Paul Marshall - A Complex Integral Realist Perspective: Towards A New Axial Vision

Paul Marshall is one of only a handful of scholars who have mastered all three of todays major metatheories, and he combines this rare breadth of knowledge with formidable synthesizing power to offer an intellectual integration of admirable scope and sophistication.

Roger Walsh MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of California

Towards a New Axial Vision is a bold synthetic work that makes a groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of the various relationships between three of the most important contemporary integrative metatheories. Paul Marshall has done a supurb job of weaving the strengths and insights of Integral Theory, Complex Thought, and Critical Realism into a new vision of humanity. In the process he shows us the unique role metatheory can play in helping us to create a thriving planetary civilization. Dr. Marshall is uniquely qualified to introduce readers to these three integrative metatheories and open us up to the new meta-vistas that they enable. Scholar-practitioners with interdisciplinary and transdisci-plinary orientations will find this volume especially valuable as will researchers associated with the social sciences and metathinking.

Sean Esbjrn-Hargens PhD, Co-editor Metatheory for the Twenty-first Century (Routledge 2016) and CEO of MetaIntegral Associates

This book takes dialogue between critical realism, integral theory and complex thought to a new level by putting a creative synthesis of these metatheories to work to further our understanding of the Axial Age and the place of Western modernity within it and to articulate a theory and practice for a New Axial Age.

Mervyn Hartwig PhD, Editor , Journal of Critical Realism

A Complex Integral Realist Perspective

This book sketches the contours of a vision that moves beyond the dominant paradigm or worldview that underlies and governs modernity (and postmodernity). It does so by drawing on the remarkable leap in human consciousness that occurred during the Axial Age and on a cross-pollination of what are arguably the three most comprehensive integrative metatheories available today: Complex thought, integral theory and critical realism i.e. a complex integral realism. By deploying the three integrative metatheories this book recounts how the seeds of a number of biases within the Western tradition analytical over dialectical, epistemology over ontology, presence over absence and exterior over interior were first sown in axial Greece, later consolidated in European modernity and then challenged throughout the twentieth century. It then discusses the remedies provided by the three integrative philosophies, remedies that have paved the way for a new vision.

Outlining a new axial vision for the twenty-first century which integrates the best of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity within a complex integral realist framework, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Axial Age, critical realism, integral theory and complex thought. It will also appeal to those interested in a possible integration of the insights and knowledge gleaned by science, spirituality and philosophy.

Paul Marshall completed his doctoral thesis at UCL, Institute of Education, UK. His research interests include integrative metatheory, human nature and human flourishing.

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A Complex Integral Realist Perspective

Towards a new axial vision

Paul Marshall

First published 2016

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 Paul Marshall

The right of Paul Marshall to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Marshall, Paul A., 1948 author.

Title: A complex integral realist perspective : towards a new axial vision / Paul Marshall.

Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Ontological explorations | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016003981| ISBN 9781138803824 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315753485 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Metatheory. | Critical realism.

Classification: LCC B842 .M33 2016 | DDC 190dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003981

ISBN: 978-1-138-80382-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-75348-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Contents

PART I
Axiality in pre-modernity

PART II
Modernity and the four biases

PART III
Contours of a new axial vision

I would like to thank, first and foremost, Professor Roy Bhaskar who, from January 2011 until just before his sad passing away in November 2014, supervised the thesis on which this book is based. I learnt from him, and am grateful to him, in so many ways, both intellectually and personally. He dedicated his life to the construction and explication of a philosophy designed to alleviate human suffering, to rid the world of master-slave relations, to promote freedom and pursue truth, to foster the building of a eudaimonistic society, and to empower the realm of nonduality in its struggle against the demi-real for the relative world of duality. And he was always concerned with theory-practice coherence, with living his philosophy in everyday praxis like philosophy during the Axial Age. His sensibility towards the suffering of others was far more acute than most, and this was reflected not only in his philosophy but also his being. He showed little concern for himself, great kindness to others, and was invariably cheerful. It is not surprising that he was greatly loved by all those who knew him.