Paul Marshall completed his doctoral thesis at UCL, Institute of Education, UK. His research interests include integrative metatheory, human nature and human flourishing.

• IntroductionPart I: Axiality in pre-modernity1. The Axial Age: First Flowering of a New Vision2. Axial Greece: Sowing the Seeds of Four Biases3. Interregnum: Axiality between the Axial Age and ModernityPart II: Modernity and the Four Biases4. Modernity: New Shift in Consciousness and Consolidation of the Biases5. Challenging the Biases: Undermining the Old Vision6. Remedying the Biases: Paving the Way for a New VisionPart III: Contours of a New Axial Vision7. Contours I: A New Axial Cosmovision (or ‘Creation Story’)8. Contours II: A New Axial Cognition and Ethics9. Contours III: A New Axial Spirituality and Praxis10. Conclusion

Paul Marshall is one of only a handful of scholars who have mastered all three of today’s major metatheories, and he combines this rare breadth of knowledge with formidable synthesizing power to offer an intellectual integration of admirable scope and sophisticationRoger Walsh MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of California, USA Towards a New Axial Vision is a bold synthetic work that makes a groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of the various relationships between three of the most important contemporary integrative metatheories. Paul Marshall has done a superb job of weaving the strengths and insights of Integral Theory, Complex Thought, and Critical Realism into a new vision of humanity. In the process he shows us the unique role metatheory can play in helping us to create a thriving planetary civilization. Dr. Marshall is uniquely qualified to introduce readers to these three integrative metatheories and open us up to the new meta-vistas that they enable. Scholar-practitioners with interdisciplinary and trans disciplinary orientations will find this volume especially valuable as will researchers associated with the social sciences and metathinking. Sean Esbjörn-Hargens Ph.D, Co-editor Metatheory for the Twenty-first Century (Routledge 2015) and CEO of MetaIntegral AssociatesThis book takes dialogue between critical realism, integral theory and complex thought to a new level by putting a creative synthesis of these metatheories to work to further our understanding of the Axial Age and the place of Western modernity within it and to articulate a theory and practice for a New Axial Age.Mervyn Harwig, Editor, Journal of Critical Realism