Meta-Para-Ontology as a Universal Meta-System: Criteria for a Meta-Level Theory of Everything and Transdisciplinary Analysis
Shapoval, O. (2026). Meta-Para-Ontology as a Universal Meta-System: Criteria for a Meta-Level Theory of Everything and Transdisciplinary Analysis. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22943509
Abstract
Contemporary knowledge is divided among disciplinary and conceptual frameworks that often employ different concepts, assumptions, methods, and criteria of explanation. Interdisciplinary approaches can establish relations among such domains, but they do not by themselves provide a common basis for comparing systems whose fundamental descriptions of reality may differ or conflict. This paper examines the conditions required for a universal meta-system capable of supporting such comparison while preserving the distinctions among the systems it maps. It develops eight criteria that distinguish a coordinate architecture from a substantive theory and specify the conditions under which heterogeneous systems can be accommodated, related, and reconstructed within a common analytical space.
Meta-Para-Ontology is presented as a candidate realization of these requirements, originally developed with these criteria in view. Its Register Ontology provides a minimal and invariant coordinate architecture based on four ontological registers, enabling Polymetaphysical Cartography to localize and compare heterogeneous philosophical, scientific, psychological, and metaphysical systems without reducing them to a common substantive vocabulary. In this framework, Meta-Para-Ontology addresses the problems of incommensurability and reductionism by reconceptualizing substantive theoretical approaches toward a Meta-Level Theory of Everything and providing a universal coordinate architecture for relating diverse theories and descriptions of reality within a common ontological space.
1. The Problem of Knowledge Fragmentation
This essay proposes Meta-Para-Ontology (MPO) as a Universal Meta-System for Transdisciplinary Analysis and for the systematic integration of human knowledge across diverse domains of inquiry. MPO develops its own method of polymetaphysical cartography, designed to represent and relate different ontological, epistemological, and conceptual frameworks without reducing them to a single disciplinary perspective. This approach allows the fundamental problem posed by a Theory of Everything to be viewed from a wider perspective, where comprehensive organization concerns how the diverse forms of knowledge through which reality is investigated and understood can be related within a common framework. The analysis begins by examining why a universal meta-system is required and what criteria it must satisfy in order to function as a genuinely transdisciplinary framework.
The specialization of knowledge has enabled disciplines to develop increasingly refined concepts, methods, standards of evidence, and forms of expertise. At the same time, disciplinary knowledge is produced within domain-specific configurations of concepts, methods, technologies, epistemic values, and forms of expertise. These configurations are internally interconnected: the methods used to investigate a problem are related to the concepts through which it is formulated, the standards by which results are evaluated, and the technologies through which evidence is produced. MacLeod describes this domain specificity as a significant source of difficulty for interdisciplinary work, contributing to cognitive, conceptual, and methodological divides and making practices that are coherent within one domain less transparent from another (MacLeod 2018, 697–709).
The disciplinary differences extend to the epistemological frameworks through which inquiry itself is organized. Boon and Van Baalen show that different paradigms of science can involve different conceptions of the aims of inquiry, the character and acceptance of knowledge, and the role of methods and instruments (Boon and Van Baalen 2019, 2–4). Van Baalen and Boon likewise emphasize that expertise remains domain-specific and that disciplinary perspectives need to be made explicit when different forms of expertise are brought together (van Baalen and Boon 2024, 1–3). The difficulty of connecting knowledge across domains therefore concerns more than differences in subject matter or technique: disciplines formulate problems, establish relevance, evaluate evidence, and define adequate knowledge according to different epistemological frameworks. This becomes consequential for interdisciplinary integration when such differences have to be accommodated within a common inquiry. Talbi and van Woerden describe this problem in terms of the tension between interdisciplinary integration and normative epistemic pluralism at the above-disciplines level, while distinguishing a between-disciplines level at which disciplines can operate with different underlying epistemic presuppositions or epistemic systems concerning relevant forms of research, methodologies, and aims (Talbi and van Woerden 2025, 1–3). The resulting challenge is therefore to relate forms of inquiry whose differences concern not only their findings, but also the epistemic terms under which those findings are produced and evaluated.
Interdisciplinary methodology already provides procedures for addressing such differences. Repko and Szostak, for example, formulate interdisciplinary inquiry as a process for developing integrated understandings of complex problems, involving the evaluation of disciplinary insights, identification of conflicts and their sources, creation of common ground among concepts and assumptions, and subsequent integration (Repko and Szostak 2021, 192–273). Such procedures show that integration cannot be achieved simply by placing disciplinary results alongside one another; relationships, conflicts, assumptions, and grounds for integration must be actively established. They also reveal the limit that becomes relevant at a more general level: these procedures operate within particular inquiries and provide ways of coordinating disciplinary contributions, while the broader question of how the conceptual and epistemological frameworks themselves can be represented and compared remains open.
At this point, the problem becomes more general than interdisciplinary cooperation. If disciplines can differ in their concepts, methods, epistemic standards, perspectives, and underlying assumptions, then a framework intended to operate across them must be capable of representing and comparing these differences without presupposing that one of the participating frameworks already supplies the universal terms of comparison. The question becomes what kind of analytical framework can provide common coordinates for systems of knowledge whose own conceptual and epistemological frameworks may differ. This shifts the problem from interdisciplinary integration to the requirements of a meta-system of transdisciplinary analysis.
2. From Interdisciplinarity to Transdisciplinary Frameworks
The recognition of disciplinary fragmentation has generated successive attempts to widen the scope of inquiry beyond individual disciplinary boundaries. Interdisciplinary approaches emerged as a way of relating specialized forms of knowledge within a common inquiry, bringing disciplinary perspectives into interaction while preserving their respective concepts and methods. Repko and Szostak describe interdisciplinary research as a process in which disciplinary insights are evaluated, conflicts and their sources identified, common ground established, and contributions subsequently integrated (Repko and Szostak 2021, 192–273). This represents a significant expansion of inquiry beyond isolated disciplinary work: the task is no longer confined to producing knowledge within a domain, but includes the deliberate coordination of knowledge produced across domains.
A further development occurs when the focus shifts from coordinating disciplinary contributions to examining the interrelations that connect them within larger systems. Rousseau and Wilby place systems thinking within a movement from disciplinarity toward transdisciplinarity, presenting it as a way of addressing complex problems that cannot be adequately understood through isolated disciplinary perspectives (Rousseau and Wilby 2014, 666–677). Their account extends the scope of inquiry beyond the combination of disciplinary contributions toward the examination of relations, interactions, and systemic contexts that cut across disciplinary boundaries. Transdisciplinarity therefore represents a further widening of inquiry. The aim is no longer simply to bring disciplines together within a shared investigation, but to develop forms of inquiry capable of addressing problems whose relevant relations extend across and beyond established disciplinary domains.
3. Worldviews, Conceptual Frameworks and the Problem of Comparability
The problem of cross-domain analysis becomes more fundamental when comparison extends from individual disciplinary results to the frameworks within which such results acquire their meaning. A worldview provides one important example of such a framework because it organizes beliefs about reality into an interconnected system rather than treating them as independent propositions. Rousseau and Billingham develop this point explicitly by treating worldviews as systems whose components and beliefs are interdependent, and by constructing a Worldview Inquiry Framework that separates major domains such as ontology, metaphysics, cosmology, axiology, praxeology, and epistemology while preserving their relations within a larger whole. Their analysis shows why individual beliefs cannot always be adequately understood in isolation: changes in one part of a worldview can propagate through the system as other commitments are adjusted to preserve overall coherence. They further generalize this approach into a General Inquiry Framework, demonstrating that the same logic of representing interconnected categories can be adapted to problem solving, product design, and fundamental research (Rousseau and Billingham 2018, 8–16). The significance for transdisciplinary analysis is that a framework of inquiry must be able to represent organized systems of concepts and commitments, including the relations among their components, if it is to compare them meaningfully.
Boon and Van Baalen show that scientific practices are embedded in disciplinary perspectives that shape what counts as a relevant problem, how problems are formulated, what constitutes an adequate solution, and which methods and epistemic resources are considered appropriate (Boon and Van Baalen 2019, 2–4). They distinguish different paradigms of science in order to explain why researchers can encounter cognitive and epistemological difficulties even when they are addressing a common problem. Their analysis consequently places concepts, methods, epistemic aims, and assumptions within a larger configuration through which knowledge is produced and used. Talbi and van Woerden extend this analysis by distinguishing the between-disciplines level, where different disciplinary epistemic systems can conflict, from the above-disciplines level, where the project itself requires some way of relating those differences. They explicitly describe disciplinary epistemic systems as differing in their underlying presuppositions, epistemic goods, methodologies, aims, phenomena, assumptions, theories, and concepts (Talbi and van Woerden 2025, 1–3). The object requiring comparison is therefore a configuration of mutually related commitments, not a collection of isolated propositions.
The resulting problem is one of comparability between systems whose starting points are themselves different. Comparing isolated propositions can establish whether particular claims agree, conflict, or address different questions, but it does not by itself represent the conceptual relations, ontological commitments, epistemic assumptions, methodological principles, and internal organization that give those claims their role within a larger framework. A transdisciplinary framework therefore requires a level of representation at which different systems can be described in terms of common analytical coordinates while retaining the relations that make each system what it is. Such representation must also accommodate heterogeneous conceptual systems without making the assumptions of one system the universal terms of comparison.
4. From Integration to a Meta-System of Analysis
The preceding analysis shows that interdisciplinary work begins with the integration of knowledge from different disciplines. A further step is to develop a framework that can organize inquiry across different contexts. Rousseau and Billingham take such a step by developing a General Inquiry Framework from their Worldview Inquiry Framework. They show how a framework developed for analyzing worldviews can be generalized into a framework for organizing different kinds of inquiry (Rousseau and Billingham 2018, 14–16). This gives us a useful distinction: an interdisciplinary framework helps bring different disciplinary contributions together within a particular inquiry, while a general inquiry framework provides a common way of organizing inquiry across different contexts. The next question is whether a framework can go one step further and provide a common basis for representing and comparing different frameworks of knowledge and inquiry themselves.
A meta-system requires this further step. Its task is to represent and compare different frameworks of knowledge and inquiry themselves. These frameworks can differ in their concepts, methods, assumptions, epistemic principles, and views of reality. If they are to be compared without simply adopting the assumptions of one framework as the standard for all others, some common coordinates are required. These coordinates would provide a stable basis for describing different systems while allowing their specific concepts and assumptions to remain distinct. The purpose is therefore to provide a common analytical basis for examining different frameworks through which knowledge is produced, interpreted, and related.
5. The Need for a Fundamental Coordinate Architecture
The preceding analysis establishes that a meta-system must provide a common basis for representing heterogeneous systems while preserving their differences. Because the frameworks being compared define their own concepts, assumptions, and standards of relevance, the basis used to compare them must remain independent of any one of those frameworks. Such a basis requires coordinates capable of supporting comparison across domains, remaining applicable when the systems being compared differ in their concepts and assumptions, and preserving the relations that give those systems their internal organization. Their adequacy therefore depends on the properties of the coordinates themselves as well as on the range of material they can accommodate.
This introduces a second level of requirements. Some requirements arise from the material that the meta-system must accommodate: different systems of knowledge must be representable without being reduced to a single explanatory type, excluded because of their differences, or treated as immediately invalid when they contain conflicting claims. Other requirements concern the coordinate architecture itself. If the coordinates are too numerous or too substantive, the meta-system risks becoming another domain-specific theory. If their analytical function changes with each domain, they cannot provide a common basis of comparison. If the architecture cannot be examined through its own principles, it can turn its own conceptual framework into an unquestioned standard. And if its fundamental coordinates must be repeatedly redesigned whenever a new domain or conceptual system is introduced, its universality remains dependent on the material already included.
The requirements of a universal meta-system therefore extend beyond the capacity to contain diverse knowledge. Its coordinate architecture must be sufficiently minimal to avoid becoming a substantive theory, sufficiently invariant to retain its analytical function across domains, and sufficiently open to accommodate forms of knowledge that were not part of its original construction. At the same time, its relation to mapped content must allow heterogeneous and conflicting systems to remain distinguishable while making their relations reconstructable. Finally, the architecture must remain available to reflexive examination so that its own coordinates do not become an unexamined limit on the analysis they are intended to support. These considerations provide the basis for the criteria developed in the following section.
6. The Criteria of a Universal Meta-System
The preceding analysis identifies a set of requirements that a universal meta-system must satisfy in order to provide a common basis for the analysis of heterogeneous forms of knowledge. These requirements concern both the relation of the meta-system to the content it maps and the properties of the coordinate architecture through which that content is organized. They can therefore be formulated as a set of distinct but interrelated criteria for evaluating whether a proposed meta-system can function as a universal framework.
A. Relations to Mapped Content
1. Non-reduction
A universal meta-system must provide a common basis for comparing different ontological and explanatory frameworks while remaining independent of the substantive assumptions of any framework being mapped. Inclusion within a common coordinate space should therefore not require one discipline or system of description to be reduced to another. The meta-system should not assign a priori priority to one type of description and then interpret other systems through it. For example, a psychological description should not be reduced to a neuroscientific one, a religious description to a psychological one, a physical description to an informational one, or an informational description to a physical one unless such a reduction is itself a claim made by the system being analyzed. The purpose of the meta-system is to establish relations among different forms of description while preserving the distinctions through which each system defines its own subject matter and explanatory commitments. Non-reduction therefore requires the comparative basis itself to remain independent of the substantive assumptions of the systems it maps. A universal meta-system should allow different ontological and explanatory frameworks to be related without making one of them the implicit standard to which the others must conform.
A universal meta-system should provide a common basis for comparing different ontological and explanatory frameworks that remains independent of the substantive assumptions of any framework being mapped, without assigning a priori priority to one type of description or reducing others to it.
2. Capacity
A universal meta-system must be capable of containing a wide range of systems and forms of knowledge within a common coordinate space, including descriptions whose concepts, methods, or conclusions may be incompatible with one another. Such incompatibility should not require preliminary elimination simply to make comparison possible. The meta-system should also remain open to disciplines, ontologies, modes of description, and forms of knowledge whose concepts or methods differ from those of the meta-system itself. A domain should not be excluded merely because it cannot be expressed immediately in the language or categories with which the meta-system was initially constructed. Exclusion on such grounds would indicate a limitation in the capacity of the coordinate space rather than an established inadequacy of the mapped domain. Capacity therefore concerns the range of material that a meta-system can accommodate without requiring that material to conform in advance to its own conceptual vocabulary. A universal framework must be sufficiently inclusive to allow heterogeneous systems to enter the same space of analysis while preserving the differences that make them distinct.
A universal meta-system must be capable of containing heterogeneous and incompatible descriptions without prematurely resolving their incompatibility or excluding them because their concepts and methods differ from those of the meta-system itself.
3. Contradiction-capacity
A universal meta-system must also be capable of representing claims that directly contradict one another. Different systems may formulate incompatible propositions concerning the same subject, while relying on different conditions of description, contexts, scales, conceptual languages, or underlying assumptions. Such contradictions should initially remain representable within the common coordinate structure rather than being eliminated simply because they cannot be simultaneously accepted within a single framework. This creates the conditions for a subsequent analysis of the disagreement. The meta-system should make it possible to distinguish whether an apparent contradiction arises from different levels or conditions of description, from differences in conceptual or methodological assumptions, or from a genuinely fundamental incompatibility. The purpose of such differentiation is not to resolve every contradiction in advance, but to make the conditions of the contradiction themselves available for analysis. Contradiction-capacity therefore extends the requirement of capacity into the domain of conflict. A framework that can contain different systems but cannot represent their incompatible claims without prematurely selecting between them remains limited in its ability to map the full range of knowledge. A universal meta-system must preserve contradiction as an analyzable relation within its coordinate space.
A universal meta-system should be capable of representing contradictory claims without requiring their immediate elimination, while distinguishing the conditions, contexts, scales, and presuppositions under which those claims are formulated.
B. Properties of the Coordinate Architecture
4. Minimality
A universal meta-system should provide the minimum set of fundamental coordinates required to compare diverse claims about reality. The purpose of these coordinates is to establish a common basis for analysis, while avoiding the accumulation of substantive concepts that would progressively turn the meta-system into another subject-specific theory. The more content a meta-system incorporates into its fundamental architecture, the more its capacity to accommodate other systems may become dependent on assumptions already built into that architecture. Minimality therefore concerns the distinction between the coordinates required to organize comparison and the substantive content that is being compared. The fundamental coordinates should be sufficient to represent the relations necessary for analysis without prescribing in advance the particular concepts, entities, processes, or explanatory principles through which reality must be understood. A meta-system that requires an expanding inventory of fundamental categories in order to accommodate each new domain would increasingly resemble an encyclopedic theory rather than a universal coordinate framework. The requirement of minimality does not imply that the meta-system must be conceptually simple in its applications. A minimal coordinate architecture can generate extensive analytical complexity through the relations among its coordinates, the variety of systems that can be mapped within it, and the methods through which those systems can be coordinated. What must remain limited is the number of fundamental assumptions built into the coordinate architecture itself.
A universal meta-system should provide the minimum set of coordinates required to compare diverse claims about reality.
5. Invariance
The fundamental coordinates of a universal meta-system should retain their analytical function across different domains of inquiry. A coordinate that performs one analytical operation in one discipline but acquires a fundamentally different function in another cannot provide a stable basis for comparison. Its interpretation may vary according to the material being mapped, but the function it performs within the meta-system must remain identifiable across domains. Invariance therefore concerns the stability of the coordinate function rather than uniformity of content. The same coordinate may correspond to different concepts, relations, or processes when applied to different ontologies or disciplinary frameworks, provided that its role within the meta-system remains consistent. This allows the coordinate architecture to accommodate substantial differences in the systems it maps without requiring the coordinates themselves to be redefined for each application. The requirement of invariance also distinguishes a universal meta-system from a collection of domain-specific analytical schemes. If the fundamental coordinates must be altered whenever the meta-system moves from one field to another, the resulting framework no longer provides a common coordinate basis. Its apparent universality would depend on repeatedly adapting its fundamental architecture to the material under examination.
The fundamental coordinates of a universal meta-system should retain their analytical function across different domains of inquiry.
C. Reflexive and Extensional Properties
6. Reflexivity
A universal meta-system must remain capable of examining the coordinates, assumptions, limitations, and methods through which it organizes the knowledge it maps. If a meta-system provides a general basis for analyzing other systems, the principles by which that basis is constructed must themselves remain open to analysis. The meta-system should therefore not exempt its own fundamental principles from the analytical procedures through which it examines other systems. Reflexivity does not require the meta-system to map itself as another object within its own coordinate system; it requires the principles constituting its analytical basis to remain available for examination rather than being treated as unquestioned premises. Reflexivity also requires a distinction between the analytical map and what the map is intended to represent. A coordinate architecture may organize and compare different descriptions of reality without thereby constituting an exhaustive or final description of reality itself. The meta-system must therefore remain capable of examining the scope and limits of its representation and of distinguishing the validity of its analytical operations from any claim that its own conceptual architecture exhausts the structure of reality. Without such reflexivity, a universal framework can establish an asymmetrical relation in which its own principles function as standards for analyzing other systems while remaining exempt from the same analytical scrutiny. In that case, the coordinate architecture risks becoming a privileged ontology rather than remaining a meta-level basis for comparison. Reflexivity therefore preserves the openness of the meta-system to examination of its own foundations without requiring those foundations to be abandoned or reduced to another mapped system.
A universal meta-system should not exempt its own coordinates, assumptions, and analytical procedures from examination while distinguishing the validity of its map from any claim that the map constitutes a final or exhaustive description of reality.
7. Reconstructability
A universal meta-system should make it possible not only to locate and classify different systems of knowledge, but also to reconstruct the relations through which those systems are organized. These relations may include dependencies, correspondences, distinctions, transformations, sequences, and other structural connections among the elements of a mapped system and between different systems. This requirement is essential because a system of knowledge cannot be adequately represented by a collection of isolated categories or positions. Its concepts acquire their particular significance through the relations in which they participate. A meta-system that preserves only the presence of individual elements while losing the relations among them would provide classification without adequate reconstruction. Reconstructability therefore moves the meta-system beyond a classificatory scheme toward a cartographic architecture. It makes it possible to preserve not only where a concept, claim, or process is located, but also how it relates to the other elements of the system and to corresponding elements in other systems.
A universal meta-system should make it possible to reconstruct structural relations within and between the systems it maps.
8. Extensional Openness
A universal meta-system should accommodate new domains, ontologies, and conceptual frameworks without requiring a revision of its fundamental coordinates. Its universality therefore includes the capacity for extension beyond the material considered during its initial construction. New forms of knowledge may introduce concepts, relations, or modes of description that were not previously represented within the meta-system. Such additions should be capable of being incorporated through the existing coordinate architecture rather than requiring the fundamental coordinates themselves to be replaced or supplemented with new foundational categories. The mapped content may expand indefinitely while the basis through which that content is organized remains stable. This distinguishes extensional openness from the gradual expansion of an encyclopedic theory. An encyclopedic framework can become more comprehensive by continually adding substantive categories as new domains are encountered. A universal coordinate architecture must instead be capable of accommodating new material without making the addition of each new domain a reason to redesign its fundamental basis.
A universal meta-system should accommodate new domains, ontologies, and conceptual frameworks without requiring a revision of its fundamental coordinates.
7. Meta-Para-Ontology as a Candidate Meta-System
The criteria identified above were among the original requirements that guided the development of Meta-Para-Ontology (MPO) itself. From the outset, the aim was to construct a meta-system capable of transdisciplinary analysis and of bringing the full diversity of human knowledge into a common ontological framework. The resulting architecture addresses the problem of a Theory of Everything by raising it to a meta-level and proposing Meta-Para-Ontology as an architectural solution: a framework capable of relating diverse theories and their different descriptions of reality within a common ontological space.
7.1 Register Ontology as the Coordinate Architecture
Register Ontology provides the fundamental coordinate architecture of MPO through four ontological registers: Meta-Potentiality, Formative Causality, Manifestation, and Meta-Actualization, identified through the analysis and synthesis of the accumulated body of human knowledge (Shapoval 2026). These registers function as invariant ontological coordinates, independent of the substantive categories of any particular discipline or conceptual framework. Their role is to provide a limited set of fundamental distinctions through which heterogeneous systems can be localized and related.
The distinction between coordinates and mapped content is essential to this architecture. The concepts, entities, processes, and explanatory principles encountered in different systems may vary substantially, while the analytical function of the four registers remains stable. This allows the same coordinate architecture to be applied across different domains without requiring its fundamental coordinates to be redesigned for each application. Its minimality lies in the limited number of fundamental coordinates; its analytical range arises from the relations among those coordinates and from the diversity of systems that can be mapped through them.
7.2 Polymetaphysical Cartography and the Preservation of Difference
Polymetaphysical Cartography, developed within the theoretical framework of MPO, applies this coordinate architecture to philosophical, scientific, psychological, and metaphysical systems. Its methodological object is the structural function reconstructed from a concept within its native explanatory framework. Functional Reconstruction first isolates and formalizes the indispensable operation performed by the concept, while Cartographic Localization subsequently positions the reconstructed operation within the MPO topology. This allows concepts belonging to substantially different frameworks to become structurally comparable while remaining identifiable within their own conceptual and theoretical architectures. The methodology is further developed through formal methodological principles and protocols that specify the conditions under which such reconstruction and localization are performed.
This provides the basis for non-reduction and capacity. Systems whose concepts, methods, or ontological commitments differ substantially can enter the same analytical space without one being established in advance as the standard through which the others must be interpreted. The same coordinate architecture can accommodate structurally incompatible descriptions without requiring their truth-claims to be resolved in advance. Once their structural functions have been reconstructed, the relations between them can be examined in terms of their ontological positions, contexts, scales, and underlying conceptual commitments. This distinction is therefore not a procedure for dissolving contradictions into apparent differences. It provides a basis for determining whether an incompatibility results from different conditions of description or remains a genuinely fundamental contradiction. In either case, the incompatible claims remain available for analysis within the common coordinate space.
7.3 Reconstructability and Functional Resolution
MPO is designed to preserve more than the location of isolated concepts or claims. Polymetaphysical Cartography reconstructs the relations through which mapped systems are organized, including distinctions, dependencies, correspondences, sequences, and transformations. A system can therefore remain recognizable after being localized within the common coordinate architecture, while its relations to other systems become available for comparison.
Functional Ontology provides a further level of analytical resolution within Manifestation through the functions of Recall, Differentiation, and Actualization. These functions describe internal processes of formed existence without constituting additional ontological registers, while explaining the internal mechanism underlying interdisciplinary relations. The distinction between Register Ontology and Functional Ontology therefore allows MPO to retain a minimal fundamental coordinate architecture while providing greater analytical resolution where required.
7.4 Reflexivity and Extensional Openness
MPO also remains subject to examination through the principles by which its own analytical operations are organized. Reflexivity does not require MPO to map itself as another object within its coordinate system. It requires its coordinates, assumptions, and analytical procedures to remain open to examination rather than receiving automatic exemption from the scrutiny applied to mapped systems. This preserves the distinction between the validity of a coordinate architecture as an analytical map and any claim that the map constitutes an exhaustive description of reality.
The same architecture is also designed to accommodate domains that were not present during its initial construction. New ontologies and conceptual frameworks may introduce new concepts, relations, and modes of description, but their incorporation does not in itself require additional fundamental registers. The mapped material can therefore expand while the coordinate basis remains stable. Extensional openness consists in this capacity to extend the cartography without continually expanding its foundational architecture.
7.5 Meta-Para-Ontology as a Candidate Universal Meta-System
Meta-Para-Ontology satisfies these requirements through the coordinated operation of its fundamental architecture and methodologies. Register Ontology provides a minimal and invariant coordinate architecture; Polymetaphysical Cartography enables heterogeneous systems to be related without reducing them to a common substantive vocabulary; contradiction-capacity preserves incompatible claims as objects of analysis while allowing differences in conditions of description to be distinguished; Functional Ontology and cartographic reconstruction preserve internal relations; reflexivity keeps the architecture itself open to examination; and extensional openness allows new domains to be incorporated without requiring a revision of the fundamental coordinate basis.
The universality claimed by MPO therefore concerns the function of its architecture rather than the completeness of its substantive content. It does not depend on containing every theory or domain within its foundational categories. It depends on whether heterogeneous descriptions can be accommodated, localized, related, reconstructed, and extended within a common coordinate space while retaining the distinctions through which they formulate their own claims. MPO can therefore be understood as more than an integrative framework for bringing theories into contact. Its architecture provides a common space in which different descriptions of reality can remain distinct while their ontological scope, internal organization, and connections with other descriptions become systematically intelligible.
7. Conclusion: Beyond Integration
The analysis developed throughout this paper begins with a problem that cannot be resolved through the further accumulation or coordination of specialized knowledge alone. The fragmentation of knowledge arises not only from the increasing differentiation of disciplines, but also from the fact that different systems of inquiry may operate with different concepts, assumptions, methods, and criteria of explanation. Bringing such systems into contact therefore requires a basis of comparison that remains independent of any particular system while preserving the distinctions through which each system formulates its claims. The transition from interdisciplinarity to a universal meta-system follows from this requirement.
The eight criteria developed in this paper specify the principal conditions for such a meta-system. It must preserve non-reduction while providing sufficient capacity to accommodate heterogeneous and incompatible descriptions. It must represent contradiction as an object of analysis while maintaining a minimal and invariant coordinate architecture. It must remain reflexively open to examination of its own foundations, preserve the relations through which mapped systems are organized, and accommodate new domains without requiring continual expansion of its fundamental basis. These criteria define a meta-system whose universality concerns the function of its coordinate architecture.
Meta-Para-Ontology is proposed as a candidate realization of these requirements. Its Register Ontology provides a limited set of fundamental ontological coordinates, while Polymetaphysical Cartography applies those coordinates to heterogeneous philosophical, scientific, psychological, and metaphysical systems. Different systems of knowledge need not become parts of a single doctrine in order to become mutually intelligible. They can retain their own concepts, explanatory commitments, and forms of articulation while being localized within a common architecture and examined in relation to one another. Meta-Para-Ontology therefore proposes a transition from the integration of knowledge to the cartography of reality: from attempting to construct one comprehensive description toward establishing a coordinate space in which the plurality of descriptions can itself become systematically intelligible.
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