Torbert in Integral Review

Here's the link to Torbert's article in the new Integral Review, "Listening into the dark." It is rather precise technically and boring, to me, for the most part. Which I suppose what makes it good 'science' in Edwards' sense. But what caught my attention was including interpretative validity measures into the mix (recall Edwards on this):

"Lather calls these qualitative, Postmodern interpretivist ways of enhancing validity: paralogical validity, ironic validity, rhizomatic validity, and voluptuous validity" (288). He describes each and they sound a lot like several of the themes we've explored in the forum.

This example from the ironic validity reminds me of Cohen stepping down, and I-I's founder syndrome:

"Leadership that relies primarily on unilateral causal power based on the leaders' 'truth' is less likely to cause organizational transformation than leadership that 'listens in to the dark' beyond its current version of truth" (289).

He even suggests that leaders of later action-logics avoid such unilateral power and prefer more mutuality.


I also liked this on how to determine the relative validity of two models:

"The criteria Lichtenstein proposes are: 1. whether the new paradigm is more comprehensive than the former; 2. whether the new paradigm can self-reflectively explain why it is more effective, and 3. whether the new paradigm adequately eliminates an erroneous finding of the previous paradigm. By analogy, Lichtenstein shows how quantum mechanics is more valid than Newtonian physics with its ability to explain more (e.g., subatomic behavior), explain why it can explain more (e.g., providing the dynamic equation through which mass and energy transform into one another), and by correcting errors in the Newt onian model (e.g., using warped space-time to correct Newton’s inaccurate predictions of planet ary orbits)" (292).