Category: Phenomenology

  • Iain McGilchrist on Presence vs. Re-presentation

    Iain McGilchrist writes in The Matter with Things that we no longer live in the presence of the world, but in a re-presentation of it.1 He finds it fascinating that we don’t have a verb to describe the experience of the encounter with reality.2 To ‘presence‘ is not the same thing as to ‘be present’,…

  • Henri Bortoft on wholeness in organizations

    Simon Robinson inspired me to read Henri Bortoft’s two books The Wholeness of Nature and Taking Appearance Seriously. While reading these books I was struck by the thought that in order to see life in work we need to a dynamic way of seeing. I am currently re-reading Simon Robinson and Maria Moraes Robinson’s book…

  • Notes on Goethe’s Aphorisms

    Daniel Christian Wahl has translated Goethe’s collected aphorisms in ‘The Tip of the Iceberg’ Goethe’s Aphorisms on the theory of Nature and Science. I appreciate that Wahl has attempted to stay as close as possible to the literal meaning of Goethe’s writings in order to avoid unnecessary interpretations. Here are my own brief notes, which…

  • Organizing as synergistic relationality

    Here is a post by David Ing with notes from a plenary Christopher Alexander Lecture by David Seamon at PUARL 2018 Conference. David Seamon talked about wholeness, where the whole remains whole. Wholeness is a global thing, easy to feel, hard to define. Seamon makes the following distinction between analytic vs. synergistic relationality. Analytic relationality–…

  • Henri Bortoft on human organizations and relationships

    IntroductionHenri Bortoft is the author The Wholeness of Nature and Taking Appearance Seriously. I am particularly interested in the ‘dynamic way of seeing’ which is explained at length by Henri Bortoft. Taking the ‘appearance’ seriously is necessary if we want to see ‘life’ in nature and in work. Henri Bortoft mentions in Taking Appearance Seriously…

  • Henri Bortoft’s Schumacher Lectures 2009

    Simon Robinson shares Henri Bortoft’s 2009 Schumacher College Lectures on his blog Transition Consciousness: Making the transition to a better world. Below is an overview of all the lectures with links to Simon Robinson’s introductions to each lecture. Lecture Theme Introduction YouTube Introduction to the lectures Link 1 Wholeness Link Link 2.1 Belonging together Link…

  • Henri Bortoft on seeing life itself

    Seeing is the thing! Simon Robinson shares Henri Bortoft’s 2009 Schumacher College lectures on his blog Transition Consciousness: Making the transition to a better world. The following is a transcript of Henri Bortoft’s Lecture Four, Part Three, from 12:20 to 16:05, where Bortoft talks about seeing life itself, comparing Darwin with Goethe. I have edited…

  • Book Review: Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning

    Introduction Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning is a most interesting book. Eugene Gendlin examines the edge of awareness, where language emerges from non-language.1 This book is a philosophical work. Gendlin explores how concepts relate to experiencing.2 He adds a body of theory that refer to experiencing, and that can grasp the way in which experiencing…

  • Authentic vs. counterfeit orders

    This is a post in my series on organizing “between and beyond.” The post is part of my exploration of deeper generative orders for organizing. Other posts are here. I introduced a distinction between authentic versus counterfeit operating limits in my post on the phenomenology of sociocracy. This distinction is inspired by Henri Bortoft.1 My…

  • A wide-ranging hangout with Simon Robinson

    Simon Robinson, co-author of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter, shares in this wide-ranging hangout his view on holonomics, wholeness, leadership, change, human values, and the dynamics of seeing deeply. Simon says that there’s lot of talk about collaboration, co-creation, sustainability, and sharing, but that these are just words if there’s no authenticity and…