzog_Zwei SG

His books have a tendency to direct your attention to his points of view of which is mainly partial facts.

january SG

let me say more clearly about his reasoning.

First when people make and talk theories and writes, let say ken wilber, they talk usually about many points. let say one thousand points.

Some of the points may be right , some may be wrong. some are repeated teachings from someone else, some are original insights of the author.

when i say he is unreasonable , i do not mean that every point of his book his wrong. It cannot be. That is the problem of human communication. To say this quickly, we have to use least amount of word but it deos not clearly reflect the details when readers absord it.

The academia is a big source of authority for belief. though there is a fallacy of authority and fallacy of popularity, academic is still most reliable due to the nature of its fundamantal tenets which are science, logic and reality.

the strength of academia world is mainly in its large peer review system. if a teaching peer review is only 10 people, it is quite narrow and more suspectible to bias. academia bascially have a large archive of journals across different disciplines and it is thus very transparent.

if you look at those exaggerated but little famous thinkers website, you are always going to think that wow he sure got many followers and therefore he must be credible person. I make this mistake in the past too and still is. Deepak Chopra, Indiam hugging mother, dalai lama and one christian leader, i forgot his name, all has many followings.

indian hugging mother has few hundreds thouands of people queuing just to hug her. I not saying that they are right or wrong.

academia consist of many bodies from biology to economics to geology. it is a very very large body and it is very wide in its knwoledge and the different knowledge are still inc ter related in some way due to the interconnectedness of knowledge.

An Eternal Now SG

You said 'when i say he is unreasonable , i do not mean that every point of his book his wrong.'

Then what exactly do you think is unreasonable?

january SG

Meyerhoff argues that people who are actually working in the fields which Wilber attempts to integrate strongly disagree with the way that Wilber portrays the consensus of those fields. Wilber's overall synthesis, on this view, is thus unreliable.

this, other criticism

and my intuition of studying reasoning and psychology says that he is unreasonable

An Eternal Now SG

I don't think a person can be said to be just 'unreasonable' -- everyone has his reasonings for putting up all those things. We have to look into many aspects. Like you said nobody is all wrong. And doesn't mean they are all right.