Participatory epistemology

Participatory Epistemology is a relatively new philosophical concept, paradigmatically articulated by Richard Tarnas and elaborated specifically in relation to transpersonal psychology by Jorge Ferrer, Christopher Bache, and others. Participatory epistemology is constituted in the recognition that meaning is neither outside of the human mind, that is, in the "objective" world waiting to be discovered (the paradigmatically modern/structuralist worldview), nor that meaning is simply constructed or projected onto an inherently meaningless world by the "subjective" human mind (the paradigmatically postmodern/poststructuralist worldview). Rather, Tarnas argues, via Hegel, Goethe, Kuhn, Jung, and many other thinkers, that meaning is enacted through the participation of the human mind with the larger meaning of the cosmos. Thus, as in the dialectical movement that Hegel describes, the mind draws forth a meaning that exists in potentia in the cosmos, but which must go through the process of articulation by means of human consciousness. However, it has been argued that Tarnas' participatory epistemology is able to go beyond Hegel by taking into account the insights of transpersonal psychology, poststructuralism, and postmodernism in general. Participatory epistemology has been described as a mode of integral thought.

Criticism
Ken Wilber labels participatory epistemology, along with hermeneutics and phenomenology, as a structuralist mode of thought. He argues that participatory epistemology does not require a transformation of the self through the process of knowing and that it is a "green meme" epistemology. Jorge Ferrer responds that this criticism is a misunderstanding of participatory epistemology based on the fallacious conflation of pluralism with vulgar relativism.