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An Integral Approach to Relationality

Mark Edwards Graduate School of Management University of Western Australia

For further information regarding this presentation contact Mark Edwards at mgedwards@graduate.uwa.edu.au

Mark Edwards, 2006

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, ourselves, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations"
Henry David Thoreau

Agape, or Compassion, the principle of embodiment, and bodily incarnation, and relationship, and relational and manifest embrace, touching each and every being with perfect and equal grace, rejecting nothing, embracing all.
(K.W., The Simple Feeling of Being, p. 81)

An Integral Approach to Relationality

This presentation builds on the principles of Ken Wilbers integral philosophy to graphically represent social relationships and, in particular, the relationship between I and You (2nd person relationality). Types of relationships considered here are: 1. Singular and plural relationships between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons (perspectival relationality). 2. Ecological relationships between human individuals and social groups (micro-meso-macro relationality). 3. Mediated relationships between individuals and groups (sociogenetic relationality).

An Integral Approach to Relationality An Integral Approach to Relationality

The connections continue. Notice that every I is in relationship with other The connections continue. Notice that every I is in relationship with other Is, which means that every I is a member of numerous wes. These wes Is, which means that every I is a member of numerous wes. These wes represent not just individual but group (or collective) consciousness, not just represent not just individual but group (or collective) consciousness, not just subjective but intersubjective awareness (KW, IOS Basic, 2005, p. 18) subjective but intersubjective awareness (KW, IOS Basic, 2005, p. 18)

1. How can we represent relationality between holons and 1. How can we represent relationality between holons and perspectives? perspectives?
Although with singular and plural forms the "three persons" gives us six Although with singular and plural forms the "three persons" gives us six perspectives, for most purposes, those condense down into 4 fundamental perspectives, for most purposes, those condense down into 4 fundamental perspectives: I, we, it, and its. (Kosmos Vol. 2, Excerpt C, para. 59) perspectives: I, we, it, and its. (Kosmos Vol. 2, Excerpt C, para. 59)

2. How can we show micro-meso-macro relationships? 2. How can we show micro-meso-macro relationships?
The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth. The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth. (Twenty Tenets, SES, p.73) (Twenty Tenets, SES, p.73)

3. How can we graphically explore an integral approach to 3. How can we graphically explore an integral approach to exchange relations? exchange relations?
Each level in the human being is a process of relational exchange with a Each level in the human being is a process of relational exchange with a corresponding environment. (SG, p. 56) corresponding environment. (SG, p. 56)
Mark Edwards, 2006

Relationality is fundamentally about: Second-Person Modes of Being in the World

The important point is that when I engage in hermeneutics and collaborative inquiry, I am lighting up the second-person (and firstperson plural) modes of being-in-the-world. Those modes are real, they are there, and they constitute a crucial ingredient in any integral methodological pluralism. All of those intersubjective approaches--there are literally dozens of others--are tapping into the fact that all holons have a Lower-Left quadrant, a holistic web of mutually interpenetrating prehensions across space and time that can be felt and described in a secondperson (and first-person plural) perspective. (KW, Kosmos trilogy Vol. 2, Excerpt A)

Mark Edwards, 2006

Relationality involves two or more

As the following definition says, relationality is:
i) The way in which one person or thing is connected with another. ii) A logical or natural association between two or more things. iii) The mutual dealings or connections of persons, groups, or nations in social, business, or diplomatic matters. (American Heritage Dictionary)

UL

UR communication UL governance
identity power love war media conflict mediation LR relationship intersubjectivity

UR

LL

LL

LR

An integral vision-logic of relationality

How can we apply the AQAL framework to graphically represent all the quadrants, levels, lines, dynamics and perspectives involved in power relations, mediating processes, personal relationships, workplace relations, communication, etc.?
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How can we show relationality using Quadrants and the I-We-It-Its Model of Perspectives ?
Where is the 2nd person (singular & plural)

1st Person

3rd Person

Singular perspectives
(Micro-level)

He/She/ It

Plural perspectives
(Macro-level)

We

They

Where are the 1st person exteriors (My/Our behaviour)?

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Where are the 3rd person interiors (His/Her intentions/feelings)?

This is how!: The Six Basic Perspectives Where each holon has four quadrants
1st Person 2nd Person 3rd Person

Singular perspectives (Micro-level)

I/Me

You

He/She/It

The between space of relational exchange Plural perspectives (Macro-level)

We/Us

You(s)

They

As Wilber puts it:

with singular and plural forms the "three persons" gives us six perspectives
(Kosmos Vol. 2, Excerpt C, para. 59)

There are not different holons in the four quadrants; the four quadrants are the four dimensions of every holon. (Kosmos Vol. 2, Excerpt C, para. 57)
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The Individual-Collective (Micro-Macro) Dimension9

Agency
Individual-Collective is a multilevel dimension linking micro, meso, and macro holons, i.e. singular and plural.
(of one holon)

Agency-Communion is a qualitative dimension of each and every holon.

Interior
Using the Individual-Collective dimension to describe ecological relations between holons allows us to represent holons separately (see below)

Exterior
Both the interior-exterior dimension and the agencycommunion dimension describe the same holon

Communion
(of one holon)

Multilevel Scale of Focus

Individual
singular individual holon
monad dyad

Collective
plural - collective holons
triad team org. unit organisation industry economy

Micro-Level Holon
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Meso-Level Holons

Macro-Level Holons

Micro-Macro Link

The Integral Holon

(for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd person perspectives of individual and collective holons)
Both individual AND collective holons have UL and LL quadrants

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Agency

Both individual AND collective holons have UR and LR quadrants

Consciousness is Interior Agency Interior Culture is Interior Communion

Behaviour is Exterior Agency Exterior Social Structure is Exterior Communion

ME
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Communion

Why is this organisation so successful?

THE ORGANISATIONS COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
its collective ideals, vision and spirit its sense of identity the organisations mythos & archetypes its business culture is in touch with community needs has a culture of success and corporate responsibility it provides meaningful work

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THE ORGANISATIONS COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOUR (OB)

its collective skill & knowledge base progressive management skills innovative leadership planning and goal setting

transparent financial systems effective organisations structure its communications and IT systems its production systems

THE ORGANISATIONS COLLECTIVE CULTURE

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THE ORGANISATIONS COLLECTIVE SOCIAL SYSTEM

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Why is this employee so successful?

THIS EMPLOYEES INTERIOR CONSCIOUSNESS (INTENTIONAL IDENTITY) his intention to work well his dedication to the job his intrinsic motivation his experience of work THIS EMPLOYEES EXTERIOR BEHAVIOURAL IDENTITY his behavioural efficiency his specific skills interpersonal behaviour his extrinsic incentives

he finds work meaningful his personal values his cultural background THIS EMPLOYEES INTERIOR CULTURAL IDENTITY his industrious worldview
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hes a good worker his workplace role his system of working he likes the male role of earner THIS EMPLOYEES EXTERIOR SOCIAL IDENTITY

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Relationality in Organisations (The space between)

1. The Space Between #1 The Individual-Collective Dimension and Multi-Level Research in Organisational Studies

The micro-levels of individual relationships

The meso-world of group relations

The macro-world of organisational relations

2.

The Space Between #2 The Six Perspectives and Basic Methodologies The Space Between #3 Relationality through mediation

3.

Mediating Factors: power, language, tools, cultural artefacts

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The Space Between #1

The Individual-Collective Dimension and Multi-Level Research in Organisational Studies (ecological holarchy spatial relations)

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What is needed is a way of coupling theories and research at different levels into a meaningful whole. We need mechanisms that help us conceptualise complex relations between units at different levels of analysis in organisational settings. (House, et al, 1995, p.86)
an integral view of a team an integral view of an employee an integral view of a department an integral view of the organisation an integral view of an industry

The
n etwee ace b he sp versation) T on (e.g. c

The space between (e mediation)

.g.

sp a pow ce bet we e aut hor r, stat en (e. u g. ity rela s, & tion s)

The whole AQAL framework can be applied at any point on the micro-meso-macro scale (integral multilevel theory).
Mark Edwards, 2006

The Space Between #2: Perspectives and Basic Methodologies for studying the interiors & exteriors of the 1st, 2nd & 3rd persons
1st Person
Structuralism

2nd Person
Case Study & Biography

3rd Person
Behavoural Research Autopoiesis & Cognitive Studies

Singular
(Microlevel)

Introspection & Autobiography

Psychotherapeutic Methods

Plural
(Mesolevel and Macrolevel)

Systems Research Collaborative & Cultural Studies Social Structuralism Participatory Research & Functionalism Hermeneutics Ethnomethodology Social Autopoiesis

What of the methodologies for studying the relationships between these holons? The Space Between (Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000). If we can now model holons in relationship, how can we apply the whole AQAL framework to the study of those relationships and do this graphically? To do so we need an integral holonics an integral method for depicting (and studying) relationality in general and perspectival relationships in particular.
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The Space Between #3

How do we explore the relationality Space Between of social entities using integral theory, AQAL, holon theory, etc?
Taking a relational orientation suggests that the real work of the human organisation occurs within the space of interaction between its members. Thus the theorist must account for the relationships among, rather than the individual properties of, organisational members Such a scholar enters an organisation as if it were an extended set of relationships. S/he thereby places more attention on the space between the space between subject and object Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000, p. 551

The Space Between

inter-subjective inter-objective interactive relational mediational interpersonal co-constitutional for 1st, 2nd, 3rd person relationships - singular & plural

Mark Edwards, 2006

To develop an integral model of relationality we need to understand mediation & the communication of exterior depth
Mediation, the Sociogenesis of Consciousness, and the Radical Depth of the Exteriors #1
The central fact about our psychology is the fact of mediation. (Vygotsky1982, p. 166)
Any higher mental function was external and social before it was internal (Vygotsky, 1981b, p.
163)

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Society, genetically considered, is not a composition of separate individuals; on the contrary, the individuals are differentiations of a common social protoplasm. The conclusion is drawn that the individual is a "social outcome not a social unit." We are members one of another. (J. M. Baldwin, 1930)

Any higher function was first external because it was social at some point before becoming an internal, truly mental function. (Vygotsky cited in Wertsch 1985, p.62)
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Individual consciousness as a specifically human form of the subjective reflection of objective reality may be understood only as the product of those relations and mediacies that arise in the course of the establishment and development of society (Leontiev, 1977, p.8)

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Mediation, the Sociogenesis of Consciousness, and the Radical Depth of the Exteriors #2
The definite concept of the Ego has, in each one of us, a social and imitative origin. (Josiah Royce, 1894)

Inner consciousness is socially organized by the importation of the social organization of the outer world. (Mead, 1912)
The child will not succeed in forming an object of himself of putting the so-called subjective material of consciousness within such a self until he has recognized about him social objects. (Mead, 1912) For Cooley the mind is not first individual and then social. The mind itself in the individual arises through communication. (George Herbert Mead, 1930)

Self-consciousness, as Hegel loved to point out, is, in fact, always a mutual affair. The idea 'I' is inseparable from the idea 'you. I am I, on the whole, and in every definite aspect of my selfconsciousness, in so far as I appeal to my fellow to recognize me. (Josiah Royce, 1894)
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My conscious idea of myself is derived, is secondary, for instance, to language, to which all my thinking is so deeply indebted, and is thus, oddly enough, a product of social intercourse. Who I am, I have first learned from others before I can observe it for myself. (Royce, 1894)

Mediation, the Sociogenesis of Consciousness, and the Radical Depth of the Exteriors #3
The child concept of I develops out of the concept of others. (Vygotsky, 1983, p. 324)

The social dimension of consciousness is primary in time and in fact. (Vygotsky 1979, 30)
In order to explain the highly complex forms of human consciousness one must go beyond the human organism. One must seek the origins of conscious activity in the external processes of social life, in the social and historical forms of human existence.
Luria (1981) Royce points out that the individual reaches the self only by a process that implies still another self for its existence and thought. Mead, 1930

An adult's essence is found in the essence of the environmental conditions.

(Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993) 19

Mediation, the Sociogenesis of Consciousness, and the Radical Depth of the Exteriors #4
For Vygotsky and cultural-historical theorists more generally, the social world does have primacy over the individual in a very special sense. Society is the bearer of the cultural heritage without which the development of mind is impossible. (Cole &
Wertsch, 1999)
James Wertsch

Mind lies in a field of conduct between a specific individual and the environment, in which the individual is able, through the generalized attitude he assumes, to make use of symbolic gestures, i.e., terms, which are significant to all including himself. (Mead , 1922 A Behavioristic Account of
the Significant Symbol)

Any function in the childs cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between people as an interpsychological category, and then within the child as an intrapsychological category. This is equally true with regard to voluntary attention, logical memory, the formation of concepts and the development of volition Social relations or relations among people genetically underlie all higher mental functions [in the individual].
(Vygotsky, 1981b, p. 163)

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The Integral Holon, the Basic Activity Triad and disciplines that focus on the space between
Theories of Power Communications Theory Sociogenetics Developmental work research Critical Media Studies Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

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Mediational Semiotics Peer-to-Peer Theory Artifact-in-Use theories

Development is as Development is as much about the much about the mediation of mediation of exterior depth (e.g. exterior depth (e.g. Vygotsky) as it is Vygotsky) as it is about the unfolding about the unfolding of interior depth of interior depth (e.g. Piaget) (e.g. Piaget)

Mediating Holon

1st person

2nd person

The developmental The developmental (AQAL) profile of (AQAL) profile of mediating holons mediating holons is crucial to is crucial to understanding understanding individual and individual and collective collective development development

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Reclaiming Indras net as a integral model of Kosmic relations: Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra,
there is a wonderful net (Avatamsaka Sutra)
individual holon p1 #1

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Perspectives (# of reflections interpenetrations)

p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9

Micro-macro relationships (# of threads - all things)

#2 #3 #4

The six basic perspectives

Collective holons

#5

Perspectives (interpenetrating reflections) crossed with Relations (the threads of all things) generates: Indras Net - the multiplicity of holonic perspectives in relationship. AQALs 4 quadrants and the six basic perspectives are a summary of the interpenetration of all things in relationship Indras net, the Kosmic Mass, Behinnot,

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The Buddha speaks the wondrous sound without obstacle It pervades all lands in the ten directions, Benefiting the living with the flavour of truth: The Courageous know this technique. Emanating inconceivable nets of light, Everywhere purifying all conscious beings, He causes them to engender profound faith.
Avatamsaka Sutra (The Flower Garland Sutra)

Mark Edwards, 2006