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Title: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality : The Spirit of Evolution, Second Edition by Ken Wilber ISBN: 1-57062-744-4 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 02 January, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: It will blow your paradigm- over and over again...
Comment: Ken Wilber's "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution", is my favorite book. And that isn't a title I award lightly.
SES is quite possibly the first attempt at putting together a syncretic, evolutionary worldview since Hegel's "Phenomenology". In an age when truth has been declared dead and multiple perspectives rule the roost, where philosophy lives in the shadow of Nietzsche's madman, Wilber, in this striking volume, challenges post-modernity. Unlike other challengers, arguing for a retreat to conservatism and cynical (or mythic-literal) traditionalism, Ken proposes a different idea- we need to integrate the strengths of Post-modernity (a recognition of the other, a bird's eye view of ideology, and a profound social and ecological awareness), Modernity (scientific rationality, empiricism, democracy), and Pre-modernity (religious wisdom and cultural bounty) into one complete, "integral" package.
Sounds like a tough mission for any thinker to take on. Of course, Wilber- living outside the academia, blending his scholastic persuits with Zen practice, and doing his best to live his own philosophy- is no ordinary thinker. In the 551 pages of text (not including extensive endnotes and bibliography), Wilber essentially lays out his "theory of everything". Based in the psychological work of Freud, Piaget, Kohlberg, Maslow, Jung, Gebser, and other thinkers, Wilber first constructs a socio-psychological map of civilization's evolution to date, and shows how it integrates with hard scientific data. Dividing the world into subject and object, Wilber shows how modern empiricism has attempted to colonize the subjective sphere by trying to render it irrelevant- a condition he refers to as "flatland". After providing this analysis, Wilber takes a gander at the cognitive structures still lying in our future, through several examples of such advanced minds- Emerson, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, Ramana Maharshi, and Meister Eckhart. After that, Wilber takes on the disease of the Post-modern world and it's primary culprits- a dissociation between what he refers to as the "Eco" camps (romantic, back-to-nature, web-of-life, holistic) and the "Ego" camps (rationalistic, modernistic, atomistic, disassociating the mind and body), and how these two contradictory (and self-contradictory) worldviews are becoming extremely destructive- in political discourse, academia, and the world in general.
Of course, as has been said before about SES, it's very hard to sum up in a simple outline- the book itself is practically a 500+ page outline. The main thrust of the work is to construct a coherent philosophy for the 21st century, and thus Wilber spends little time on details (which will be covered further in the next two volumes, Kosmic Karma and Creativity and The Spirit of Post-Modernity). But, that weakness aside, Wilber has proven himself the finest philosophical mind of the early 21st century, and the first great step beyond Foucault, Derrida, and the rest of the post-modern mess.
Although SES is an excellent book, it's not light reading, and readers without a background in philsophy, psychology, or cultural studies should take a look at a simpler introduction to Wilber's work, such as A Brief History of Everything- the condensed, more conversational version of SES.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great
Comment: This is one of the most incredible books you will ever read.
It is the book that Wilber first presents his four quadrants and continues with his hierarchal model. It will take time to read it but so what.
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant!
Comment: Ken Wilber is probably one of the most brilliant modern thinkers of our time. Among all of the books he has written, this one is "The One" that really explains it all. What an inspiring piece of work! He brings together work in philosophy, spirituality, psychology, sociology, biology, physics and all other fields of study and convincingly explains that it all fits together if we look at it through this framework that he has developed. If there is a philosophical book you should read, this is the one to pick up. If you are not ready for such a comprehensive detailed discussion, read the other absolutely incredible book called "The Ever-transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. The content is very similar but everything is explained in a much simpler (and shorter) way. Both of these books really deserve some mega-awards!
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Title: A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber ISBN: 1570627401 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 06 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Integral Psychology : Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy by Ken Wilber ISBN: 1570625549 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 16 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: A Theory of Everything : An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality by Ken Wilber ISBN: 1570628556 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Boomeritis : A Novel That Will Set You Free by Ken Wilber ISBN: 1570628017 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 11 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: One Taste by Ken Wilber ISBN: 1570625476 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 08 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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