lifeworld globality • gary e. davis • berkeley

lifeworld globality

gary e. davis

March 6, 2022

Anyone’s life transcends the world’s news of the day, even the era [1]. I was shocked and
I remain aghast by what’s happening in Ukraine, but I’m also amazed and heartened by
the collaborative response of Euro-American and Asian (non-Chinese) powers; and by
the spontaneous compassion and outrage of humanity.

There, We witness the humanity of power in the power of humanity.

I see my own optimism of idealising conceptual work highly validated by reality. Given
a heuristic notion of pragmatism as practical balance of idealization and prudence, I’m glad
to avow my sense of American humanity as a progressive pragmatism.

The day will come when this tragic and inspiring episode of modernity will gain closure,
and the lives that preceded it, however changed, will succeed it in making the best life one can. One lives “singularly and hopes singularly, as well as with family and with neighbors, all born of a life whose depth of promise and resilience precede[ any] crisis…” [1]. The years ahead are points of mortal life figuring into the pointillistic regioning of neighborhood, community,
and region which registers and advances Our evolving nature.

That nature—a second “nature” which is defined by human (post-biologistic) intelligence—
is manifoldly regional: intimately (psychal), personally, culturally, territorially, and planet-arily.

“Perpendicular” to that continuum (pertinent to each differentiated regioning), one may
have perspectival orientations: integral, intrinsic, inter-, multi-, and trans-:

psychal

integral self: From infant/child self-enhancive interest through cultural individuation and life-oriental purposes across many decades, being well is ultimately singular,
in embodied hope, fulfillment, and appreciable remembrance.

intrinsic Self: Traditionally, conceptual inquirers have believed that whatever’s integral emerges from what’s intrinsic. But really, the notion of intrinsicness is always retrojective relative to the integral capabilities that can fruitfully sustain for analytical inquiry. Everyone has a full sense of Self (non-conscious, unconscious, etc.) which temporally “contains” oneself, shown self-reflectively in reconstructive thinking and by self-mirroring phenomenality (Self reflectivity “of” others and things). Deriving intrinsicness expresses ultimate value of self-formative life: Selformativity of human intelligence.

interpsychality (Self/self differentiation): How close may we be with each other’s sense of self beyond third-personal accessibility of our interpersonal relations? How well can “I” (one) appreciate “you” as one self whose lifeworlded Self (oriented to decades to come, in light of which so much past lifetime is implicitly understood) is variably available to me?

multipsychality: How well can one appreciate the integrity and dignity of an other’s inaccessibility—their lovely mystery of identity (self) and being (Self), their right
of privacy of self and Self-showing or intimacy of presence?

transpsychality: What is the scale of one’s appreciability with relation to (thus,
in relation to) another’s humanity?

			A mind is a mental ecology of, say, healthy enjoyments, idealities, scales of relatability, belonging, and constitutive thinking. (But who would agree to more here than that my sense of mind is merely mine?) An understanding of the “mind” (as such) is always a conceptual prospection (implicitly in quote marks) which may be a self-designing (ecogenic) conceptual venture (a rigor-ously formal conceptuality): and perhaps (unlikely) a venture whose influence evolves general conceptual inquiry about mental ecogeny (i.e., a generativity which shows as a holistic mentality or conception of mindness—mindality—and whose genealogy can be derived).

		personal
			integral personality: What may be the Janus-faced liminality of being a person (a personism) and being “personal” with others? intrinsic personality: What may be the conception of that dyadic liminality in practice: appropriative of one’s personity with another person while appreciative of the other’s own understanding of one’s presence? interpersonality: How may integral and intrinsic personality be bonded to “our” relation-ship as separate persons, such that interaction advances while having fidelity to our relationship as the basis for understanding each other? We have professional relation-ships that contain various occasioned roles within that relationship; and kinships, friendships, and solidarities likewise. multipersonality: How easy is one’s flexibility in relation to various colleagues (from key to supplemental), various kindreds (from near to distant), various friends (from deep to casual), and various solidarities (from selfidentical to occasioned)? transpersonality: How is one’s sense of Self (being one’s psychal life) embodied with one’s sense of shared humanity? This is commonly understood as a “spiritual” engagement.

		cultural / ethnic
			integral culturality: What is the holism of one’s importances or values? intrinsic culturality: What deserves to be regarded as fundamental, even ultimate, in one’s holism of value? I capitalize that—‘ValueV’—with an end ‘V’ to distinguish that from ‘value’, especially for the beginning of a sentence: Values of one’s mode of life may be understood in light of a specific ValueV of being. interculturality: How is cultural difference best understood as interactively constructive, fruitful, and generative of our advancing humanity? multiculturality: How is cultural integration best understood as appreciative of edifying differences, integrity of self-determination, and chances to advance genuine pluralism? transculturality: How is the interplay of inter- and multiculturality best understood as shared engagement with evolving Our humanity? Though ‘cultural’ isn’t etymologically related to ‘ethnic’, the two obviously have kindred meaning. ‘Ethnic’ and ‘ethical’ are etymologically kindred: ethos. All three are seman-tically kindred with ethos. An ethnicity is often understood culturally, but also as a matter of one’s identity. An ethic may be ethnically rooted, but also culturally implicative in a modern sense. So, a useful triad of differences can be attached to these three modes of ethos:

• An ethos as value-expressive legacy is an ethnicity.
• An ethos as value-expessive action orientation is an ethic.
An ethos which is educationally individuated is distinct from a traditional ethnicity and deserves to be distinguished as especially cultivational. Though ethnicity and culture have traditionally not been distinguished when considering ethnicity, one doesn’t find especially “cultural” considerations associated with ethnicity. Usually,
a modern sense of ‘culture’ is implied. In any case, an educationally individuated sense of culture is distinct from inherited legacy.
• An ethos as sophisticating expression is a culture, distinct from an inherited legacy.

		regional / territorial
			integral regionality: What matters for the advancement and sustainability of neighborhood and community? intrinsic regionality: What matters for the advancement and security of extended family, profession, and heirs? interregionality: How is progress and environmental sustainability best conceived and managed? multiregionality: How do we engage with each other progressively across metropolitan regions of the global village while respecting the autonomy of another’s regions? transregionality: How can we best understand and collaborate with each other as singular planet whose humanity is culpable for global warming, yet empowered to preserve biodiversity and advance intelligent life?

		national / sovereign
			integral nationality: How best to understand political life as an evolving constitutional balance between federalism and confederation? intrinsic nationality: What is the best understanding of principle-based law and the best understanding of ValueV-based principles? internationality: How may we best understand relations among nations like relations among neighbors in a community? multinationality: How do we best make principled internationality serve genuine transnational interests while respecting genuine national interests? transnationality: How is collaborative global leadeship best understood in order to advance and sustain the leading complex of the U.N. (and all of its engagements, especially regional developmental agencies), IMF, WTO, congruence of central banks, Paris Accord leadership, global public health management, and so on, altogether for the “good” of humanity and its long-term prospects over centuries?

Each multiplication above (integral to trans- mapped into psychal to national) has heuristic or pragmatic value for understanding the scale of humanity. An elusive, but realistically differ-entiated, holism is modeled. That seems useful for accessibly understanding, relative to particular interests, that (and how) humanity flourishes through differential identities.

But other scales may be pragmatically understood “mulitplicationally”: caring, in senses
across a continuum of intimacy through civility, private to public; fraternal, romantic, familial, creative, and protean. There are scales of value sphere, aspirational horizon, open purposes, hybrid appreciations, every kind of phenomenon, manifold domains and ranges of conceptualities.

Nearly any conceptual category implies a scale of relevance, in principle. Even “truth” is scalar, because the better conception embraces the genuineness of presence and the evidential stability of meaning (or factical state of affairs as certified factuality) in being “truthful.” Truth is about truthfulness, which includes true states of affairs.

So, a potential manifoldness of holism is beyond structural complexity of some grand gestalt; rather, it’s a grand appreciability of appropriate engagement with relevant considerations. Holistic thinking is a way of being, which is likely concealed by a gestaltist (or structural) conception of holism.

Implied integrality of a specific interest—life-centered, humanistic, planetary—is always for appropriative action. Holistic thinking is kindred with conceptions of mindful engagement, which is ideally enhancive of others and things, enabling, or generative.

A high scale of appreciability may result from holistic individuation. I’ll later elaborate this relative to practices of isomorphic scaling. For example, my above association of international relations with the notion of neighborhood at global scale not only accessibly models a global context, but also may relate to voters choosing political leaders only inasmuch as the voter can identify with such a scale of collaborative leadership. (Commonly, diplomats will talk of their portfolio relative to a “theater” of political engagements.) Does bad domestic neighborhood create appeasement of bad national leadership? Does reconciliation to local degradation cause reconciliation to international conflict?

I’ll later venture that appreciability is the basis for scaling care, from the near-and-dear of one’s domestic life to support for humanitarian care of distant others by one’s region or nation, as well as by NGOs needing private funding.

Accordingly, an appreciation of lifeworld globality may scale from concern for one’s mortality (“existential” care, e.g., critical health issues, potential for flourishing) to planetary Existential Level Events (so-called ELEs: pandemics, global warming, biological warfare, asteroid avoid-ance), yet also embracing desireable prospects for descendents, the future of humanity, and with appreciation for the carrying capacity of planetary resources relative to what one’s singular life can contribute through prudence and sanctification of ValueV.

Creative conceptuality can be useful, to say the least—or be maybe lastingly influential through higher education and leading public voices.

I’m drawn to complex notions like generative belonging in the ecogeny of lifeworldly mindfulness.

Or what about the Anthropocene as appreciation of the eonic presence of intelligent life which is anticipating “transhuman” enhancement of intelligent engagement, beyond bionics, beyond fusions with A.I., beyond biological/genomic options? What ways of being are best for self-designing intelligence facing prospects of meeting “exobiological” intelligence millions of years beyond us soon? (Why are movies about such prospects box office gold? Is it about wanting gods to be literal?)

next—> being points of being