Jul 22, 2026 · 1 hr 9 min · 12 segments
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…
Leigh PriceGuest
Nick HedlundHost
Brendan Graham DempseyHostthis is a beautiful window into the you know actual lived embodied interpersonal relationships of um that kind of these different meta-theoretical communities coming together and i i guess that all of that is something that we can certainly aspire to in the project that that we're um engaged in at present.
And so, uh, yeah, it's, it's good to have that before us as a good, um, uh, something to aspire to.
Um, I was going to ask, um, I guess to come back to the conceptual though, as well, to kind of, uh, to zoom back up into, into just heady theoretical space.
Um, you know, the, one of the questions that we are asking of these different models is, um, also, uh, what's missing, I guess, would be sort of, uh, the, the basic way of putting it.
So I'm curious when you look at critical realism, uh, in that broader kind of ecology of, of meta theories, um, uh, If there are things that you feel like maybe are particularly absent there or that could be benefited by more engagement with other kinds of models that might be stronger in some other areas.
I think Roy Bascar didn't fully understand the full implications of his own work.
The people who found out about DNA, Watson and Crick and others, they had no, I mean, when you look about, look where we've come with genetics since then.
He actually didn't fully understand how powerful, and he knew his work was powerful, but I don't think he understood just how powerful it is.
You know, when I was writing this book with him on interdisciplinarity and well-being, And he said to me, um, could you just, so we're writing a book on wellbeing, so we better have a chapter about wellbeing.
Um, could you just, could you write that chapter on what, what, you know, what would be, what it would be to, to, to flourish as a human being? So, um, I said, okay, well, I'll try.
And, um, And then of course, you know, he didn't live very much longer after that.
So I wasn't able to have this conversation with him, but what I discovered was that we can't actually write that chapter yet.
Um, so, and the reason that we couldn't write it was because our science is so limited by its empiricism that we actually don't know what human beings need to flourish.
Um, And what I in fact discovered was this terribly inadequate approach to science for health and wellbeing.
He was in a way, yeah, just like most of us, he felt that, you know, he often say that science, he wasn't trying to change what science was doing.
this is a beautiful window into the you know actual lived embodied interpersonal relationships of um that kind of these different meta-theoretical communities coming together and i i guess that all of that is something that we can certainly aspire to in the project that that we're um engaged in at present.
And so, uh, yeah, it's, it's good to have that before us as a good, um, uh, something to aspire to.
Um, I was going to ask, um, I guess to come back to the conceptual though, as well, to kind of, uh, to zoom back up into, into just heady theoretical space.
Um, you know, the, one of the questions that we are asking of these different models is, um, also, uh, what's missing, I guess, would be sort of, uh, the, the basic way of putting it.
So I'm curious when you look at critical realism, uh, in that broader kind of ecology of, of meta theories, um, uh, If there are things that you feel like maybe are particularly absent there or that could be benefited by more engagement with other kinds of models that might be stronger in some other areas.
I think Roy Bascar didn't fully understand the full implications of his own work.
The people who found out about DNA, Watson and Crick and others, they had no, I mean, when you look about, look where we've come with genetics since then.
He actually didn't fully understand how powerful, and he knew his work was powerful, but I don't think he understood just how powerful it is.
You know, when I was writing this book with him on interdisciplinarity and well-being, And he said to me, um, could you just, so we're writing a book on wellbeing, so we better have a chapter about wellbeing.
Um, could you just, could you write that chapter on what, what, you know, what would be, what it would be to, to, to flourish as a human being? So, um, I said, okay, well, I'll try.
And, um, And then of course, you know, he didn't live very much longer after that.
So I wasn't able to have this conversation with him, but what I discovered was that we can't actually write that chapter yet.
Um, so, and the reason that we couldn't write it was because our science is so limited by its empiricism that we actually don't know what human beings need to flourish.
Um, And what I in fact discovered was this terribly inadequate approach to science for health and wellbeing.
He was in a way, yeah, just like most of us, he felt that, you know, he often say that science, he wasn't trying to change what science was doing.
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