A Theory of Everything

An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality

Year: 2000 · Format: Book

Description

Short, applied restatement of AQAL aimed explicitly at readers in business, politics, medicine, and education rather than psychology or spirituality specifically.

In-Depth Overview

Much shorter than SES or Integral Psychology, A Theory of Everything is the book where Wilber deliberately steps outside psychology and spirituality and pitches AQAL as a general-purpose framework — an "operating system" — for readers in business, politics, medicine, and education who have no particular interest in contemplative practice. It leans heavily on developmental-stage models of value systems (in the style of Clare Graves' work and Spiral Dynamics, though Wilber presents his own version rather than Graves' original terms) to explain why people and institutions at different developmental stages talk past each other on political and organizational questions — e.g., a traditional/mythic-stage worldview, a modern/rational-achievement worldview, and a postmodern/pluralistic worldview genuinely can't hear each other's concerns as valid, in his account, because each is operating from a different center of gravity, not just a different opinion.

For readers choosing among introductions, its emphasis is on applying the framework across fields. It overlaps with A Brief History of Everything as an introduction to the integral approach; neither is a prerequisite for reading the other. This is an editorial reading recommendation, not an assertion that their texts are identical.

Notes

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