The World from 50,000 Feet: An Interview with Haim Acherim

Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. His many books, all of which are still in print, can be found at Amazon.com. Some of his more popular books include Integral Spirituality; No Boundary; Grace and Grit; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; and the "everything" books: A Brief History of Everything (one of his largest selling books) and A Theory of Everything (probably the shortest introduction to his work).  Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute, Inc., the co-founder of Integral Life, Inc.

 

A translation of A Brief History of Everything has recently been published in Hebrew, and in preparation for this exciting event Ken was interviewed by Carmel Vaisman for Haim Acherim, what some have loosely called the “What Is Enlightenment?” of Israel.  This marks Ken's debut with the Israeli press, and stands as a wonderful introduction to the overall Integral Vision, a brilliant 50,000-foot view over the ever-emerging integral landscape....

This conversation is useful for introductory listeners still getting a feel for the Integral Vision, as well as more advanced students who might enjoy being occasionally reminded of how simple the whole thing really is!

Topics include:

• The Integral Approach as a type of super-holism, in contrast to the majority of holistic approaches which—to be brutally honest—simply aren’t holistic enough.
   
• A concise explanation of 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-person approaches to knowledge, and the different methods that are used to verify those approaches.
   
• A brief examination of systems theory as a “holistic science” which often claims itself to be a “theory of everything,” yet cannot account for 1st- and 2nd-person realities, as any truly integral theory of everything could and would do.
   
• The intrinsic value and simultaneous limitation of focusing on a given specialization within the human knowledge quest, and the dangers that occur when one specialization oversteps its bounds and attempts to speak for another.
   
• Ken’s own personal motivations behind his career as an integral theorist and writer: was he explicitly searching for something beyond the deconstructed wasteland of postmodernism, or was he simply expressing his own spiritual deepening through writing?
   
• Ken’s response to much of the criticism he has received from postmodernists, feminists, and eco-philosophers—many of whom distrust the very notion of hierarchy in any form, often because natural growth hierarchies (or holarchies) and social dominator hierarchies are disastrously confused and conflated.  Indeed, the former is actually the cure for the latter.

This dialogue is a wonderful example and reminder of the fact that the integral wave is truly a worldwide phenomenon, at home in all lands, understood in all tongues, and one of the finest ways for our human family to know itself ever more intimately.  We’d love to have you join us….