Ken Wilber’s “Integral Theory” has a number of elements. The holon is one of them. Another important element is the simple, elegant and immensely useful Four Quadrants. He simply draws a cross which yields four squares, or quadrants. On the horizontal, the upper two quadrants represent a singular perspective, and the lower two, the plural perspective. On the vertical, the left hand quadrants represent the interior, and the right hand ones, the exterior.
Even more simply, you can think of the pronouns which apply to each quadrant – upper left, is singular, interior and is communicated by using “I”, whereas, upper right, is singular exterior, so is communicated using “it”. Bottom left is plural interior, communicated with “we” and bottom right, being plural exterior, communicated with “its”.
You can see that the left hand refers to subjective experience and the right to objective.
One of the things you can do with this is map other conceptual maps onto it. So, if we take Karl Popper’s “three worlds”, then top left is “subjective”, bottom left is “cultural” and the right hand side is “objective”. Habermas describes three truths – the subjective truthfulness of I, the cultural justness of we, and the objective truth of its. You can also map Kant’s three great works against this – Critique of judgement (art and self-expression), Critique of practical reason (morals or we), and Critique of pure reason (science).
Finally, you can map onto the same plan, Plato’s Beautiful, Good and True.
I’m sure you will probably be able to come up with other parallels, but why not play with this for a bit. I think you’ll agree it provides a very useful and much more holistic framework within which to understand things.
I especially like how he values ALL four quadrants, and in so doing, makes it clear that if you only come at an issue from one of the quadrants, you’re just not going to get the full picture…..puts objective science into its right place in my opinion!
Heroes Not Zombies 
Is there`s the Emperor `s new clothes story going on here?
Sorry, but think this is gibberish .Maybe an elite few can enjoy this.
Hope this is not used on patients.
Quadrant stuff is what the latest satellites are going to have to do transmit information so we can use our phones.
Our hearts are heavy with the news of the problems of Japan.
May be a good dose of Bach`s Red Chestnut would not go astray for us.
Ah, Marlene….no, it’s just a set of maps. I think it’s interesting to see how those different maps from different times in history marry up so well though….suggests there are underlying truths to be understood – not least that to fully understand anything you need to consider both objective AND subjective findings.
I agree about Japan….it’s very, very challenging.
Thanks Bob,just grumpy.
[…] Ken Wilber’s 4 quadrant map stimulates us to think about these two sides of everything – what lies on the outside, the surface, can be seen, pointed to and known – Wilber refers to this aspect as the “right hand side” (related to his diagram), or to whatever can be empirically known by just observing. And what lies inside, on the “left hand side” of his diagram, and which can only be revealed through dialogue and interpretation. […]
No doubt the whole AQUAL paradigm will evolve…I the meantime I have found it to be incredibly valuable personally. As well, I have found it useful in teaching counselling students how to look at an individual and determine where there is balance and imbalance and in which quadrant(s) intervention needs to take place.
When applied to client process, each quadrant fleshed out with their personal details, my clients have really gleaned a clearer view of their situation – inside them and outside of them- and what to do about it.
Hope you are having a way better day…and get to enjoy the AQUAL map in real life movement!
[…] a little explanation. This is a concept of health built on the framework of integral theory. Have a look here if you don’t know what that’s about. Orthodox biomedicine, tends to only consider one […]
[…] way of understanding public health issues (even though they don’t use that term or refer to integral theory) A strength of the ecological public health model is that it draws upon and integrates parts of the […]
[…] 9. Integral Theory […]
[…] concludes with a classically INTEGRAL […]
[…] I find Plato’s three “transcendentals” of Beautiful, Good and True a very fruitful concept to explore. When I first read about “integral theory” I was very taken by Ken Wilber’s four quadrants of the single-subjective, plural-subjective, single-objective and plural-subjective, and really liked the way the beautiful, the good and the true could be mapped onto that. (read a little more about that here) […]
[…] see this is all entirely consistent with the features of complex adaptive systems, and of integral theory. And it is also utterly consistent with my blog byline of “becoming not being” which I […]