Integration

Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice

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.

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10 episodes
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Avg 1 hr 15 min
English

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S1 · E10
Wednesday · 1 hr 15 min
Metamodernism: A Deeper Dive with Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm joins Nick Hedlund and Brendan Graham Dempsey for a deep dive into metamodernism. Where does a worldview actually live, in an individual or in a culture, and what do we do with the fact that people are rarely as consistent as the concept assumes? Does a false belief become real the moment it makes something happen? How does a theory of language written for scholars end up shaping the way a whole country argues about facts? The answers keep turning on ontology, and on what "real" is being contrasted with in any given sentence, a question Storm thinks most of us skip. And what does any of this ask of us in the middle of a metacrisis? Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:01:27 – Is Metamodernism a Worldview, or a Metatheory? 00:03:32 – Where Does a Worldview Actually Live? 00:11:48 – Could Metamodernism Reach the Culture? 00:32:46 – Does Metamodernism Need a Realism? 00:36:39 – Storm's Case Against the Word 00:38:19 – Bhaskar's Demi-Real: False Beliefs With Real Effects 00:42:38 – Post-Truth, or Competing Epistemic Authorities? 00:53:37 – Existence Without Reality: Numbers and the Hole in a Donut 01:04:36 – Metamodernism and the Metacrisis 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/
S1 · E9
August 19 · 1 hr 9 min
What Are Big Pictures Actually For? w/ Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Nick Hedlund, Brendan Graham Dempsey
Sean Esbjörn-Hargens joins Nick Hedlund and Brendan Graham Dempsey for a deep dive on Complex Integral Realism, and a bigger question surfaces: what does integrative metatheory actually do in the world? The maps are enormous, and the applications so far are small and slow. Does a bigger picture hand you more leverage, or mostly a clearer view of how little leverage you have? One answer is that the payoff runs through the person doing the looking, where becoming more integratively literate changes how you read a situation long before you try to intervene in it. Another is that a big picture can be normative rather than only descriptive, as in critical realism's emancipatory strand, which names real social pathologies and asks what a better arrangement would concretely look like along with how we would get there from here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:02 – What Is Integrative Metatheory Actually For? 00:04:35 – Origins of Complex Integral Realism 00:07:11 – "I Haven't Seen a Good Application Yet" 00:11:06 – Managing Expectations About What Big Pictures Do 00:15:37 – Integral Life Practice and Emancipatory Social Science 00:20:32 – Concrete Utopianism: Protopia and the Theory of Transition 00:22:35 – Becoming Integratively Literate 00:27:32 – The Who, the How, and the What: Why Method Gets Ignored 00:32:09 – Can Science and Philosophy Be Kept Apart? 00:38:43 – Toward a Complex Integral Realism 2.0 00:43:21 – Where Metamodernism Stands Now 00:53:02 – What CIR Leaves Out: The Anomalous 00:59:52 – What Counts as a Metatheory? 01:04:31 – From Perspective Taking to Perspective Seeking 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/
S1 · E8
August 4 · 1 hr 13 min
A Closer Look at Visionary Realism with Nick Hedlund & Brendan Graham Dempsey
Nick Hedlund describes Visionary Realism as an attempt to sketch a worldview adequate to the complexity and sacredness of reality, one built on reverence, humility, and listening. In this episode of the Integration podcast, he talks with Brendan Graham Dempsey about what stands in the way: the split Kant first named between what's knowable and what's real, a divide Hedlund traces forward into postmodernism and treats as the hidden engine of the metacrisis. Visionary Realism grew out of Ken Wilber's integral theory and Roy Bhaskar's critical realism, though Hedlund is clear that neither survives the encounter unchanged. His answer to the Kantian split runs through Bhaskar's distinction between the world as it is and the world as we know it, arriving at a reframing he calls "constellational containment," where mind sits nested within the world rather than sealed off from it. Along the way he makes a case for reading Piaget as a realist, and turns to what "visionary" is doing in the name, drawing on the Promethean myth and Bhaskar's reminder that the world doesn't depend on us the way we depend on it. Hedlund is also candid about what's still missing, including a fuller theory of value and Bhaskar's later, more spiritual work, an area he's only begun opening up. The episode closes on philosophy as a way of life, and on Hedlund's own question of what his essence actually is. Visionary Realism, he says, is "a philosophy I can live by." Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:22 – What Visionary Realism Is 00:07:33 – Promethean Fire and the Limits of What We Make 00:11:41 – The Split Kant Left Behind 00:18:32 – Where Does a Dog Exist? 00:30:44 – Mind Nested Within World 00:46:09 – Participatory, Process, Pluralistic 00:52:19 – What's Still Missing 01:00:19 – Spirituality Without Losing the Secular Mind 01:09:04 – A Philosophy to Live By
S1 · E7
July 22 · 1 hr 8 min
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/
S1 · E6
July 14 · 1 hr 20 min
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
S1 · E5
June 24 · 1 hr 25 min
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
S1 · E4
June 17 · 1 hr 11 min
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
S1 · E3
January 28 · 1 hr 2 min
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
S1 · E2
January 21 · 1 hr 30 min
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
S1 · E1
Oct 16, 2025 · 1 hr 17 min
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 Introduction 0:58 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

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