THEE Path

In the early days, I needed to understand the difference between the work-level hierarchy and other fundamental hierarchies with diverse formal properties that I was uncovering in inquiry, decision and purpose. Jaques and colleagues attributed a fundamental significance to their Organizational Work Levels Hierarchy. It is true that it is fundamental: but then all Frameworks within THEE are fundamental. Beck and co-workers clearly felt like Jaques when they called their Spiral Dynamics Q-hierarchy the «theory of everything». In THEE, it is the Root Hierarchy that is logically fundamental. However, before I discovered it, I had identified several of its Levels as Primary Hierarchies. So I referred to work-levels as a «Quasi-primary» Hierarchy. It became evident that «primary» did not apply at all, but I kept the label, Q- from «quasi-» for sentimental reasons.

The conjectured path is as follows:

Origin: Root Cell: Will (not shown in diagram)

ACCEPT or EXAMINE

Emanate: Root Hierarchy (RH): Framework of Endeavour

ACCEPT or EXAMINE

Select: Level-5 (RH-L5): Communication

ACCEPT or EXAMINE

Emanate: PH5: Primary Hierarchy of Communication

ACCEPT or EXAMINE

Select: Level-6 (PH5-L6): Meaning

ACCEPT or EXAMINE

Nest within Level-6: PH’5-Principal Typology: Approaches to Using Language

ACCEPT or EXAMINE

Select: L'4 and L'5—Universal + Gestalt Uses of Language.

Identify: Modal Hierarchy—α: assert; β: appraise; γ: systematize; δ: develop.

Expand: Apply Modal Hierarchy to generate the 4th Q-Hierarchy: Q4—Societal Institutions.
ClosedClick for image with details.

Note that names of the following frameworks are still in flux.

  • Start: Subsidiary Typology (PH'5QH4t): Ways to Affect Societal Institutions.
  • Derive: TET and Spiral (PH'5QH4C): Intensifying Pressure for Change in a Societal Institution.
  • Derive: Hierarchy (PH'5QH4): Levels of Responsibility.
  • Derive: Tree (PH'5QH4K): Dynamics of Consent to the State of an Institution.
  • Derive: Structural Hierarchy (PH'5QsH4): Shaping Evolution of an Institution
  • Derive: Structural Hierarchy Tree (PH'5QsH4K): Engagement with an Institution.

For a graphic showing this Arena in the context of other PH'5 Arenas, click on the thumbnail at right.

Originally posted:18-Nov-2022. Last updated: 30-Apr-2023.