Integral consciousness and intercultural competency: Gebser, Husserl, and the task of our time
General Material Designation
[Thesis]
Subsequent Statement of Responsibility
;supervisor: Bentz, Valerie Malhotra
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Fielding Graduate University: United States -- California
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
: 2008
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
259 pages
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
Ph.D.
Body granting the degree
, Fielding Graduate University: United States -- California
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
This study explores both the qualities and characteristics of Jean Gebser's structures of consciousness, emphasizing the integral structure of consciousness which is emerging in humanity and ways in which we might evoke this new consciousness in us. Gebser did not tell us how we might grow or develop this new consciousness, but he did say that we cannot achieve it through thinking alone. He acknowledged Husserl's phenomenology as one example in the discipline of philosophy of the manifestation of the integral structure of consciousness. Phenomenology, according to Gebser, rejects the constraints of conceptualization and encourages the transformation of consciousness.In this study I explore how phenomenological method and cultural competency training and its methods have goals in common with Gebser's directive for evoking integral consciousness. To this end, the integral structure of consciousness, the nature of phenomenological methodology, its essential concepts according to Husserl and selected contemporary phenomenologists, and the practice of cross-cultural competency are examined. The study demonstrates how the core concepts of each are in harmony with each other and encourage the development of those qualities indicative of the aperspectivity and integral knowing of the emerging structure of consciousness.This is all considered within the larger context of our global world because it is clearly essential that we go beyond appreciating our individual, cultural, or national interests to learn how to work together to resolve issues that may not begin in our backyard, but that are certainly affected by them. We are already a global society in many ways, and we can't, as Gebser noted, understand the whole by only looking at the parts. An understanding of our interconnections and of the whole cannot happen without a transformation in our own perception. This study endeavors to reveal processes which can be undertaken to evoke a new consciousness and to forge a new way of perceiving and being in our one world. Keywords. Jean Gebser, Edmund Husserl, cultural competency training, consciousness, contemporary phenomenological methods, globalization, history of consciousness, interdisciplinary studies, integral consciousness, arationality, ego-freedom, time-freedom.