Methodological transparency and judgmental rationalism
Methodological transparency refers to the reflexive disclosure of the methodology and methods (or injunctions) from which knowledge claims are derived. Thus, integrative metatheory 2.0 adheres to a procedural rationality or methodological transparency that is open to ongoing rigorous assessment or criticism in terms of clearly defined validity criteria. Moreover, it sustains the possibility of judgemental rationality, which will in general depend on ethical reflexivity and responsibility, in the context of the actuality of epistemic relativity and the necessity of ontological realism.
Epistemic reflexivity and relativity
In addition, integrative metatheory 2.0 expresses epistemic reflexivity in relation to the assumptions and salient epistemic structures of the research—a kind of researching the researcher—so as to both situate one’s knowledge claims therein and potentially mitigate problems of inter-individual variability and subjective bias (Hedlund, 2008, 2010b). Both methodological transparency and epistemic reflexivity enrich the dialogical process connected to the final stage of the research process—that of social validation. Given our epistemic fallibility as embodied personalities engaged in epistemically relative inquiries, one function of such practices is to enhance the peer-review process surrounding the relative validity, utility, strengths, and limitations of the knowledge claims of a given researcher. In the absence of reflexive transparency, it can be rather difficult to assess aspects of the relative validity of the ‘view from nowhere’ that many researchers implicitly assume (M. G. Edwards, 2010; Nagel, 1986).
Ontological realism and comprehensiveness
Ontological realism is the critical realist view that the object of inquiry is referentially detached or existentially intransitive in relation to the investigator and relatively or absolutely intransitive causally (in the social and natural sciences, respectively).
Ontological comprehensiveness refers to the inclusion of all key dimensions, planes, or contours of reality known to humans—including real generative mechanisms and structures in the subjective, social, and natural domains—in the purview of one’s metatheorizing. This does not necessarily mean that one is integrating theory from all these domains per se, but rather that all these domains are considered and one’s metatheorizing is situated within this context.
Integrative pluralism
Finally, integrative metatheory 2.0 is an expression of integrative pluralism, as opposed to an integrative monism (as in integrative metatheory 1.0). Integrative pluralism has two declensions, epistemological (emphasized by integral theory) and ontological (highlighted by critical realism). In regard to the problem of theoretical pluralism (for example, in the social sciences), the monistic approach of integrative metatheory 1.0 attempts to assert a singular, totalizing, abstract, and universal overarching theory that does not account either for competing perspectives or the real depth and diversity of the world. In contrast, integrative pluralism in its epistemological mode “retains an appreciation for the multiplicity of perspectives while also developing new knowledge that connects their definitive elements to build more expansive, ‘roomier’ metatheoretical frameworks” (M. G. Edwards, 2010, p. 16). For critical realism, integrative pluralism, or developing integrative pluralism, is also and most fundamentally another name for a philosophical ontology that grasps the world as asymmetrically stratified and differentiated, dynamic and interconnected (Bhaskar, 1986/2009, p. 101).