The metacrisis runs deeper than most accounts suggest. Beneath the visible crises of governance and climate lies a more fundamental problem: the fragmentation of knowledge itself. Integrative metatheory has been the most sustained attempt to address this, bringing the broad sweep of human understanding toward a coherent worldview.

This session marks the official launch of that effort’s next chapter. Robb Smith, Nick Hedlund, and Brendan Graham Dempsey introduce Integrative Metatheory 2.0, an initiative to bring the most rigorous big-picture frameworks, including critical realism, integral theory, process philosophy, and metamodernism, into sustained dialogue with each other. The goal is practical: to develop a worldview coherent enough to help policymakers and leaders navigate planetary-scale problems, with outputs including books and textbooks grounded in this synthesis. The discussion takes on the hard questions this project has to face: how to hold scientific rigor alongside genuine spiritual depth, and why the conditions for doing this work may be uniquely available right now. 

Timestamps

00:00:34 – The Metacrisis as an Integration Crisis
00:10:26 – The Principles of Integrative Metatheory 2.0
00:16:47 – The Road Ahead: Forums, Podcasts, and the Symposium
00:37:29 – Q&A: Where Does Spirituality Fit?
00:42:43 – Gist Ontology and the Missing Layer in Psychology
01:02:59 – The Real-World Impact of Metatheory
01:09:41 – Why This Convergence Is Possible Now