How We Grow in How We Know

Ladder of inference User:Biogeographist, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons1

From Phenomenology to Ontology via Epistemology

A comparative religious analysis of the phenomenology of awareness states and practices finds similarities. These similarities invite metaphysical hypotheses.2 However, each faith tradition makes different claims in regard to ontology (the study of existence, being, becoming, and reality).3 This raises the question: How do we infer beliefs (and actions) from experience?

One metaphorical model for the process of drawing conclusions from experience is the ladder of inference from business theorist Chris Argyris:

  1. Start with experience,
  2. select data,
  3. affix meaning,
  4. make assumptions,
  5. draw conclusions,
  6. adopt beliefs, and
  7. take actions.

Note the feedback loops:4

  • Beliefs form the basis of our actions, which create additional experiences, and
  • Beliefs influence the data and experience we select and pay attention to.

These feedback loops can “short-circuit” reality with rigid beliefs and a narrow selection of data.5

The ladder of inference is a model for inferring beliefs (and actions) from experience. The more general questions are: What do we know? How do we know that we know? Epistemology–the study of the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge–is a branch of philosophy.

However, espistemology is also part of empirical research in developmental psychology, as its development parallels other shifts in thinking. In this post I summarize the previous research of educational psychologist William G. Perry at Harvard University, and subsequent research of lifespan developmental psychologist Michael Basseches, using some terminology from Otto Laske for earlier to later eras:6

  • common sense,
  • understanding,
  • systems thinking,
  • relativism, and
  • dialectical thinking.

Common Sense (Pre-Logical Thinking)

Strict Dualism

An early epistemology is strict dualism, a bifurcated structuring of the world between Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, We and Others.7 Strict dualism has different forms, depending on whether absolute truth is yet differentiated from the authority that teaches it:

Absolute Authority Absolutes -> Authority
Authority and Absolutes are undifferentiated. Authority seen as deriving rightness from Absolutes.

We could imagine a transition between these forms upon noticing when an authority is “wrong,” or challenged. Pressure from a respected authority may challenge strict dualism or dualism.8

Dualism

Dualism assumes the following:9

  • All knowledge is known.
  • There is a certainty that Right and Wrong exist for everything.
  • Knowledge is a collection of information.

Dualism also has multiple forms in learning:

Alien Opposition Unreal
“Others are wrong and confused.” “I am right; Authority is needlessly confused.” “They want us to work on these things to learn how to find the answer.”

A transition away from dualism might result from noticing situations in which it is not clear who is “wrong,” or what is “right.”

Early Multiplicity

This is later modified to early multiplicity:10

  • Most knowledge is known. All is knowable. (This is the first view of learning as a process that a student can learn.)
  • Certainty that there exists a Right Way to find the Right Answers.
  • Realization that some knowledge domains are “fuzzy.”

Early multiplicity also has a conformist and a nonconformist version (both versions of Conformer) in a learner:

Adherence Opposition
Authority evaluates presentation skill, not structural properties. “They judge all wrong.”

Understanding (Logical-Analytical Thinking)

An Expert begins developing logical-analytical thinking that continues as hypothetico-deductive reasoning of an Achiever. Developmental psychology frequently uses the term “formal operations.”11 In this thinking, experience is comprehended and processed into unchanging structured wholes, a closed system of lawful relationships.12

While logical-analytical thinking is conventional thought, it enables paradoxes like this:

This statement is only false.

A form of the liar’s paradox enabled Gödel to demonstrate that sufficiently powerful formal axiomatic systems are necessarily incomplete–capable of expressing true but unprovable statements–, and not provably consistent.13 Any outside analysis of them will produce inconsistencies or undecidable propositions.14

But there are ways to move outside these limits of logical thinking:

  • In philosophical thought, one approach is the study of “true paradoxes” (dialetheia) or paraconsistent logics like the catuṣkoṭi or tetralemma.15
  • In religion, the mathematical demonstration of unprovable truths may leave space for “sacred mysteries.”
  • We might procure new experience or information that enables post-logical thinking.16

Post-Logical Thinking

Systems Thinking

The limits of logical-analytical reasoning can be extended by movements in thought that add context:17 Phenomena are part of greater wholes with structure, function, and an equilibrium disturbed by internal contradictions. Locate an element in a whole of which it is a part; and describe the whole in structural, functional, or equilibrational terms. That is, describe the whole as a system.

Realizing of Relativism

Late Multiplicity

Encountering multiple systems (e.g., of knowledge, thought) can lead to multiplicity correlate:18

  • In some areas we still have certainty about knowledge. In most areas we really don’t know anything for sure.
  • Certainty that there is No Certainty (except in a few specialized areas).
  • Hence “do your own thing”–all opinions can be just as valid or invalid as others.

For a learner, Authority judging on coherence and congruence is “how they want us to think.”

Contextual Relativism

Thinking across systems can evolve to contextual relativism:19 Assume a plurality of points of view, interpretations, frames of reference, value systems, and contingencies in which the structural properties of contexts and forms allow various sorts of analysis, comparison, and evaluation:

  • All knowledge is contextual.
  • All knowledge is disconnected from any concept of Absolute Truth.
  • However, right and wrong, adequate and inadequate, appropriate and inappropriate can exist within a specific context and are judged by “rules of adequacy” that are determined by expertise in good thought processes.

This perhaps enhances the tolerance of difference of the Catalyst stage.20 Contextual relativism has multiple forms as well, depending on how much of the world dualism is still applied to:

Correlate Competing Diffuse
Divide world into areas with answers (e.g., physics, morals) and relative areas (e.g., English papers). The whole world is relative, with a sub-class with binary answers. The whole world is relative.

But if we adopt the belief that “the whole world is relative” then how do we take action? Knowledge is practical or active,21 so commitment is a logical necessity for action in a relativistic world.22 This results in qualitative changes in commitments:23

  • Acceptance that commitments originate in self’s experience and choices.
  • Identity sensed in commitments and style of address to them.
  • Commitments are expanded or remade in new terms as growth.

These commitments might arise because of a valued, important other.24 New information however, might provoke a shift to dialectical thinking.25

Dialectical Thinking

An alternative to ever-evolving commitments is to incorporate relations and transformation into thinking,26 for example cyclical causes among interdependent variables in a system. Particularly useful is the relationship between opposites in the thesis-antithesis-synthesis movement in thought, and recognition and description of it.27 Thesis and antithesis can be described as complementaries, dualities, negatives, polar opposites, poles, polarities, etc.:14

  • abstract and concrete,
  • environment and self,
  • expansion and preservation,
  • differentiation and integration,
  • implementing and strategizing,
  • individuation and participation,
  • other and self,
  • practice and theory,
  • etc.

This is dialectical thinking. Seeing that thesis and antithesis interact can lead to an affirmation of the primacy of process.28

The thesis-antithesis-synthesis process is also present in systems. We can locate or describe sources of disequilibrium between a system (or form) and external forces or elements which are antithetical to the system’s (or form’s) structure.29

Advanced Dialectical Thinking

There are multiple forms of advanced dialectical thinking:30

Formalist Nonformalist Value-Relativist
Formalizations are limited but we must accept their limits and work within them because that’s all we’ve got. More inclusive, differentiated, and integrated judgment systems, valid across multiple opinion systems and people, are valuable. Everything is connected to everything else, even their opposites, reciprocally interacting. Everything is always changing, in motion due to interactions, and so things aren’t stable.

These forms use overlapping movements in thought. The formalist and nonformalist, for example, both will have criticism of multiplicity, subjectivism, and pluralism.31

Dialectical Operations

Considering system boundaries open, and systems as evolving, leads to descriptions of open self-transforming systems. Incremental, additive quantitative change to open self-transforming systems can result in qualitative milestones–development.32 Development is progress, development is change, and development is differentiation and integration.

From common sense to dialectical thinking, above is a summary of some research in developmental psychology on ways of knowing. From this we can project parallels and similarities between “growing up” and “waking up,” to supplement the contrasts and differences.

Notes

  1. Ross, Rick (1994). The ladder of inference. In The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization; Senge, P.M., Ed.; Currency, Doubleday: New York, 1994; ISBN 978-0-385-47256-2. ↩

  2. For example, “…I will attempt to coax metaphysical hypotheses out of these phenomenological descriptions.” Forman, R.K.C. (1998) What Does Mysticism Have to Teach Us about Consciousness? Journal of Consciousness Studies 5, 185–201. ↩

  3. Sam Harris, for example, spends pages 19 through 23 on the implausibility and mutual incompatibility of metaphysical claims in Harris, S. (2015) Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion; Reprint edition.; Simon & Schuster: New York; ISBN 978-1-4516-3602-4. ↩

  4. Tompkins, D.T.C.; Rhodes, D.K. (2012) Groupthink and the Ladder of Inference: Increasing Effective Decision Making. ↩

  5. Christensen, Karen (Winter 2008) Thought Leader Interview: Chris Argyris. Rotman Management. ↩

  6. The “common sense” and “understanding” eras are from Laske, O. (2017) A New Approach to Dialog: Teaching the Dialectical Thought Form Framework - Part I: Foundations of Real-World Dialog. Integral Leadership Review. ↩

  7. Strict dualism is “position 1” from Perry, Jr, W.G. (1998) Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years: A Scheme; 1st edition.; Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, Calif; ISBN 978-0-7879-4118-5. ↩

  8. “Pressure from respected authority” is a change instigator for the “Sacrifice now for reward later (SNRFRL)” level in Graves, C.W. (2004) Levels of Human Existence; ECLET Publishing; Santa Barbara, CA; ISBN 978-0-9724742-0-7. Graves calls this DQ in Graves, D.C.W. (2005) The Never Ending Quest: Dr. Clare W. Graves Explores Human Nature: A Treatise on an Emergent Cyclical Conception of Adult Behavioral Systems and Their Development; Todorovic, C.C.& N., Ed.; F Second Printing edition.; ECLET Publishing: Santa Barbara, Calif; ISBN 978-0-9724742-1-4. ↩

  9. Dualism is Perry position 2. ↩

  10. Early multiplicity is Perry position 3. ↩

  11. The term “logical-analytical thinking” is from Jan De Visch (2015), quoted in Laske, O. (2017) A New Approach to Dialog: Teaching the Dialectical Thought Form Framework - Part I: Foundations of Real-World Dialog. Integral Leadership Review. ↩

  12. Miller, M.E. (1994) World Views, Ego Development, and Epistemological Changes from the Conventional to the Postformal: A Longitudinal Perspective. In Transcendence and Mature Thought in Adulthood; Miller, M.E., Cook-Greuter, S.R., Eds.; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers: Lanham, Md, 1994 ISBN 978-0-8476-7918-8. ↩

  13. For an elaboration of the limits of mathematical reasoning, see Veritasium (2021) Math Has a Fatal Flaw. ↩

  14. Cook-Greuter, S.R. (1995) Comprehensive Language Awareness: A Definition Of The Phenomenon And A Review Of Its Treatment In The Postformal Adult Development Literature. Cited with permission (personal communication, 2021). ↩ ↩2

  15. See for example Jayatilleke, K.N. The Logic of Four Alternatives. (1967) Philosophy East and West 17, 69–83, doi: 10.2307/1397046. ↩

  16. Graves suggests “New information or experience, self procured” is a change instigator for the “Express self for what self desires without shame or guilt or Express Self Calculatedly (ESC)” or ER level. ↩

  17. Laske uses “context” for “form-oriented schemata.” For Basseches, a schema is a movement in thought. What follows is a summary of (form-oriented) schemata 9 and 10 from Basseches, M. (1984) Dialectical Thinking and Adult Development; Illustrated edition.; Ablex Publishing: Norwood, N.J; ISBN 978-0-89391-017-4. ↩

  18. Multiplicity correlate is Perry position 4. ↩

  19. This description of Perry position 5 is from Basseches schema 11, “assumption of contextual relativism.” ↩

  20. Torbert calls the Catalyst stage “Individualist/Pluralist/Relativist” in Torbert, W.R. (2013) Listening into the Dark: An Essay Testing the Validity and Efficacy of Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry for Describing and Encouraging Transformations of Self, Society, and Scientific Inquiry. Integral Review 9, 36. ↩

  21. “Affirmation of the practical or active character of knowledge” is Basseches schema 6. ↩

  22. Anticipation of commitment or commitment foreseen is Perry position 6. ↩

  23. The evolving of commitments is Perry positions 7 through 9. ↩

  24. Graves suggests “Pressure from valued important other” is a change instigator for the “Sacrifice now for reward nowor Sacrifice Now For Approval Now (SNFAN)” or FS level. ↩

  25. Graves suggests “New information, regardless of source” is a change instigator for the “Express self but not at expense of others or Express Self With Concern for Others (ESWCFO)” or A’N’ level. ↩

  26. “In the previous section, I suggested reconceptualizing Perry’s ‘Relativist’ position as describing the combination of (a) an ability to understand the limits of formal thought, and (b) an ability to make use of formal thought within those limits, along with (c) an absence of dialectical ways of thinking about problems beyond those limits (viz., problems involving relationships among systems, transformations of systems, and evaluation of systems).” Basseches, M. (1984) Dialectical Thinking and Adult Development; Illustrated edition.; Ablex Publishing: Norwood, N.J; ISBN 978-0-89391-017-4. ↩

  27. “Assertion of the existence of relations, the limits of separation or the value of relatedness” is Basseches schema 12; “Thesis-antithesis-synthesis movement in thought” is Basseches schema 1; and “Recognition and description of thesis-antithesis-synthesis movement” is Basseches schema 3. ↩

  28. Laske uses “process” for “motion-oriented schemata.” “Affirmation of the primacy of motion” is Basseches schema 2. ↩

  29. This is Basseches schema 16. ↩

  30. Basseches, M. (1984) Dialectical Thinking and Adult Development; Illustrated edition.; Ablex Publishing: Norwood, N.J; ISBN 978-0-89391-017-4. ↩

  31. This is Basseches schema 13. ↩

  32. Laske uses “transformation” for Basseches’ “meta-formal schemata.” Meta-formal schemata include “Description of open self-transforming systems” (Basseches schema 21) and “Description of qualitative change as a result of quantitative change within a form” (Basseches schema 22). ↩

Written on October 7, 2021

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