Thoughts 6 Dec. 2021

 

The Wedge

Scott Carney

The goal of the Wedge is to separate stimulus from response.

The Wedge

Scott Carney

When an ecosystem functions well, it’s homeostasis; if it’s in decline or in the midst of unsustainable growth (as with cancer), then it’s heading into trouble. The system could end up in a state of constant vigilance and, to use [Justin] Feinstein’s term, become allostatic [attempting to return to a prior state of homeostasis] and never return to normal.

"The economy" (that most dangerous of abstractions) can be seen as a sub-ecosystem. But then like all such systems, it's never static, completely "in balance." And for the last ~200 years or so it's behaved much like a cancer, has it not?

The Wedge

Scott Carney

So if the immune system uses the same chemical hardware that creates feelings in our brains and influences our behavior in the world, then how much of a stretch is it to say that our immune system is conscious? What if instead of assuming that the immune system is just a machine, we give it a chance to have a semblance of cognition? Obviously the immune system can’t have the sort of complex emotions or thoughts that you or I experience, but even a shard of that subjectivity is powerful.

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Alas, in 2020, one story about our collective future that’s becoming increasingly ubiquitous— and maybe even appealing to those inclined to resignation— starts with the opening line “we’re doomed” (or, in the vernacular, that we’re “fucked” or “screwed”). I hear this kind of declaration from a substantial and rapidly growing proportion of the students I teach. I respond to these young people by saying, as I say to Ben and Kate, that humanity is in fact doomed only if we collectively choose to be doomed. [My italics.]

The Ingenuity Gap

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Society therefore needs ingenuity to get ingenuity, which means it is both an input to and output of the economic system. (Surprisingly, this claim often perplexes people. But a moment’s reflection shows that many economic factors are both input and output—for example, physical and human capital.

Evolutionaries

Carter Phipps

Might humans, or intelligent life in whatever form, play that same role in the cosmological, universal evolutionary scheme of development? Might we in some way represent this feedback loop for the universe itself? Could our reflection on the evolutionary process itself be an essential element not only in fulfilling the next stage of our own development but in creating the next novel stage of cosmogenesis? [James N.] Gardner’s hypothesis is one of the most original—and compelling—evolutionary speculations that I have come across in some time.

Apologies to the Grandchildren

William Ophuls

Bluntly put, when democracy no longer delivers the goods, it will be consigned to the dustbin of history by an angry mob.

And this was written before January 6. The "angry mob," encouraged by ambitious politicians and special interests, remains in waiting. The outcome--whether democracy and the rule of law will survive in the U.S.--remains open.

The Inevitability of Tragedy

Barry Gewen

Ian Kershaw, has said, “Hitler was no tyrant imposed on Germany. Though he never attained majority support in free elections, he was legally appointed to power as Reich Chancellor just like his predecessors had been, and became between 1933 and 1940 arguably the most popular head of state in the world.” The historian John Lukacs shares this view: Hitler “may have been the most popular revolutionary leader in the history of the modern world. The emphasis is on the word popular because Hitler belongs to the democratic, not the aristocratic, age of history.”

A reminder: Germany went from a democratic state with a model (in many ways) constitution to one of the worst political regimes in history, all without a coup or violent revolution, as Kershaw notes.

Age of Ambition

Evan Osnos

In 1949 the average life expectancy [in China] was thirty-six, and the literacy rate was 20 percent. By 2012,  life expectancy (2 words) was seventy-five, and the literacy rate was above 90 percent.

These figures go a long way in explaining why China is feeling its oats these days.

Bonds That Make Us Free

C. Terry Warner

It is a key sign of danger when we expect that others should change in response to our change. This signals a lapse on our part, back into self-absorption. Why so? Because the moment we begin to feel that we need others to change before we can be free of our troubled, afflicting thoughts and feelings, we have either lost the joy we felt when we experienced our change of heart or else we never experienced that change at all. We’re back in our self-absorbed condition or we never got out of it. Anyone free of that condition enjoys an emotional freedom that no external circumstance can destroy—including the reactions of other people.

Collingwood's The Idea of History

Peter Johnson

Re-enactment, in other words, includes counter-factual discussion as well as the delineation of what actually occurred.

Thoughts 4 Dec. 2021

 

Ultrasociety

Peter Turchin

War between societies can be a very bloody affair, with many soldiers and civilians killed. But if it’s inconclusive, it will not be a force of cultural group selection. This is a very important point: what makes war creative is not how many people are killed. What matters is the effect on cultural evolution. War is an evolutionary force of creation only when it results in some cultural traits outcompeting others.

"War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'." Well, not so fast. War spurs a lot of change (at a high cost, no doubt). It's also a source of evolutionary competition in the cultural realm--multi-level group selection.

Developmental Politics

Steve McIntosh

With the notable exception of [Clare] Graves, developmental psychologists have not attempted to tie-in the psychological stages they recognize with the socio-cultural stages of human history. Although philosopher Jürgen Habermas has noted the “homologies” that can be found between historical and psychological worldviews, the intriguing parallels between personal and cultural development have not been carefully explored outside the confines of integral philosophy.

But inside integral philosophy, this topic is widely (and well) explored.

The Constitution of Knowledge

Jonathan Rauch

“Bacon was a bad scientist,” the sociologist of science Joseph Ben-David has argued, “and in many details he was not a very good philosopher either. There was little connection between the rise of new astronomy and mathematical physics and Baconian principles; experimentation without theory and collection of empirical knowledge had produced few scientific results.” Yet in his own era Bacon was revered and his work was widely influential (and today he is still adjudged a seminal figure in the emergence of science).

Dark Star Rising

Gary Lachman

The desire Hitler and Mussolini met in millions of people was a simple one: to be free of the burden of giving meaning to their lives themselves, of fulfilling their hunger for “struggle and self-sacrifice,” for some greater purpose than the satisfaction of their own appetites, through their own efforts.

Revolutionaries of the Soul

Gary Lachman

And John Eccles, who won the Nobel Prize in 1963 for his work on the brain’s synapses, agreed with Swedenborg that the mind could not be reduced to some epiphenomenon of gray matter and argued, along with the philosopher Karl Popper, in favor of the irreducible reality of the Self. All these men were rigorous scientists, yet they all discovered that the most important things about human existence—consciousness, the mind, the self, free will—eluded even the most methodical investigation.

Evolutionaries

Carter Phipps

[Australian evolutionary theorist John] Stewart’s young mind was filled with significant twentieth-century figures like philosopher Karl Popper, spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff, and also an individual who seems to inevitably surface as a formative influence in the lives of so many Evolutionaries—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Karl Popper again!

Last Best Hope

George Packer

In almost every way [Horace] Greeley’s life defied the categories in which we’re used to thinking. He was a kind of American and a kind of journalist who no longer make sense. He combined elements of all four narratives [Packer's four group narratives in contemporary American society] and moved through their spheres without encountering high walls.

Thoughts 3 December 2021

 

Diagnosis & prescription

Developmental Politics

Steve McIntosh

Developmental politics acknowledges that cultural growth exhibits many varied characteristics. Viewed from certain perspectives this growth appears not as a sequential trajectory of step-wise advance, but rather as a “sprawling bush” of development that includes numerous branches, contradictory countercurrents, and even forces of decay that work against positive development or pervert it into trends that result in social regression. But notwithstanding the chaotic and contingent nature of cultural evolution, the historical record clearly shows how both modernism and postmodernism have emerged in opposition to what came before.

Developmental Politics

Steve McIntosh

When faced with a positive-positive value polarity, the best way to advance the values of our preferred pole is to actually affirm the foundational values of the pole we oppose.

A Secret History of Christianity

Mark Vernon

Since the work of Immanuel Kant, the imaginal has taken center stage in theories of perception. It’s like a pair of glasses, manufactured by the mind that brings what we see into focus. The great philosopher of the Enlightenment argued that we don’t know “the thing in itself” but perceive what our minds can represent – trees, sunshine, soil, showers.

An Essay on Metaphysics

R. G. Collingwood

If psychology is really the science which tells us how we think, it is beyond doubt that what I have called metaphysics falls within its province. And there I would gladly leave it if once I could satisfy myself that this phrase, even if not a complete account of psychology, is a correct one so far as it goes. But on this point I ask to be fully satisfied. The work of metaphysics is too important, too intimately bound up with the welfare of science and civilization (for civilization is only our name for systematic and orderly thinking about what are called ‘practical’ questions), to be handed over to any claimant on the strength of his own unsupported assertion that he is its rightful owner.

Philosophical Intimations

James Hillman

Because we [in contemporary America (?)] do not look back, we can remain innocent — and stupid. Whereas in Italy, it seems, you have looked back for centuries, are always looking back and therefore never innocent, but instead cynical.

The backward look reveals the patterns that show themselves repeatedly and indicate archetypal realities. It is not history that governs the future but the projections forward of these archetypal patterns. Thus when Futurology reports hope, progress, and greening, and supports these optimistic prognostics with advances in space science, biotechnology, lowered rates of infant mortality, more telephones, automobiles, and refrigerators, longer life expectancy, new ecological awareness — we believe we see reality. We imagine these are the determining facts.

But the reality lies in the eyes that see, not in what it sees. For precisely, the eye of the futurologist, informed by another archetypal vision, looks into the future and sees doom and gloom, destruction of habitat and species, floods and famines, civil insurrections, terrorism and plagues — a world, described by the great Saturnine pessimist Thomas Hobbes as a war of “all against all,” and the life of man as “nasty, brutish, and short.” Hillman, James. Philosophical Intimations (Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman Book 8) . Spring Publications. Kindle Edition.

Flashpoints

George Friedman

When two nations share economic interests  there is always concern that one side will take advantage of its position or withdraw from the relationship to work with someone else, or fail to keep its agreements. The more interdependent countries are, the more they try to ensure that their partners remain committed to the relationship and don’t, in an extreme scenario, seek to blackmail them. This distrust mounts and nations look for more effective levers to use, sometimes ending in war. Interdependence can create security—or insecurity and war.

The Art of Loving

Erich Fromm

It is hardly necessary to stress the fact that the ability to love as an act of giving depends on the character development of the person. It presupposes the attainment of a predominantly productive orientation; in this orientation, the person has overcome dependency, narcissistic omnipotence, the wish to exploit others, or to hoard, and has acquired faith in his own human powers, courage to rely on his powers in the attainment of his goals. To the degree that these qualities are lacking, he is afraid of giving himself—hence of loving.

Thoughts 2 Dec. 2021

 

Last Best Hope

George Packer

Technological prowess and individual sacrifice were no match for national incoherence. The virus exploited every fault line, every division of class, race, geography, and politics, every declining social and economic indicator, every institutional weakness, every blind spot and bias. The failure began at the top, where it was least forgivable and most devastating, but it extended to the whole society.

An Essay on Philosophical Method

R. G. Collingwood, ed. by James Connelly & Giuseppina D'Oro

We speak well, in prose, only in order to say what we mean: the matter is prior to the form. This priority, no doubt, is rather logical than temporal. The matter does not exist as a naked but fully formed thought in our minds before we fit it with a garment of words. It is only in some dark and half-conscious way that we know our thoughts before we come to express them. Yet in that obscure fashion they are already within us ; and, rising into full consciousness as we find the words to utter them, it is they that determine the words, not vice versa.

Developmental Politics

Steve McIntosh

At this time in history at least, God is too big and social justice is too small to serve as a solidarity-restoring ideal.

Doom

Niall Ferguson

The Great Depression, which is generally dated from the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, was a consequence of structural imbalances in the world economy, a rigid system of fixed exchange rates, beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism, and errors of monetary and fiscal policy.

Science and the Modern World

Alfred North Whitehead

In reviewing this rapid sketch of the influence of mathematics throughout European history, we see that it had two great periods of direct influence upon general thought, both periods lasting for about two hundred years. The first period was that stretching from Pythagoras to Plato, when the possibility of the science, and its general character, first dawned upon the Grecian thinkers. The second period comprised the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of our modern epoch.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig

“Peace of mind isn’t at all superficial, really,” I expound. “It’s the whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this peace of mind. The ultimate test’s always your own serenity. If you don’t have this when you start and maintain it while you’re working you’re likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself.”

Evolutionaries: Unlocking the Spiritual & Cultural Potential of Science's Greatest Idea by Carter Phipps

 

Copyright 2012. Still relevant; perhaps more so

This book by Carter Phipps is an outstanding work of intellectual journalism. That is, it’s intended for a general audience. It provides basic explanations of key terms and examines thinkers within its field with enough depth to whet the appetite of the curious. (Like yours truly.) The book explores the wider implications of the theory of evolution. Of course, the theory was grounded in the biological insights of Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, but the concept of development, of change through time in response to changing circumstances, including the course of the history of humankind, came before the two biologists. This new way of thinking is most widely known through the writings of the early nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. (The full name just seems so appropriate.) Thus, while evolution is best known in the sphere of biology, it’s branched off into other fields, including psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, and spirituality. Some argue that this is a bastardization of the theory of evolution and that it's fraught with problems (it can be and has been; see Darwinism, Social). But the primary idea of change through time that more often than not reveals a pattern of increasing complexity and sophistication, provides a tonic for thinking in other fields, too. Centering his reporting on (more or less) contemporary figures (with a few backward glances I’ll mention later), Phipps shares how this core concept ignited new and important trains of thought in many fields. 

Before diving in further, I should share Phipps’s definition of evolution: 

Evolution, as an idea, transcends biology. It is better thought of as a broad set of principles and patterns that generate novelty, change, and development over time.

Phipps, Carter. Evolutionaries (p. 27). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition. 

With this perspective, Phipps goes on to provide his first take on what defines an evolutionary: “Evolutionaries are those who have woken up, looked around, and realized: We are moving.” Id. p. 38. The “moving” here is not so much physical (although it certainly includes physical movement), but it primarily addresses behaviors, actions, ideas, and culture. To borrow from the Buddhists, all is impermanence. But impermanence with an attitude, as it were. And this includes not only all the diverse species of life, but also individual humans, their societies and cultures, and even the Universe as a whole. We’re all dancing a dance to rhythms that only whisper to us and that bring us together and then apart in new, unexpected patterns. But let us return to Phipps’s descriptions of his subject matter. 

Clearly there is much overlap between Evolutionaries and evolutionists. But as I implied in chapter 1, I intend for Evolutionary to mean more than that. Evolutionary is a play on the word “revolutionary,” and I mean it to convey something of the revolutionary nature of evolution as an idea. Evolutionaries are revolutionaries, with all the personal and philosophical commitment that word implies. They are not merely curious bystanders to the evolutionary process, passive believers in the established sciences of evolution, though all certainly value those insights. They are committed activists and advocates—often passionate ones—for the importance of evolution at a cultural level. They are positive agents of change who subscribe to the underappreciated truth that evolution, comprehensively understood, implicates the individual. Indeed, an Evolutionary is someone who has internalized evolution, who appreciates it not only intellectually but also viscerally. Evolutionaries recognize the vast process we are embedded within but also the urgent need for our own culture to evolve and for each of us to play a positive role in that outcome.

He continues: 

With that in mind, I would like to outline three critical characteristics common to Evolutionaries. This is hardly an exhaustive list, but I hope it manages to capture the essential spirit of this designation. First, Evolutionaries are cross-disciplinary generalists. Second, Evolutionaries are developing the capacity to cognize the vast timescales of our evolutionary history. Third, Evolutionaries embody a new spirit of optimism.

Id. p. 40.

It is this final characteristic that makes these Evolutionaries so important: optimism. I’ll shock no one in opining that there's a dearth of hope these days. We humans, as a species, are lighting our own funeral pyre. Even rudimentary issues that shouldn’t create division or fear do so. If we can find legitimate grounds for optimism, we should grab firmly ahold of them. My opinion is that we’re headed for some remarkable and in some (perhaps many) ways severe changes, but can we as a species come out ahead on the other side? Maybe, but any predictions aside, we should set our course for the best possible outcome, and many of the thinkers given voice in his book provide suggestions along these lines. Carter provides a concise description of what he’s asserting: 

Evolutionaries are deep optimists. I’m not talking about a naïve optimism, a forced optimism, a superficial optimism, or even a hopeful optimism but an informed confidence in the knowledge that evolution is at work in the processes of consciousness and culture, and that we can place our own hands on the levers of those processes and make a positive impact. It is a subtle but powerful current of conviction that lifts the sails of the psyche and propels it forward into the future. Evolutionaries don’t just believe that the future can be better than the past; somehow they know it—like a great leader knows that she can make a difference; like a great athlete knows that he can compete and win. I would suggest that the unique flavor of this evolutionary optimism cannot be attributed to a mere personal feeling, inspiration, or belief. It runs deeper than that. Evolutionaries evince a confidence that is different from the brashness and bluster that flows out of the personal ego. It carries with it a conviction that reaches beyond any quality found only within the boundaries of the personality. And they transmit that confidence to others. We tend to transmit to others how we feel about life at a fundamental level. When one spends time with a great mystic or saint, there is a quality to the personality that is recognizable, whatever the particular tradition of that individual or belief system—a quality of ease, of deep peace, and of transcendent being that we experience in the company of those whose source of confidence lies far deeper than the individual psyche.

Id. p. 51. 

But lest you conclude that Phipps’s Evolutionraries are simply a bunch of Pollyannas, he quickly disabuses the reader of any such conclusion: 

It is important to note here that the evolutionary optimism I am speaking about does not equate to a conviction in an inevitable positive outcome, or a belief in a miraculous “shift” that is just about to happen. We see this kind of thinking all too often in spiritual-but-not-religious circles—whether it be a Mayan prophecy, the Harmonic Convergence, or some sort of “Earth Change” that will pave the way to the future. Such ideas are often held by individuals with the best of motives, who look out at a world of climate change, terrorism, corruption, overpopulation, and financial disaster, where billions live in poverty, and conclude that things are not getting better at all. Or if they are, they aren’t improving fast enough. And then they pray, hope, meditate—for some event; some change of consciousness; some immanent convergence, emergence, or resurgence of love, light, peace, and compassion to deliver us from the darkness and ignorance that has a hold on our collective soul. And too often, they invoke the term “evolution” to describe this shift in consciousness. Such thinking has nothing to do with evolution as I understand it. In fact, I would suggest that it is not a faith in evolution that leads one to embrace such naïve or exaggerated hopes but, in fact, a lack of faith. It is an insufficient appreciation of the power of evolution and a failure to understand how it works, at a cultural level, that leads some to start reaching for super-historical forces to emerge and save the day. When we begin to appreciate the true dimensions of the vast evolutionary process that we are a part of, our optimism becomes grounded in the slow but demonstrable reality of actual development.

Id. p. 52. 

One should note that no one, Evolutionary or other, can predict the future with any accuracy. Imagine a variety of futures? Yes. But predict accurately? No. But then the outcome of any process arises in part--and perhaps in large part--from the vision of those who act to influence it. (And by "act," I would include imagining a future.)

Following these introductory remarks, Phipps takes his reader through a gallery of Evolutionaries, some via personal interviews and some through explication of their works. Whatever the medium, his tour is a who’s-who of key figures that includes biologists Lynn Margulis, David Sloan Wilson (all-too-briefly in my opinion, but then Wilson has done a lot even since 2014), Simon Conway-Morris, and Rupert Sheldrake; generalists (a term that Carter uses to define Evolutionaries) Robert Wright and Howard Bloom; complexity theorist Stuart Kaufmann; techno-futurists and transhumanists Ray Kurzweil and Kevin Kelly; economist and complexity theorist W. Brian Arthur; lawyer-turned-integral theorist Steve McIntosh and integral theorist Ken Wilber; philosopher and social theorist Jurgen Habermas; Gary Lachman, historian of Western thought; Don Beck of Spiral Dynamics fame; Michael Dowd, fundamentalist preacher-turned-evolutionary teacher; Thomas Berry, Catholic monastic and cultural historian; cosmologist Brian Swimme; and process theologian Phillip Clayton. I've listed only those with whom I had some prior acquaintance (some fleeting; some extensive) and who are contemporary (I think only Thomas Berry (1914-2009) on this list is deceased). And this is only a partial list of contemporaries! Phipps does his homework and pounds the pavement to get his stories. 

But in addition to those with whom he spoke or who are still active among us, Phipps discusses key figures from the past: Hegel; James Mark Baldwin, Henri Bergson; Charles Saunders Pierce; Alfred North Whitehead; Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000!); Jean Gebser; and others. And among the others are two figures who seem to be the guiding minds of the Evolutionary brigade: the Indian independence activist, philosopher, and mystic,  Sri Aurobindo (1972-1950), and the Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). Indeed, if we were to be compelled to identify one guiding spirit in the train of evolutionary thought, it would have to be that of Teilhard, followed closely by Aurobindo. (Alas, I must confess that I’ve not read the original texts of either of these two giants, even as Aurobindo was recommended to me by a young Iranian-Spanish-Irish chest master at a meditation retreat; and I’ve known of Teilhard since my undergrad years. Perhaps having enjoyed Phipps’s treatment of them, this will be the year!) 

I would be remiss, I think, not to note that much of Phipps’s work with this book was in connection with the periodicals What Is Enlightenment, later re-named EnlightenNext, for which he served as executive editor from 1999-2010. (I was a frequent reader of those periodicals and will attest to the quality of their product.) The periodical was associated with the teachings of Andrew Cohen, an American spiritual teacher, whom Phipps describes as his “friend and mentor.” Phipps discusses Cohen and his relationship with him in the book. However, the book was copyrighted in 2012. In 2013 Cohen withdrew from public teaching amid criticisms from students (followers) who accused him of abusive and authoritarian behavior, and he issued a public apology for his actions in 2015. (In distinction from many self-styled “enlightened” teachers, these allegations didn’t involve sexual misconduct so far as I can tell.) However, having noted all this, I don’t believe that it negates the arguments Phipps makes in this book. And while I suspect that Cohen's fall may have had caused some personal consternation for Phipps, his work has continued to prosper. He went on to become the co-founder and Managing Director of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, a nonprofit social policy think-tank based in Boulder, Colorado inspired by the insights of Integral Philosophy. And via The Institute for Cultural Evolution, he became associated with the Post-Progressive Alliance, an off-shoot of the Institute for Cultural Evolution (and of which I am a member). The Post-Progressive Alliance seeks a path out of our current “culture wars” and its attendant political dysfunction via a better understanding and appreciation of current world views and envisioning new sets of values that incorporate the best of existing values with new perspectives. (For a complete consideration of the thinking that prompted the Post-Progressive Alliance, see Steve McIntosh's Developmental Politics: How American Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself.) Also, in 2020 Phipps and co-authors Steve McIntosh and John Mackey published Conscious Leadership: Elevating Humanity Through Business. So whatever disruption Phipps may have suffered from the downfall of Cohen, he seems to have come out ahead. 

Before closing, I should also note that Phipps steps from behind the authorial curtain on many occasions, all to my delight. His comments and revelations (of personal experiences and beliefs) allow the reader to better know their guide, where’s he’s been and where he might be headed. His questions, doubts, and experiences enhance the narrative and serve as a contrast and commentary upon the ideas considered in the book (valuable as they are). For instance, Phipps notes his change in demeanor during Sooner football games while discussing Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics: 

[W]hen I watch football, especially University of Oklahoma football, I undergo a rather startling personality change. Temporarily, I leave behind my mild-mannered exterior and a whole subpersonality comes to the forefront of my consciousness. It’s as if I’m getting in touch with my tribal roots, with warriorlike values of power, will, and domination that are not so prominent in my everyday personality. A whole new attitude emerges in my consciousness, which I suspect is more related to ancient tribal wars than anything I’m engaged with currently.

Id. p. 202

As someone whose wife fears for her safety because of my sometimes wild gesticulations and verbal outbursts during Hawkeye games, I can relate. His report impresses me with a point about Spiral Dynamics that's more visceral (and therefore more memorable) than it otherwise would have been.

The only shortcoming of the book is that it ends, in a manner of speaking, in 2012. What's gone on with Evolutionaries since 2012? Who has joined the ranks? What new developments are there? Have the ideas of Evolutionaries gained wider acceptance in academia and other fields? And how do the Evolutionaries see themselves in relation to other contemporary trains of thought? Of course, every book must end and all knowledge arises over time. We can't blame an author for an inability to escape the constraints of time. But that being said, it does provoke in me a desire to further explore the thinking of those that Phipps has identified and to consider who, present or past, may have a place in this pantheon of exploratory thinkers. An intriguing project to consider!