Embodied realism, dependent origination as 5th person perspectives

Tom Murray's contribution to the Integral Review special issue on Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality is lengthy and detailed. Of particular note for me is the section on embodied realism and metaphorical pluralism (starting on page 201). Since developmental level is an important metric in integral and metamodern circles, he sees the work of Lakoff and Johnson as displaying a postmetaphysical 5th person perspective, or as Cook-Greuter describes it, construct awareness.*

They highlight the nature of perception and conception as graded and fuzzy categories dependent on prototypical examples that are generally in the middle of taxonomic hierarchies. This challenges the metaphysical claims of strict categories based on necessary and sufficient conditions that construct hierarchies from a foundational particular to a universal general. The latter is based on a logic of the excluded middle while the former not only includes the middle but finds it is the glue that relates phenomena.

Their work was predated by, and consistent with, the Buddhist experience and interpretation of dependent origination, another 5th person perspective. That is, all phenomena are intertwined with and defined by their relationships to others, not having any essential, independent nature apart from that network. This is known as the "middle way" between nihilism and essentialism. It too doesn't separate phenomena into distinct, dualistic categories where it is one or the other but neither and both in the mutual entailment and dynamic tensegrity of the between.

Murray makes a convincing case that integral postmetaphysical spirituality is a construct aware level expression, while the other described expressions are not so much. Given the integral and metamodern obsession with developmental level as critical to an emerging paradigm necessary to correct humanity's course away from destruction and toward a new promised land, we might do well to consider the postmetaphysical perspective as part and parcel of that enactment.

* Murray also mentions O'Fallen's work, which extends into 6th person perspectives. From descriptions of the latter I'd suggest that the above certainly falls within that level. Since there is relatively little empirical data at this point to support it, that level to date is speculative at best.

PS: Another expression of this is hier(an)archical synplexity. Also see this video.