Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution is philosopherKen Wilber's magnum opus. Wilber intended for it to be the first volume in a series called The Kosmos Trilogy, but the second and third volumes have not yet appeared. The German edition of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality was entitled Eros, Kosmos, Logos: Eine Jahrtausend-Vision ("A Millenium-vision").
Published in 1995, SES (as it is sometimes called) is the work in which Wilber grapples with modern philosophical naturalism, attempting to show its insufficiency as a explanation of being, evolution, and the meaning of life. He also describes a view, which he calls vision-logic, which he finds qualified to replace modernism.
Wilber emphasizes that the account of existence presented by the Enlightenment is incomplete—it ignores and represses the spiritual and noetic components of existence. He accordingly avoids the term cosmos, which is associated with the physical universe. Instead, he uses the term kosmos to refer to the sum of manifest existence, which harks back to the usage of the term by the Pythagoreans and other ancient mystics. In short, the Kosmos is not just the physical universe, but explained better as: energy plus matter plus life plus mind plus Spirit.
The Structure and Theses of SES
Introduction
Wilber describes the spiritual inadequacies of philosophical naturalism as the source of the contemporary world's menacing ecological crisis.
He describes his methodology as outlining "orienting generalizations"—points on which agreement can be found that will reveal a shared world-space.
Book One
1. The Web of Life
Arthur Lovejoy's account of the Great Chain of Being is used to show how the mechanistic, materialistic modern worldview triumphed over the West's longstanding, holistic, hierarchical view.
Pathological, dominating hierarchies have given hierarchy a bad name. But hierarchy is ultimately inescapable. Thus, we should concentrate on discovering which hierarchies actually do exist and on healing them.
The holistic version of the Great Chain of Being is called the "Great Nest of Spirit", because this account emphasizes that higher levels include as well as transcend lower ones.
Two fundamental aspects of existence are described: the "Right-hand path" (interiority) and the "Left-hand path" (exteriority).
Gross Reductionism—atomism, for example—consists in reducing a whole to its parts. Subtle Reductionism—systems theory, for example—consists in reducing the interior to the exterior. Charles Taylor's work is used to show that the Enlightenment paradigm suffers from both Gross and Subtle Reductionism.
When Individual and Social spheres are added to the Interior and Exterior aspects of existence, four quadrants emerge.
5. The Emergence Of Human Nature
Jean Gebser's account of the development of human consciousness is used to show how the West progressed from the magic to the mythic to the rational mentalities.
This acknowledgement of developmental depth adds a third fundamental dimension ("verticality"), to Wilber's model of consciousness.
The "Pre/Trans Fallacy" is described. This is Wilber's term for approaches, like Eco-Romanticism , that mistake earlier and more exclusivist modes of being for more mature, more inclusive modes.
7. The Farther Reaches Of Human Nature
Jürgen Habermas' account of socio-cultural development is used to describe collective human development.
Vision-logic is described, a non-dominating, global awareness of holistic hierarchy, in which the pathological dissociations of Nature from Self, interiority from exteriority, and creativity from compassion are transformed into healthy differentiations.
The validity claims of mystics are compared to Thomas Kuhn's account of scientific paradigms.
8. The Depths Of The Divine
The accounts of four mystics are used to describe the possibilities for further individual spiritual development.
According to the Neo-PlatonistPlotinus’ nondualmetaphysics, "Ascending" philosophies are those that embrace the One, or the Absolute. "Descending" philosophies are those that embrace the Many, or Plenitude. Both ascent (driven by Eros, or creativity) and descent (driven by Agape, or compassion) are indespensible for a healthy, whole view.
Plato's metaphysics, which also included both ascending and descending drives, is described.
Plotinus' attack on Gnosticism is described in order to trace differences between healthy and pathological approaches to ascent.
10. This-Wordly, Otherwordly
Attempts to repair modernism's fractured and flattened worldview are described, especially Schelling's existentialidealism.
11. Brave New World
The liberating advantages as well as the spiritually crippling disadvantages of the modern, scientific mentality are described.
12. The Collapse Of The Kosmos
Charles Taylor's account of the effects of the Enlightenment paradigm is used to show how vertical depth was collapsed into horizontal span and how the ascending drive was dissociated into the "Ego camp" (Kant's and Fichte's Transcendent Ego) and the "Eco camp" (Spinoza's deified Nature).
Utilitarianism mistaking sensory pleasure for Spirit is described, which ultimately resulting in a fixation on hedonism and sex in modern society.
13. The Dominance Of The Descenders
Describes how the West tried to embrace the Many through science, but failed to embrace the One through mysticism.
The result was the rise of Thanatos (Freud's death drive), and Phobos (existential fear), which are the respective pathological versions of Agape and Eros.
14. The Unpacking Of God
Aspects of particular historical nondual views that could possibly heal the noetic fissures in the West are described, especially spiritual practice as understood by Zen & DzogchenBuddhism.
At The Edge Of History
Includes a meditation on Emptiness as the ground of Being in which all entities are ontologically healed.
Quotation
"Put differently, I sought a world philosophy. I sought an integral philosophy, one that would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world's great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world is one, undivided whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy for a holistic Kosmos: a world philosophy, an integral philosophy." —Ken Wilber, "Introduction to Volume Six of the Collected Works"
External links
Wilber's Shambhala site, which includes lengthy excerpts from the forthcoming Volume II of the Kosmos Trilogy, tenatively titled Kosmic Karma and Creativity.
