On multi-paradigms and materialism

As to the charge of materialism, note the following from Philosophy in the Flesh, Chapter Chapter 7, where they discuss phenomenology, functionalism and materialism. And that their type of embodied realism does not limit explanation to only one of those domains but embraces all of them while each having different validity criteria for their domains.

They also discuss eliminativism, which posits that the only real things are physical. Continuing the above, they do admit to being physicalists in that there is a physical basis for such non-physical entities like phonemes and verbs. But they do not accept that physical materialism is the only arbiter of reality.

"We have seen that reality and truth occur relative to our understanding at many levels and from many perspectives. This is inconsistent with the classical eliminativist program in the philosophy of science, which asserts that the only realities and the only truths are at the "lowest level," here the neural level, that is, the level of neurochemistry and cellular physiology."

The bottom line is that like Wilber they accept there are different domains of investigation and that there are levels of understanding within those domains. And that includes the material realm explored by physics, but taking account of other domains and levels is not reduced solely to that domain. Unlike Wilber they don't accept that there is any one domain or level (like consciousness) that is the final arbiter or source of all the others.

Also check out Stein's Integral Review article here, where he lays out his interpretation of the tenets of metamodernism. Given the above this one seems in agreement:

"To be anti-essentialist, not believing in “ultimate essences” such as matter, consciousness, goodness, evil, masculinity, femininity or the like–but rather that all these things are contextual and interpretations made from relations and comparisons. Even the today so praised “relationality” is not an essence of the universe" (190).

In that sense L&J are also anti-essentialist. However this tenet seems to contradict the above and be more like Wilber's panpsychism:

"To explore visions of panpsychism, i.e. that consciousness is everywhere in the universe and 'as real' as matter and space. But panpsychism should not be confused with animistic visions of all things having 'spirits'" (191).

I guess it depends on how he defines consciousness, which he does not in this article, and which could be very different than how e.g., neuroscientist Damasio does.

Also see chapter 3 of my review of Thompson's book. E.g.:

We cannot realistically infer that consciousness is the primary reality out of which everything is composed. Thompson sees consciousness as embodied, embedded and enactive within an environment. While consciousness might belong to us specifically it belongs to, or is enacted with, this overall physical and material matrix. Consciousness and embodiment occur together in mutual entailment. He asserts that he subscribes to philosophical emergentism, in that consciousness is a natural phenomenon, its complexity arising in concert with the complexity of its physical basis.