Human Development as Pure Awareness

Abstract

This thesis establishes that the most widely used frameworks for human development today (from the UN Sustainable Development Goals to the capability approaches of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, all based on philosophical foundations that relegate the inner life of human beings to a secondary level) can accommodate ‘pure awareness’ conceptually but not at the deeper paradigmatic level, where only Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory proves consistent with it. It examines how can ‘pure awareness’ be accommodated within these frameworks (a heightened, non-conceptual state of alertness to inner and outer reality, distinct from ordinary waking vigilance, which can be cultivated and is associated with cognitive, emotional, ethical and embodied benefits across neuroscientific, phenomenological and contemplative literature). Through analysis and critique, it tests the frameworks against exclusionary criteria (ontological compatibility and measurement methods) and subjects their internal requirements to meticulous scrutiny. The divergence is clear: pure awareness's non-materialist, non-rationalist and non-mechanistic ontology, anthropology and teleology are incompatible with the Aristotelian, Kantian and Lockean traditions that still shape modern Western thought and influence Sen's and Nussbaum's frameworks, while Wilber's Hegel-Sri Aurobindo inheritance aligns with them. The thesis therefore proposes a set of recommendations for the post-2030 development agenda: some measures that can be implemented immediately within the context of the current Western paradigm, and others that are applicable in the long term, with a view to integrating ‘pure awareness’ as a new and future paradigm for global development (SDG 0).