This thesis aims to support the conditions for the emergence of a eudaimonistic, freeflourishing
planetary society by helping ignite the potentials of metatheory as a
transformational cultural force vis-à-vis our complex twenty-first century challenges. I argue
that metatheory in its appropriate form provides indispensable intellectual scaffolding for the
crucial psycho-spiritual, cultural, and social transformations demanded by these interconnected
global challenges, or what I call the metacrisis. I advance these aims, first, by reflection on the
nature, role, and function of metatheory in geo-historical context, articulating a vision for the
revindication of metatheory as integrative metatheory 2.0; and, second, the development of
the contours of a particular metatheory through an exploratory-dialogical encounter between
what are arguably amongst the most comprehensive and sophisticated integrative
metatheories arising in the wake of postmodernism: namely, critical realism, founded by Roy
Bhaskar (1944–2014), and integral theory, founded by Ken Wilber (1949–). Thus, in this thesis, I
deploy the methodology of hermeneutical dialectics and the method of immanent critique to
forge a non-preservative synthesis of aspects of these two metatheories into a new
metatheory—a visionary realism—that might help us to better understand and wisely respond
to the metacrisis. I then apply this visionary realist framework to sketch the contours of the
metacrisis at large, analyzing and synthesizing the philosophical, cultural, and psychological
aspects of the metacrisis to identify key principles and holistic solution patterns that may
inform deliberate social transformation
