The Pre/Trans-Rational Fallacy

[tuku747]

In Ken Wilbur's model, Spiral Dynamics, one is seen to go from the mind of a child with a vivid, yet naive, imagination, characterized by Stage Purple and Stage Blue. As one develops along this path, they come to learn the ways of logic, rationality, and science, characterizing Stage Orange. According to Ken Wilber, the pre/trans-fallacy is the tendency of the rational  thinker to confuse and equate the two non-rational stages of psychological development, called the pre-rational and trans-rational.

The trans-rational mystical experiences are often dismissed by the rational-minded as infantile, pre-rational fantasy, resulting in them projecting their postmodern values onto the pre-modern cultures who valued such mystical experiences. A person who is in the rational stage of psychological development judges those around them as being either rational or not—rather than viewing psychology as a developmental process running from pre-rational to rational to trans-rational, resulting in the trans-rational often being mistaken as the pre-rational. Wilber claims that both Freud and Jung commit this fallacy in different ways, forming a major fault line between two of modern psychology’s greatest founders, both of whom stood on opposite sides of this fallacy.

For example, Freud would often reduce and dismiss spiritual states as a regression to infantile, pre-rational feelings, while Jung would elevate pre-rational mythology of old to trans-rational revelations. In Wilber's view, one can reduce trans-rational spiritual realization to pre-rational regression, or one can elevate pre-rational states to the trans-rational domain.  Likewise, pre-rational states may be misidentified as post-rational states. Ken Wilber characterizes himself as having fallen victim to the pre/trans fallacy in his early work.

In short, one must first develop the ego, before they can transcend it.
"You have to become somebody before you can become nobody."

Edited July 24, 2023 by tuku747

[PlayOnWords]

I love Ken Wilber. Have just picked up Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.

[SeaMonster]

I would be extremely careful about applying the pre-trans fallacy to SD stages.

It is more fruitful to apply it to states of consciousness rather than structures of consciousness.

Even Wilber contradicts this idea by admitting that there are enlightened (i.e. trans-egoic) people in the Blue Stage e.g. Eastern monks, etc.

Clearly people in the Bible such as Moses or Jesus were enlightened yet the Orange stage was nowhere close to existing.

Really, it is animals and the most primitive kind of native peoples that don't have an ego and could be considered pre-.