Metaphysical and Ontological Exploration as a Form of Creative Play

Bruce Alderman, M.A., is adjunct faculty at the John F. Kennedy school of psychology at National University. He received his master's degree in Integral Psychology, with an emphasis on Transpersonal Counseling Psychology, from JFKU in 2005. He currently teaches Paradigms of Consciousness; Fundamentals of Transpersonal Psychology; World Spirituality; Living Systems Theory; Integral Life Practice; Individual Development; and Integral Meditation and Psychospiritual Development. 

 In this episode of MIP, Nate, Ryan and Bruce go off the philosophical deep end exploring post-metaphysical spirituality as analogue to meta-ideological political practice, Bruce’s political apprehensions and US shenanigans in Nepal, deep ontological structures underpinning cultural conflicts, Raimon Pannikar’s work on interreligious discourse, severing ourselves from the mythic dimensions, symbols as mediating agent, different forms of hermeneutics, diatopical hermeneutics and dialogue across boundaries, 4 methods of paradigmatic commensuration, the imperative method, letting ourselves be fecundated by other perspectives, intraparadigmatic dialogue,  pragmatic action and theory, paradoxical reasoning and holding contradicting symbols, construct aware politics, dialectical vs dialogical dialogue, essentialist vs non-essentialist ontological play, integral grammatology, misplaced concreteness, finding ourselves in the other, and Bhaskar’s critical realism.