What is Dialectical Holism?

Introduction to the paradigm

In the broadest terms, dialectical holism combines the methods of phenomenology with an orientation of process ontology to re-envision the conditions and purposes of scientific and philosophical progress. Consequently, there is a focus on meta-philosophy, because the questions of what philosophy can or should do take centre stage. Interdisciplinarity is also seen as invaluable for cognitive development, no matter the domain of inquiry, because no one logic or theory is believed to map exactly onto any part of the world. Within this paradigm, philosophy is seen as an invaluable function of both cognitive and emotional reflection in each and every discipline. This holds further entailments for education, therapy, meditation, altered states, and embodied practices of innumerable kinds. In this way, philosophy is envisioned in existentialist and pragmatic terms: we recognize that linguistic analysis is insufficient and lacking any source of absolute value or epistemic authority, we must perpetually endeavour to (re-)construct a foundation from wherever we find ourselves. Dialectical holism thus proposes a means of envisioning human potential and our place in the cosmos in such a way that is consistent with, but significantly transcends the natural sciences.

Perhaps the most important question to follow from this paradigm, and one that exemplifies the pragmatic process-phenomenology being developed, is thus: How does this or that mode of inquiry cultivate or inhibit respective cognitive-emotional capacities? Indeed, the same question can be asked of any philosophical domain, e.g. particular metaphysical or ethical theories.

Origins

Dialectical Holism was first formally proposed by South African philosopher, Errol E. Harris (1908-2009). His system was a synthesis of previous metaphysics including the Spirit of Hegel, the Substance of Spinoza, as well as phenomenological and gestalt psychological approaches to consciousness. Through his efforts to synthesize philosophical and scientific theories of his day, Harris anticipated what in modern terms would be the marriage of Bohmian quantum mechanics with 4E cognitive science. During my own PhD research in Christchurch New Zealand, I have argued that the resulting framework can provide solutions to many long-standing philosophical problems from the hard problem of consciousness, to debates concerning the anthropic cosmological principle, and even provide a viable trajectory for cultural evolution.

Research areas range across the natural and social sciences, including both empirical and metaphysical topics of inquiry. By way of introduction, dialectical holism can be considered an umbrella paradigm for the following theories:

• 4E cognitive science – argues for embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended approaches to cognition. This implies that mental phenomena take place not in the head, but in the relational processes across brain, body, environment, and culture. Maintaining methodological ties with pragmatism and phenomenology, an interdependence is posited between the traditional dichotomies of cognition-emotion and fact-value.
• Transpersonal theory – maintains a participatory approach to spirituality and a neurophenomenoloigcal methodology in the study of meditation and altered states in general. It is thus believed that there can be a mutual enlightenment between the natural sciences and phenomenological investigations of psychedelic experiences and meditative training respectively. With transpersonal methods, dialectical holism aims to clarify viable trajectories for psychological and spiritual development.
• Bohmian quantum mechanics – endorses a pilot-wave account of quantum phenomena, which is generalized to an account of emergence. This is a physics-based grounding for the relevance of context and the irreducible nature of global constraints across spatio-temporal scales, including biology, cognition, and culture. This approach has implications for the practice of phenomenology, i.e. Bohm’s “thought as a system”.
• Errol Harris’s Metaphysics – maintains internal relations, heterarchy, process philosophy, and teleology. Harris’s metaphysical system has been shown to support and extend the above three veins of research into a general phenomenological ontology and philosophy of science. The resulting ontology is specified as a scale of forms, or in more technical terms, a series of phase-transition symmetry breaks across spatio-temporal scales of nature and mind. This produces a way of conceptualizing mind and nature in neutral monist and process ontological terms.

This research cuts across phenomenology, metaphysics, ethics, and the natural sciences. Each intersects with the others in ways that are distinctive of the methodology and foundational axioms maintained within this worldview.

	Ethics	Metaphysics	Ethics	Science
Phenomenology	Gestalt, dialectical relations, vipassana, epoché, surrealism: triadic phenomenology; describes the conditions of symmetry breaking.	Phenomenological ontology: posits the scale of forms (E) and KBL as synthetic a priori.	Aims to elucidate values, navigate emotional and cognitive spaces via an increase of empathy and cultivation of virtues.	Aims to identify the ϕ in nature via interdisciplinary collaboration and elaboration of phenomenal sensitivity.
Metaphysics	Works out the logical arguments concerning phenomenological methodologies and relates these to the sciences.	Neutral monism, process ontology, heterarchism, instrumentalism, onto-epistemology.	The ultimate good is E, which pragmatically unites fact and value. Virtues are ideals towards which we aim.	Ongoing explication of the relation between scales, TAP as both epistemic constraint and metaphysical necessity.
Ethics	Reflects upon and describes our practices of levation/diffraction for the purpose of increasing empathy across scales of practice.	Reflects on the practical (pragmatic) consequences of a given system and demands engagement with other systems.	Virtue as ideals (ubermensch), NLT (E), fact-value unity as phenomenological constraint. We ought to decrease suffering and increase coherence of perspectives.	Truth is characterized by the aim of accounting for the partial coherence of a theory within increasingly coherent (empathic) frameworks.
Science	Neurophenomenology aims to identify homological structure-processes across brain, body, world, and phenomenology.	Examines the cognitive cultivations and practices of respective worldviews.	Examines the moral consequences of respective worldviews and scientific projects.	Bohmian mechanics, GST, symbiogenesis, 4E cog, DFT, ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration towards continuous clarification of phenomena.