Hi folks!
I’ve taken a deep dive into the work of John Vervaeke’s ‘Awakening from the meaning crisis’ and ‘After Socrates’ series. I find them life-changing, and he shifted my fundamental framing towards connection, love, and spirituality.
Because I’m really deep-diving into his perspective and could be stuck there, I’m wondering if any of you have counter perspectives, criticisms of Vervaeke’s work, and sources that counterbalance his viewpoint?
I also find it absolutely fascinating and so refreshing compared to almost anything else. For me it’s the entire eco-system around Vervaeke and not just him.
Bonnitta Roy’s work has critiqued JV’s work in the past. She’s got some uploaded videos of this on her substack.
Hi Ola. Can’t directly find a video where she criticizes Vervaeke. Could you find the video for me?
Vervaeke and Roy are both presenting at this online conference this weekend.
I’m also a big Vervaeke fan and I’d also be interested to see criticisms that discuss Vervaeke directly.
The approach I’ve been taking so as not to get ‘stuck’ is to read around the areas he talks about - for example you can read different interpretations of the particular philosophers and religious traditions he talks about in part 1 of the meaning crisis series. And in part 2 he’s quite good at referencing other cognitive science work, e.g. on wisdom and rationality that present different perspectives. The ‘great rationality debate’ between e.g. Kahneman and Gigerenzer is useful thing to explore here. And since he touches on neuroscience too, alternative takes on the neuroscience, e.g. Mcgilchrist and the ‘active inference’ approach of e.g. Karl Friston offer counterweights here.
Not sure which one exactly. Maybe reach-out to Bonnie and make a direct request.
@ijscooman (and others) a good starting point to look for critiques would be to try to summarize Vervaeke’s views and key claims and how these then relate to general open questions / debates.
On the more nuanced side you could pick a particular talk in e.g. Awakening from the Meaning Crisis and go look for an expert in that area (or read the literature).
As one example, IIRC, Vervaeke draws quite heavily on the Winkelman hypothesis about the role of shamanism in the upper paleolithic transition. AFAIK this isn’t a widely shared view in the academic literature (though this is necessarily a very speculative area).
Dave Snowden is not a Vervaeke fan.
I’ve learned things from both Snowden and Vervaeke. Just bringing this in because of the ask for Vervaeke criticism.
I noted how Matthijs @ijscooman was careful in asking for critique of Vervaeke’s positions, not John himself. Good move! Building on that, maybe it would be most fruitful to identify particular views and point to criticism of them? E.g. what views does Dave Snowden actually criticise? I could probably discover that in an hour’s research, but if someone here does the work and posts it for everyone that helps the rest of us! Other views similarly.
In the article linked above, Snowden critiques the empirical basis for the idea of a crisis of meaning.