Fourth Person

Abstract

In the context of polycrisis and systemic collapse, the primary challenge we face is a widely shared sense of collective depression—a lack of agency in regard to the bigger picture. What does it take to serve evolutionary transformation in the face of systemic collapse? In our view, it takes a form of knowing which extends beyond the current constructs of first-, second- and third-person knowing around which much of our current learning, knowledge, and leadership systems are organized. In this paper, we suggest fourth-person knowing as a distinct epistemology at the intersection of the other three, and we draw on our action research to illuminate five phenomena that point to and distinguish fourth-person knowing: (1) knowing that comes through me but is not of me; (2) knowing that shows up in my individual experience as a decentering of perception; (3) a heightened sense of potential, of possibilities that previously were experienced as unattainable now appear to be in reach; (4) sensing your own agency in helping the ‘universe’ (the larger field) to evolve; and (5) significant long term impact in terms of practical results. It is our hope that by articulating fourth person knowing we can provide an epistemic basis upon which research and inquiry methodologies can be built, complementing first-, second- and third-person forms of inquiry, methodologies based on deep sensing and presencing that support individuals and collectives to recognize, connect with and manifest what is theirs to do in the wider context of this moment and the incipient patterns of emergence and movement making.

Keywords

• fourth-person knowing
• Theory U
• social field
• trans-subjectivity
• self-transcending knowledge
• presencing