In which I attempt to take soundings of my own pursuit of more complete understanding of life, the universe, everything, in the hope that some of my observations and conclusions may offer the reader food for thought on her/his (‘hez’) own stance and pathway.
Humans theorise/hypothesise as part of their effort to gain understanding of the nature of things – what they consist of perhaps, or why they behave as they do. Perhaps we’ve all asked why? some time in our lives. Our pre-conscious and/or intentional pursuit of understanding of the cosmos, or of our own patch, flags our expectation that with such understanding we will be better placed to get along. While it is a trait of humanity at large, it is perhaps most readily observable in academia. A central role and goal for academics is to understand and distil the nature of things for its own sake – an innate valuing of more rather than less complete understanding – and to put that enlarged understanding to work for the wider good; it’s as if these two drives are two facets of the one gemstone.[1] In this article I want to ponder on the significance of (let’s call it) the pursuit of ever-wider, holistic understanding in the domain of individual human experience, and reflect on what this could mean for the wider human project.
My opening paragraph was loaded with broad-brush generalisations. Generalising, such as finding a general principle based on familiarisation with particular instances, can, if not executed properly, put us at risk of bias and prejudice, but the same mental routine is involved as we evolve our private conceptions of life, the universe and everything.[2] I sense a close association between the kinds of generalisation one conceives and the value system one lives by. (In my previous post I claimed that our values shape our meaning perspectives and thus how we think; see <http://bit.ly/2yWbniA>.) Take this generalisation (Example A): We humans need a word like ‘cosmos’ to name the unity of conception that we infer and crave.[3] And this one (Example B):
[Margaret] Archer’s vision [in her book, Being human: The problem of agency[4]] is quintessentially simple because it is quintessentially human. She offers a social theory formed from categories of explanation that make equally credible sense of societies as different as Dickens’ London, Hitler’s Germany and Gandhi’s India; and yours and mine.[5]
Both statements, A and B, seem to me to serve as stepping stones on the author’s (my) lifelong quest for wider understanding. (I’m sorry if I seem overly preoccupied with myself, but let’s see where this line of thought takes us. Each of us is best placed to make sense of our individual sense making, and might not such individual, micro inquiries have broader significance?)
Do you hear echoes of ‘unity of conception’ (example A) in the idea expressed in example B that Margaret Archer’s book arguably presents a persuasive theory of social realism, one that rings true across different times and cultures? What I hear echoed in ‘unity of conception that we infer and crave’ is my belief that the defining feature of humankind is the fulfilment it gains from growth in understanding.[6] That is to say, understanding something more completely makes us feel good. Achieving such fulfilment is an integral aspect of human being as we experience it. The ‘defining feature’ claim is a generalisation – about all humans – that has the status of a belief, yet it is a belief that sits well with other beliefs that underpin my attitude and approach to life. For me it is congruent with my global conception of and willing participation in the human phenomenon.[7] It helps me make sense of that phenomenon. Given the whole human phenomenon across time and space, spanning humankind’s achievements both laudable and despicable, I choose to see the quest for understanding [q1] – along with the quest for acceptance, for a sense of belonging [q2] – as integral to our private and shared experience of the human phenomenon.[8] These orientations [q1 & q2] are critical elements in one’s journey of self-expression and self-realisation.
It would be nice, would it not, to have some kind of reassurance that the path we are on to achieve our personal–professional potential is taking us where we want to go? Could part of the solution to the epic challenge of shaping one’s life story lie in ever-more radical embrace of ‘the human’? Archer’s vision, I suggested earlier, is quintessentially simple because it is quintessentially human. Anyone who is prepared to conceive hez life journey within the context of the boundary-shattering notion of human phenomenon has already embraced the hope to more fully realise the human within: she/he values and aspires to more fully express those desirable qualities that make human being special.[9] Whatever else might be on our wish-list in pursuing our potential, we may reserve special place for one or more of such ‘becoming more human’ qualities. In such cases, goal-responsive thought is potentially self-fulfilling.[10] Educating for this kind of world citizen might be a fitting antidote or salve to the down-spiralling of the present world ‘order’ (sic).
The coherence of the beliefs by which we live, the way they combine to offer us a sense of being on the most fitting pathway, can be used as a yardstick for gauging the integrity of our being-in-the-world. First, I ask myself, do my beliefs hold together? Are they internally consistent? Then, do I live in accord with those beliefs? Continuous reflexive critique of our own assumptions and attitudes in an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ is an essential practice for validating one’s stance in the world.
Recasting the argument
A number of more or less abstract, enigmatic or perhaps loose-fitting expressions have cropped up in the foregoing discussion. Here is an alternative way of approaching some of these ideas. In this version I explicitly link the question of generalising to the motif of hermeneutic circling.
In the first part of this article I was trying to see what might occur when the idea of generalising is juxtaposed with the ‘human phenomenon’ construct, one that purports to embrace the entire human project, and thus stands as a paradigmatic instance of generalisation. It is a composite idea that defines itself not in terms of what it excludes but rather of the open-ended attribute of emergence:
"The human phenomenon refers to humanity’s footprint on the geophysical landscape as well as its cultural and spiritual legacy across time and space. It is a catch-all term that spans everything we know about ourselves and the world. It is as broad as humankind’s entire opus of artefacts, knowledge and lived experience. It is our collective inheritance and all our private and shared hopes and aspirations, as refracted in our texts, our art and our lives."[11]
The hermeneutic journey of living involves an ever-widening cognitive, affective, spiritual – existential – embrace of self and world. From a philosophical hermeneutic point of view, one’s horizon of understanding is widened as one applies the hermeneutic circle ‘tool’ to a particular inquiry, or to one’s largest meaning making canvas of all – one’s ‘sense of self in the world’. For me, growth in global understanding is the realisation of an ever more complex, comprehensive and coherent sense of self in the world.[12] Hermeneutic circling (cycling) involves two conceptions – a contextualising category (such as ‘the whole’) and an elemental category (‘the parts’). According to the hermeneutic circle metaphor, holistic understanding advances as a meaning maker switches inquiry back and forth between the elements of a thing and the thing as a whole, bootstrapping step by step.
In relation to the contextualising phase of the circle, generalising becomes a mission-critical capability, as, for example, when a meaning maker is trying to set life goals or conceive a philosophy of living. This is a particular form of generalising in which we synthesise a variety of needs or dream-wishes or self-understandings into a more distilled conception. From a lived hermeneutics point of view, understanding guides action. When applying this approach to education, my model of a curriculum of becoming aims to graduate ‘novice rounded, grounded practitioners’, and a similar formula is perfectly suitable for every meaning maker’s life goal – to become someone whose being-in-the-world is a context-dependent and thus unique synthesis of the ideals of roundedness and groundedness.[13]
The ‘wholes’ we conceive in setting our life goals can either promote or undermine the integrity of the human phenomenon. I think I am emboldened to suggest that in this Internet-enabled epoch in which we can inquire into whatever topic takes our fancy, we have an unprecedented opportunity to expand our conception of the human phenomenon. But if so, how will that enlarged understanding show itself in our lives?
Endnotes
[1] Yes, of course we learn to be wary of bold generalisations and grand narratives. My aim here is to explore the noble and necessary practice of generalising as we conceive pattern-forming among multi-layered and unlike things.
[2] The phrase, ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything’ was coined by Douglas Adams in The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.
[3] An even larger idea than ‘cosmos’ is ‘Kosmos’, as Ken Wilber explains:
"The Pythagoreans introduced the term 'Kosmos' which we usually translate as 'cosmos'. But the original meaning of Kosmos was the patterned nature or process of all domains of existence, from matter to math to theos, and not merely the physical universe, which is usually what both 'cosmos' and 'universe' mean today. So I would like to reintroduce this term, Kosmos. The Kosmos contains the cosmos (or the physioshere), the bios (or biosphere), nous (the noosphere), and theos (the theosphere or divine domain) – none of them being foundational (even spirit shades into Emptiness)."
K. Wilber, Sex, ecology, spirituality: the spirit of evolution (2nd Rev. ed.). Boston: Shambhala, 2000, p. 45.
[4] M. S. Archer, Being human: the problem of agency, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
[5] A. McKenzie, Meaning making: a university curriculum framework for the twenty-first century, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrucken, ISBN 978-3-659-52667-1, 2014, p. 106-107.
[6] ibid., p. 11.
[7] See the human phenomenon elsewhere in this blog, or refer to A. McKenzie, ‘Changing course: the human phenomenon, deep aligning, living meaningfully’, thought piece, 2014, <http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/edfa60_8285f42d5e8c4bf1a9a0d37f2a708da1.pdf>, accessed 1 January 2018.
[8] ‘I choose to see …’. You may dig down into this choice of words by comparing the statement here with my explication of ‘landmark-spotting’ in my previous blog post: <http://bit.ly/2yWbniA>.
[9] I just put into words a value judgment formed out of values I haven’t necessarily ever articulated for myself. I suppose it now becomes part of my personal theory of the human phenomenon; that is the status of the claim. What does your theory of the human phenomenon say?
[10] Concerning goal-responsive thought: ‘While the practice of meaning making is irrevocably anchored to each meaning maker’s personal past, both philosophical hermeneutics and my curriculum of becoming are quintessential expressions of goal-responsive thought – tied, as if by gossamer silk, to the undetermined, indeterminable future’ (A. McKenzie, Meaning making, loc. cit., p. 135).
[11] A. McKenzie, ‘Lived hermeneutics: teaching as if becoming rounded and grounded through growth in global understanding is the ultimate human goal’, One giant learning curve for humanity – a blog about learning and teaching in the twenty-first century, 10 May 2016, <http://bit.ly/1rSW4Dc>, accessed 1 January 2018.
[12] A. McKenzie, Meaning making, loc.cit., p. 2.
[13] The holistic goal of a university curriculum of becoming for the professions is to graduate novice rounded, grounded practitioners. For an explanation of roundedness and groundedness, see A. McKenzie, J. Higgs & M. Simpson, ‘A university curriculum of becoming: A “fit-for-greater-purpose” education for the professions’, paper presented at the 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, Seville, 18-20 November, 2013, pp. 6441-6450, ISBN: 978-84-616-3847-5, p. 6446, <http://library.iated.org/view/MCKENZIE2013AUN>, accessed 1 January 2018.
References
~ Archer, M. S., Being human: the problem of agency, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
~ McKenzie, A., ‘Lived hermeneutics: teaching as if becoming rounded and grounded through growth in global understanding is the ultimate human goal’, One giant learning curve for humanity – A blog about learning and teaching in the twenty-first century, 10 May 2016, <http://bit.ly/1rSW4Dc>, accessed 1 January 2018.
~ McKenzie, A., ‘Changing course: The human phenomenon, deep aligning, living meaningfully’, thought piece, 2014, <http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/edfa60_8285f42d5e8c4bf1a9a0d37f2a708da1.pdf>, accessed 1 January 2018.
~ McKenzie, A., Meaning making: a university curriculum framework for the twenty-first century, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrucken, ISBN 978-3-659-52667-1, 2014.
~ McKenzie, A., Higgs, J & Simpson, M., ‘A university curriculum of becoming: A “fit-for-greater-purpose” education for the professions’, paper presented at the 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, Seville, 18-20 November, 2013, pp. 6441-6450, ISBN: 978-84-616-3847-5, p. 6446, <http://library.iated.org/view/MCKENZIE2013AUN>, accessed 1 January 2018.
~ Wilber, K., Sex, ecology, spirituality: the spirit of evolution (2nd Rev. ed.). Boston: Shambhala, 2000.
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