The Individual & the Collective Orientation
The Cognitive Mode & the Feeling Awareness
The Inside- & the Outside-View
Object-Independence
Both Marcia B. Baxter Magolda’s research with college students and Caroll Gilligan’s work on the moral development of women showed that people on their developmental path prefer to emphasize external, collective or intersubjective processes or to focus on their internal, individual and subjective perspective.
In Transcendental Pluralism, we distinguish accordingly between an Individual & Collective Orientation, which we evaluate on the basis of grammatical patterns and word choice.
This dimension correlates strongly with the dichotomy between Extraversion (E.) & Introversion (I.) in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.
In her seminal work on the stages of the mystical path, Evelyn Underhill illustrated how spiritual seekers choose either the path of world denial - Via Negativa - or that of an absolute affirmation of the world - Via Positiva -. Only a few mystics succeed in reconciling both paths, albeit always from one side.
This view nourishes the understanding behind our distinction of a Cognitive Mode & Feeling Awareness, one of which dominates our ascent through the differen layers of consciousness, but both of which can be harmonized.
This dimension correlates strongly with the dichotomy between Thinking (T.) & Feeling (F.) in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.
The developmental psychologist Katherine Nelson discovered that there are two types of children and therefore two ways of acquiring language. Later, these types, which she called referential and expressive, were brought under the distinction of an analytical language development and one that uses gestalt mechanisms.
In Transcendental Pluralism, we speak of an analytical Outside-View & a gestalt-oriented Inside-View. As first model, we can distinguish these two types of communicative action and inner consciousness consistently, i.e. across a spectrum of twenty levels.
This dimension shows a high degree of correspondence with the dichotomy between Perceiving (P.) & Judging (J.) in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.
Most models see the objects that people reference with their language as an indicator of a developmental stage. Lawrence Kohlberg’s research on the psychology of moral development shows the radical misinterpretations this can lead to — the so called confusion between form and content.
Ken Wilber, following Adi Da Samraj, also suggests that different paths (yogi, sage, saint) prioritize objects of different stages along the trajectory for their spiritual practice.
The evaluation process of Transcendental Pluralism is therefore largely object-independent. This means that people of any level can use objects of other levels without affecting the evaluation.
This distinction is reflected in the Sensory (S.) & Intuitive (N.) dimensions of the Myers Briggs type indicator.
