Wilber, heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’ through which we engage with reality

Heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’ through which we engage with reality

The three intrapersonal ‘voices’ of human engagement, have previously been presented as Caring, Creativity and Criticality.

Our Caring, Creativity and Criticality ways of engaging are developed through internalizing the voices of parents and family and then all of the Humanities, the Arts and the Sciences experiences we have at school and in the wider society.

 

Corresponding to the three voices we have three ways of knowing:

1 the ‘social-others-centred’ way of knowing - in the case of Caring

2 the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ way of knowing - in the case of Creativity and

3 the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’ way of knowing - in the case of Criticality

So;

Caring, the ‘social-others-centred’ way of knowing = the internalized voice of the Humanities, and is about engaging with reality via the moral viewpoint

 

Creativity, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ way of knowing = the internalized voice of the Arts, and is about engaging with reality via the subjective viewpoint

 

Criticality the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’ way of knowing = the internalized moral voice of the ‘Sciences’ and is about engaging with reality via the (supposed) objective viewpoint.

 

NB Criticality is wider that what is normally meant by the Sciences and scientific methods. It includes philosophy and such activities as Eng Lit criticism. Why? Because it is about reasoning and other ‘left-brain’ objective activities. The participant assumes the position of being objective and is learning or teaching about phenomena – s/he is not learning or teaching in the phenomena – a distinction that correlates with that between ‘knowing that’ (Paris is the capital of France) and ‘knowing how’ (being able to dance a response to a tragic event).

 

Heart-knowing and head-knowing, left-brain and right-brain

Heart-knowing, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’, is seen as partly an innate, intuitive way of knowing and seems to relate to right-brain activities.

 

The ‘methods of the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’’voice’ seem to relate to right-brain activities.

 

The third form, i.e. social knowing, is seen as deriving from the cultural interpersonal matrix of family and community relationships, internalized as the Caring seems to draw upon both sides of the brain (as do architects!).

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