In this episode of the Integration podcast, Dr. Gregg Henriques joins Brendan Graham Dempsey and Nick Hedlund for a deeper dive into the Unified Theory of Knowledge. His earlier presentation at the IAM Research Forum established the philosophical context; this conversation goes inside the model itself.

Key themes include the Tree of Knowledge in depth: the four cones of complexification and how matter, life, mind, and culture emerge as distinct information-processing domains. The conversation also takes up two levels of consciousness and what UTOK has to say about panpsychism, before turning to the RAFTing model (Relating, Acting, Feeling, Thinking) as a practical framework for psychology. Dr. Henriques closes by reflecting on UTOK's limits and what it stands to gain from engagement with other metatheories.

Modernity's greatest achievements came without a coherent worldview to guide them. Without an adequate foundation for what is real and what we value, coordinating at the scale we now inhabit remains an open problem. That, Dr. Henriques argues, is precisely what UTOK is working to address.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction: Continuing the UTOK Conversation

00:02:52 – Unpacking the Tree of Knowledge Diagram

00:15:15 – The Emergence of Mind: From Organism to Culture

00:32:12 – UTOK and Consciousness

00:46:05 – The Hard Problem and Perspectival Epistemic Portal

00:55:10 – The RAFTing Model as Applied Psychology

01:09:07 – The Real-World Stakes of Metatheory

01:09:33 – UTOK's Limits and What It Still Needs

In this episode of the Integration podcast, Robb Smith joins Nicholas Hedlund and Brendan Graham Dempsey to make the case for Integrative Metatheory 2.0. Drawing on a project that began with Sean Esbjörn-Hargens' meta-integral work in 2010-2013, they explore how frameworks like critical realism, Edgar Morin's complex thought, and metamodernism entered the conversation alongside integral theory, and what it now takes to bring them into genuine dialogue.

Key themes include a typology of metatheories (philosophical, scientific, and synthetic), the causal force of worldviews in shaping our understanding of and response to planetary-scale systems, and why AI and other accelerating developments make adequate conceptual foundations more urgent than ever. The group also takes up negative transfiguration as a core commitment: the aim is for frameworks to genuinely learn from and alter each other, rather than collapse into a single grand synthesis.

The conversation closes on what success looks like for the project: frameworks that change as a result of dialogue, and the emergence of a shared grammar adequate to navigating between disciplines and philosophical traditions.

Timestamps:

00:00:15 – Introduction and Project Overview

00:02:48 – The Project's History: From Meta-Integral to IMT 2.0

00:05:40 – The "So What?" Critique

00:13:47 – Modernity Scaled the Planet on a Fragmented Worldview

00:20:41 – Worldview, AI, and the Question of Agency

00:46:08 – A Typology of Metatheories

00:54:22 – What Does Success Look Like?

00:57:07 – Negative Transfiguration

In this episode of the Integration podcast, Mark Edwards joins Brendan Graham Dempsey and Nick Hedlund for an in-depth conversation on metatheory, meta-studies, and why methodological rigor is essential for navigating the global metacrisis. Edwards, one of the most influential contemporary scholars in integrative meta-studies, clarifies what metatheory is (and is not), why “big pictures” require disciplined methods, and how meta-studies can function as a kind of earth-system social science.

Key themes include the distinction between method and methodology, the role of absence and critique in generating new metatheoretical lenses, and the limits of progress-oriented and altitude-based frameworks. Edwards also reflects on epistemic humility, domain specificity, and pluralism — particularly the importance of taking indigenous and non-Western knowledge systems seriously in big-picture theorizing.

The discussion culminates in a wide-ranging reflection on the metacrisis, understood not only as a systems failure but as a planetary-scale trauma response, and on the future of meta-studies as a field grounded in what Edwards calls disciplined imagination.

0:00 Introduction

3:55 What Is Metatheory (and Why It Matters Now)

04:17 “Meta-Studies” as a Clearing in the Global Noosphere

10:51 Why Methodology Is the Missing Piece in Metatheory

13:52 Method vs Methodology

15:58 Scientific Methods for Metatheory

17:56 George Ritzer’s Four Functions of Metatheorising

19:50 From Meta-Methodology to Meta-Validity

21:18 Metatheory as a Human Universal

24:16 Moving Beyond Canonical “Great Thinkers” to Discover New Lenses

24:16 Absence as a Driver of Innovation in Metatheory

35:59 Integrating Across Domains Without Losing Rigor

42:08 The Problem with Altitude: Critiquing Progress-Oriented Metatheories

47:11 Indigenous Worldviews and the Problem with Cultural Stages

51:47 The Metacrisis and the Need for Metatheory

59:49 The Future of Meta-Studies: Disciplined Imagination