Integration

Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice
  • 4.7 (6)
  • Philosophy

The Integration podcast features thinkers forging connections across domains, traditions, and levels of analysis in pursuit of deeper coherence and actionable wisdom. In particular, it unpacks and promotes the work of scholars contributing to Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice, a peer-reviewed, inter-, trans-, and archdisciplinary journal committed to advancing the integrative study and applied use of metatheory and systems thinking for engaging with the unprecedented complexity of the 21st century. It also features scholars whose work is making vital contributions to this broader field.

Episodes

  1. 2d ago

    Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism: A Closer Look | w/ Leigh Price, Nick Hedlund, Brendan Graham Dempsey

    In this episode of the Integration podcast, Leigh Price sits down with Nick Hedlund and Brendan Graham Dempsey to go further into critical realism than her IAM Research Forum talk had room for. She traces Roy Bhaskar's philosophy through its major phases, from transcendental realism through dialectical critical realism, where his concept of absence resolves long-standing puzzles in the Hegelian and Marxist dialectic. From there, she unpacks what's often called Bhaskar's "spiritual turn," the philosophy of metaReality: its account of non-duality and re-enchantment, and its debt to the African concept of Ubuntu. She also shares her own contribution to the field, an argument that critical realism functions as a form of systems theory, one it's rarely been credited for. Price describes the historic dialogues between critical realists and integral theorists, where real synthesis emerged alongside real tension, and recalls working alongside Bhaskar directly, including an unfinished chapter on human flourishing he asked her to write shortly before he died. The episode closes on critical realism's relevance to the metacrisis, including the case that most of us already reason like critical realists in practice, and what it would take to actually shift the root metaphors we use to make sense of the world. Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:15 – The Phases of Critical Realism: From Transcendental Realism to Dialectics 00:03:52 – Discovering Absence: Bhaskar's Breakthrough Beyond Hegel and Marx 00:15:34 – Bhaskar, Marx, and Freud: Emancipation and the Roots of Dialectic 00:22:12 – The Philosophy of metaReality 00:32:05 – Critical Realism as Unrecognized Systems Theory 00:38:24 – Critical Realism Meets Integral Theory 00:52:48 – What's Missing: The Unwritten Chapter on Flourishing 01:02:33 – Critical Realism and the Metacrisis 01:07:29 – Closing Reflections and Gratitude Website: https://appliedmetatheory.org/ Support IAM: https://appliedmetatheory.org/donate/ Join IAM: https://appliedmetatheory.org/join/ The New Story of Wholeness: https://newstoryofwholeness.com/ Integrative Values Charter: https://integrativevalues.org/ Integration: The Journal Of Big Picture Theory and Practice: https://integrationjournal.org/

    Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism: A Closer Look | w/ Leigh Price, Nick Hedlund, Brendan Graham Dempsey

  2. Jul 14

    Going Deeper into Integral Theory | with Bruce Alderman, Nick Hedlund, & Brendan Graham Dempsey

    Website: https://appliedmetatheory.org/ Support IAM: https://appliedmetatheory.org/donate/ Join IAM: https://appliedmetatheory.org/join/ The New Story of Wholeness: https://newstoryofwholeness.com/ Integrative Values Charter: https://integrativevalues.org/ Integration: The Journal Of Big Picture Theory and Practice: https://integrationjournal.org/ In this episode of the Integration podcast, Bruce Alderman returns for a deeper look at integral theory, continuing the conversation he opened at the IAM Research Forum. Joined by Brendan Graham Dempsey and Nick Hedlund, he traces Wilber's path into integral theory from its roots in transpersonal psychology through the five moving parts of the AQAL model: quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. Alderman then turns to where the model runs thin. He walks through its weak connection to evolutionary biology and philosopher Mark Edwards' critique that integral quietly conflates the individual and the collective, tracing how a framework built to hold everything together can end up flattening real differences. Yet Alderman argues these limits open onto something generative. He introduces his own toolkit for reading any big framework: a lightly-held approach to categories he calls the "a-categorical imperative," and "heno-ontology," a way of letting frameworks like integral theory and critical realism each hold their own ground without one swallowing the rest. The episode closes on a question left open for the whole Integrative Metatheory 2.0 project: one new synthesized map, or several frameworks working side by side? Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:01:41 – A Primer on Wilberian Integral Theory: From Transpersonal Roots to AQAL 00:16:05 – Where the Model Runs Thin: Science, Evolution, and Mark Edwards' Critique 00:22:05 – Mapping What Came After Wilber 00:29:24 – Inside Bruce's Grammar for Reading Big Ideas 00:44:00 – Heno-ontology: Holding Multiple Frameworks at Once 00:48:00 – Pushback: Does This Flatten Ontology and Epistemology? 00:54:47 – One Map or Many? The Open Question for Integrative Metatheory 2.0 01:17:56 – Closing Thoughts and What's Next

    Going Deeper into Integral Theory | with Bruce Alderman, Nick Hedlund, & Brendan Graham Dempsey

  3. Jun 24

    From Matter to Mind: Inside the Unified Theory of Knowledge | Gregg Henriques, Nick Hedlund, Brendan Graham Dempsey

    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

  4. Jun 17

    Why Integrative Metatheory 2.0 Now? | Robb Smith, Nick Hedlund, Brendan Graham Dempsey

    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

  5. Jan 28

    What Is Meta-Studies? w/ Mark Edwards, Nick Hedlund, & Brendan Graham Dempsey

    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

    What Is Meta-Studies? w/ Mark Edwards, Nick Hedlund, & Brendan Graham Dempsey

  6. Jan 21

    Integration for Transformation w/ Robb Smith, Nick Hedlund, & Brendan Graham Dempsey

    Robb Smith discusses the need for integrative conceptual work in today's world with Integration journal Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Hedlund and Managing Editor Brendan Graham Dempsey. Why do the interconnected challenges of the metacrisis demand integrative solutions? How are emancipatory struggles aided by embracing critical metatheory? What do the very patterns of knowledge integration suggest about a bold new story of wholeness? Finally, the three outline the vision and scope of the new journal and explore the nature and uses of an "integrative metatheory 2.0" beyond postmodernism. Timestamps 0:00 IAM in the Context of Radical Social Morphogenesis 12:39 A Meta-Systematic Metacrisis in Need of Meta-Systematic Analysis 20:21 The Problems We Face and the Stories We Tell 31:39 Advancing a Worldview for Long-Term Good 38:56 Critical Metatheory and Emancipatory Struggle beyond Postmodernism 49:20 Knowledge Integration and a New Story of Wholeness 1:02:34 Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice 1:08:52 Integrative Metatheory 2.0 in Service of Planetary Flourishing 1:21:00 Competing Worldviews in the 21st Century for AI and Value Alignment 1:29:01 Conclusion

    Integration for Transformation w/ Robb Smith, Nick Hedlund, & Brendan Graham Dempsey

  7. 10/16/2025

    The Evolutionary-Developmental Perspective w/ Clément Vidal

    Dr. Clément Vidal discusses the work coming out of the Evo-Devo community and his contributions to theorizing the concept of worldview before unpacking the core aspects of a so-called "cosmic evolutionary" worldview, whose ideas resonate deeply with the integrative worldview being developed by the Institute of Applied Metatheory. We unpack his ideas around cosmological artificial selection and its connection to various forms of metaphysics, as well as how value(s) relate to this cosmic picture. 0:00 Introduction0:58 What is the "Evo-Devo" Research Community?5:05 The Problem with (and Promise of) "Progress" 11:51 Evo-Devo Research Questions 14:53 Evolutionary Philosophy and the Question of Worldview 20:59 Criteria for Comparing Worldviews 26:05 The Nature of an Evolving Universe: The Origins of Fine-Tuning 34:33 Cosmological Artificial Selection 52:04 Cosmological Variation in a Multiverse? 55:25 Evolution, Development, Complexity and Value 1:08:47 Worldview Competition and Cultural Evolution 1:14:10 Conclusion

    The Evolutionary-Developmental Perspective w/ Clément Vidal
  • 7 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

The Integration podcast features thinkers forging connections across domains, traditions, and levels of analysis in pursuit of deeper coherence and actionable wisdom. In particular, it unpacks and promotes the work of scholars contributing to Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice, a peer-reviewed, inter-, trans-, and archdisciplinary journal committed to advancing the integrative study and applied use of metatheory and systems thinking for engaging with the unprecedented complexity of the 21st century. It also features scholars whose work is making vital contributions to this broader field.

Information

  • Creator
    Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The Institute of Applied Metatheory
  • Show Website
    Integration

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