January 21, 2021

Naturing - Artificing

“There is no such thing as an empty word, only one that is worn out yet remains full.” ― Martin Heidegger

Nature is Mother. Nature is life. Nature is dead. Nature never existed to begin with. Nature is artifice. Nature is resilient. “We are making nature.” (Whitehead). Nature is us. Nature is making us. Due to complex and multivalent meanings, cultural theorist Raymond Williams called nature “perhaps the most complex word in the language.” As an inexhaustible repository of human meaning, whatever “nature” may be, it is neither simple nor singular. Nature is not an entity but rather a multiplicity.  In the postmodern era, significant shifts in our relationships to our environments have resulted in a plurality of perspectives dubbed “multi-naturalism” (attribution).

Designers need hyper-nuanced knowings of nature - artifice, as dynamic multiplicities rather than static concepts. As designers, our medium is the tangible and intangible world. If we see all that surrounds us (eg. soft drink cans, parks, postal services, assault weapons) as ‘design’ then we begin to get the extent to which the medium of design is nature - artifice. (Dilnot). A shift in orientation toward be(com)ing nature - artifice allows us to embrace acts of designing along the entire continuum of this polarity that includes the “10,000 Things” of artificiality and naturalness. Reframing the way we fundamentally hold reality allows a loosening of the constraints that binary terms — “nature” and “culture”, “natural” and “artificial” have over our psyche - and thus over our ability to design skillfully.

To make sense of a diversity of ontological, epistemological and methodological views, it’s necessary to have frameworks for comparing and coordinating these perspectives of being, knowing, and doing. As models of reality go, the four-dimensional integral map is handy for coordinating multiple realities and methodologies. What makes a method integral? Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) is a framework for comparing no less than 8 irreducible domains of knowing. Four quadrants denote the tetra arising, situated nature of every moment as inherently 1) subjective, 2) intersubjective, 3) objective and 4) interobjective. Because each four of these quadrant domains arises as both interiority and exteriority, this leaves us with the eight touchstone zones of integral methodological pluralism. Each zone corresponds to one or more methodologies; zone 1- the interiors of the subjective dimension, or phenomenology; zone 2- the exteriors of the subjective dimension, or structuralism. IMP not only allows one to study any phenomenon from many perspectives, it allows one to specify the perspective of the participant observer, the method or methods they are using as lenses, and the scale of the unit of analysis. “Ecologing” using the eight zone map of IMP, along with first person interiorities, second person cultures, and third person systems (the irreducible truth claims of art, science and the humanities) of AQAL quadrant analysis, we are able to compare, contrast, and situate various ecological perspectives in order to better grasp the entire field. (Insert diagram of IMP)

Why should we care about perspectives or ecologies other than our own? In brief, perspectives refer to the particular ways in which values and beliefs are situated in contexts. For designers this comes back to the bedrock requirement to understand the motivations of our clients and stakeholders. Understanding the diverse field of viewpoints in any design brief makes for richer or more relevant propositions that are more likely to stick. Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World is a superb book that demonstrates the value of IMP framework in unpacking for “nature” as a multi-natural field of ecologies. Integral Ecology demonstrates ways to identify, differentiate and compare diverse perspectives on the self-other-worlds of nature-artifice. By making space for a full range of ecologies, IMP demonstrates the integral view that all perspectives are valid, yet partial, and how they contribute to a wider embrace of reality. Why is that a good thing? Embracing more of reality allows us to think, feel and be more coherent both internally and in all our relations.

Integral theory revives perennial philosophy in taking the “Kosmos” as its unit of analysis— updated as the autopoeitic Great Nest of Being. This 4-D evolutionary map of reality depicts orders of increasing complexity as well as increasing depth and richness. Integral Ecology describes “nature” as having four levels: the physiosphere (the realm of physical matter); the biosphere (the realm of life); the noosphere (the realm of mind); and the pneumasphere (the realm of spirit) each of which rests on and transcends the previous. As in other natural hierarchies, the lower orders are more fundamental while the higher orders are more complex. “…thus, nothing transcends Nature,  but there are things interior to Nature. Even the pneumasphere is not beyond Nature, but an aspect of it. In other words, interiors (emotions, thoughts, spiritual experience) are not beyond Nature but inside it (i.e NATURE).” (Integral Ecology, p.29)

In Integral Theory, workarounds for obsolete dualisms such as “nature” and “culture” are baked-in. Without making these kinds of distinctions, Integral Theory assumes every moment as inherently “natural” and “cultural”. “…culture is the collective interior of aspects of nature, and nature is the exterior expression of aspects of culture.… emphasizing the ways nature and culture arise together and are tetra-enacted,  integral ecology avoids pitfalls of viewing nature strictly in terms associated with either naïve realism or social construction. Integral ecology is a post natural approach: nature is not simply given, independent of our observation, nor are we the sole generators of nature. All environmental phenomena are the result of the who by how by what: the result of first second and third person perspectives interfacing with each other.” (Integral Ecology, p. Xx) In un-conflating dimensions and levels of reality, Integral Theory foregrounds the interiors and exteriors of the individual and collective dimensions. Realities are understood as co-arising within our intra-experience of nature - artifice. IMP helps us identify, compare and and ultimately negotiate between diverse perspectives (including our own).

To clarify what is disclosed by the four dimensional integral map, and to aid our comparison of the myriad ecological perspectives out there, Integral Ecology differentiates three “natures” thus: NATURE, Nature, and nature. Each is an actual dimension of reality with its own validity and way of disclosure. “NATURE includes the whole Kosmos in all its dimensions, including interiors and exteriors: the Great Nest of Being. Nature (with a capital N) refers to the exterior domains of the cosmos, the domains that are studied by the natural and some of the social sciences: the Great Web of Life. Finally, nature (lowercase n) means the empirical — sensory world in two different but related uses: the exterior world disclosed by the five senses (and their extensions), and the interior world disclosed by feelings, emotional-sexual impulses, somatic experiences as contrasted with rational mind and with culture: the Great Biosphere.” (Integral Ecology, pp26-27) (insert the diagram from page 26 and 27)

Integral Ecology discloses how different worldviews, each relating to different “natures” is the source of much disagreement and polarization of “environmentalisms.” The great biosphere (nature with the small n) is an object of worship for postmodern environmental groups who have a largely pre-rational relationship with reality. The great web of life (Nature with a capital N) is an object of study by rational material science. And the great nest of being (NATURE) is an object of trans-rational romance for post conventional groups. For more about the collapse of the Kosmos and Flatland see .

Settle down into your body and acknowledge whatever is present in your relationship to “nature”.  you can notice first of all which nature you are relating to at this present time. Is it “nature” as the biosphere? “nature” as the web of life? the direct experience of your embodiment in and as “nature”? A pocket park, the water’s edge, a government building,  non-places flashing by on the interstate?  In writing this I hope to create more space for working designers’ participation with the dynamic nature - artifice polarity. Meta-theories such as this one give us more sense-making leverage than any single method alone because we have a view of the relative positions of many voices. The power of Integral Theory, and other meta-theories to reveal more about the world around us is applicable not just to ecological design but to any kind of designing. At the same time remembering that the integral framework is a map for understanding the world —and as such should not be confused with the world - the actual territory on the ground.

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