Robert Kegan talks about how each successive developmental stage to which one is subject has the previous stage as its object.  For example, at stage 3 you are socialized and you can only recognize how your socialization was determining your life when you’re at stage 4 and you can then look back on your previous lifeworld when you were wrapped up with socialization and you lacked the reflective insight that would have been necessary to keep you from simply going along with the crowd and constantly worrying about what your peers thought of you.  You can transcend this at the self-authoring stage 4.  Thus, Kegan says that stage 3 is the object of stage 4.

This usage of subject and object is a little confusing for me.  It seems that both phenomena that Kegan describes are subjective.  I figure the best benchmarks for what “objective” means come from science and journalism.  If we are talking about different sorts of subjective experiences then the word “object” seems inappropriate.

As an alternative way of talking about similar phenomena, I want to draw from Vervaeke’s distinction between participatory knowing and perspectival knowing. These are 2 of the 4 P’s of knowing.  (The other two are procedural and propositional, but they are less relevant to this matter at hand)  Participatory knowing is the ground of being, but we need to periodically step outside and reflect on it and develop a perspective on it.  This moves from participatory knowing to perspectival knowing.  To relate this back to Kegan, if you are in the socialized self stage 3 then you are participating in socialization.  At stage 4, you have a perspective on that prior stage because you are now at the self authoring stage. 

What do you guys think?  Several of you are more experienced at these matters than I am, but I’m just trying to work out clearer language here.  Your comments are welcome.

Thanks,

Brandon