- A metatheory is a theory that provides a framework for understanding and studying other theories. It is a higher-level theory that explains the relationships between different theories and provides a way to compare and evaluate them. Metatheories help researchers to understand the underlying assumptions, concepts, and methods of different theoretical approaches and to identify areas where different theories may overlap or conflict. They are important in many fields, including philosophy, psychology, and sociology, where they provide a way to organize and integrate different theoretical perspectives. - The following is an example of a meta-theoretical statement by Stephen Hawking: > Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. - Meta-theoretical investigations are generally part of the philosophy of science. Also a metatheory is an object of concern to the area in which the individual theory is conceived.