by Predrag Cicovacki (Department of Philosophy, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, USA)
We are witnessing, I am convinced, the first stages of a new and extremely promising revolution. This movement promotes a new approach to human knowledge - ranging from and including natural sciences, social sciences and humanities - and, indeed, a new approach to humanity in general. The temporary name of this revolution is "transdisciplinarity," and one of its most important pioneers and champions is the quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu. As the author of La transdisciplinarité, the initial manifesto of the transdisciplinary movement, he continues to develop this new vision of human knowledge and a new approach to the world in which we live together. The goal of my paper is to contribute to the development of this new paradigm by offering a sympathetic yet critical reflection on the fundamental philosophical and methodological aspects of transdisciplinarity. I will begin (section I) by discussing the word 'transdisciplinary' and will argue that transdisciplinarity should be understood as an interactive method. After that, I will consider (in sections II-IV) the so-called "three pillars of transdisciplinarity: the levels of Reality, the logic of the included middle, and complexity," which Nicolescu claims "determine the methodology of transdisciplinary research."(1) What is at least initially unclear are two questions: First, why are there exactly three pillars, rather than two, or four, or any other number? Second, why these particular pillars, rather than any others? After suggesting why Nicolescu's three pillars should be renamed as transdisciplinary ontology, transdisciplinary logic, and transdisciplinary epistemology, I will in the end (in section V) insist that there is a need for the fourth pillar as well. Nicolescu himself often emphasizes the value aspect of transdisciplinarity, namely that "it is a way of self-transformation, oriented towards the knowledge of the self, the unity of knowledge, and the creation of a new art of living."(2) For this reason transdisciplinarity requires the fourth pillar as well, a new transdisciplinary theory of values.
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Friday, 8 May 2009
Monday, 4 May 2009
Transdisciplinary Studies
Transdisciplinary Studies are an area of research and education that addresses contemporary issues that cannot be solved by one or even a few points-of-view. It brings together academic experts, field practitioners, community members, research scientists, political leaders, and business owners among others to solve some of the pressing problems facing the world, from the local to the global.
Transdisciplinary studies are related to a set of ideas such as interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and integrative studies. What sets transdisciplinary studies apart from the others is a particular emphasis on engagement, investigation, and participation in addressing present-day issues and problems in a manner that explicitly destabilizes disciplinary boundaries while respecting disciplinary expertise. They are built around three key concepts: transformative praxis, constructive problem-solving and real-world engagement. The advocates of transdisciplinary studies argue that they come from the nature of the 21st century world, with its loss of a unifying narrative of knowledge, the continuing destabilization of disciplinary boundaries, and the transgressive character of the times. Our world, they claim, requires a contextualizing of knowledge in order to address complex worldwide issues (such as global warming and ethnic cleansing) and a collaboration across academic disciplines that includes non-academics in solving problems and addressing global issues.[1]
Transdisciplinary studies as a field of academic activity is rooted in the Charter of Transdisciplinarity,[2] adopted at the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity at the Convento da Arrábida, Portugal in 1994.[3] It is clear from the beginning of the document that transdisciplinarity is not another method or another field of research. At its core, the charter lays out an ethos, a call to a way of life, a “personal moral commitment.” It begins with what can only be called a pessimistic overview of the world in the late 20th century, a complex world riddled with conflict and verging on self-destruction, a world where the secular and the spiritual, the scientific and the humanistic, are divorced and unable to speak to each other.
In the preamble, phrases such as “the triumph of techno-science,” “productivity for productivity’s sake” and “a new brand of obscurantism” raise ominous visions of a world on the edge. The fifteen articles of the charter that follow reject a variety of forces that threaten humanity: the reduction of human beings to “formal structures” and of reality to a “single level governed by a single form of logic.” It rejects those that “strive for mastery,” the “claim to total objectivity,” and the refusal of “dialogue and discussion,” as well as claims to primacy by particular cultures, market economics, and specific disciplines.
Hope lies in “the transdisciplinary vision,” an “open-minded rationality” that encompasses not only science, both natural and social, and the humanities, but also “spiritual experience,” a “transhistorical horizon,” “transcultural” meaning, and “transnational” citizenship. It is a rigorous rationality that must also be open to “the unknown, the unexpected and the unforeseeable,” including “myth and religions,” while rejecting dogmatism, ideology, and intolerance.
The values embedded in the transdisciplinary vision are basic: sharing, respect, and resolve. As with any ethos, it calls for a commitment not to a method or practice, but to a way of being; not to a new religion or metaphysics, but to a new way of life. The binary distinctions between the public and the private, the mental and the physical, the object and the subject, are transcended in this new vision. It is a distinctly postmodern point-of-view, calling on women and men, on “transdisciplinary-minded persons of all countries” to join in bringing this vision into reality, into “everyday life.” It is a bold vision; some might even say an impossible one, filled with a zeal for justice, equality, inclusion, and true democratic decision-making.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdisciplinary_Studies
Transdisciplinary studies are related to a set of ideas such as interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and integrative studies. What sets transdisciplinary studies apart from the others is a particular emphasis on engagement, investigation, and participation in addressing present-day issues and problems in a manner that explicitly destabilizes disciplinary boundaries while respecting disciplinary expertise. They are built around three key concepts: transformative praxis, constructive problem-solving and real-world engagement. The advocates of transdisciplinary studies argue that they come from the nature of the 21st century world, with its loss of a unifying narrative of knowledge, the continuing destabilization of disciplinary boundaries, and the transgressive character of the times. Our world, they claim, requires a contextualizing of knowledge in order to address complex worldwide issues (such as global warming and ethnic cleansing) and a collaboration across academic disciplines that includes non-academics in solving problems and addressing global issues.[1]
Transdisciplinary studies as a field of academic activity is rooted in the Charter of Transdisciplinarity,[2] adopted at the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity at the Convento da Arrábida, Portugal in 1994.[3] It is clear from the beginning of the document that transdisciplinarity is not another method or another field of research. At its core, the charter lays out an ethos, a call to a way of life, a “personal moral commitment.” It begins with what can only be called a pessimistic overview of the world in the late 20th century, a complex world riddled with conflict and verging on self-destruction, a world where the secular and the spiritual, the scientific and the humanistic, are divorced and unable to speak to each other.
In the preamble, phrases such as “the triumph of techno-science,” “productivity for productivity’s sake” and “a new brand of obscurantism” raise ominous visions of a world on the edge. The fifteen articles of the charter that follow reject a variety of forces that threaten humanity: the reduction of human beings to “formal structures” and of reality to a “single level governed by a single form of logic.” It rejects those that “strive for mastery,” the “claim to total objectivity,” and the refusal of “dialogue and discussion,” as well as claims to primacy by particular cultures, market economics, and specific disciplines.
Hope lies in “the transdisciplinary vision,” an “open-minded rationality” that encompasses not only science, both natural and social, and the humanities, but also “spiritual experience,” a “transhistorical horizon,” “transcultural” meaning, and “transnational” citizenship. It is a rigorous rationality that must also be open to “the unknown, the unexpected and the unforeseeable,” including “myth and religions,” while rejecting dogmatism, ideology, and intolerance.
The values embedded in the transdisciplinary vision are basic: sharing, respect, and resolve. As with any ethos, it calls for a commitment not to a method or practice, but to a way of being; not to a new religion or metaphysics, but to a new way of life. The binary distinctions between the public and the private, the mental and the physical, the object and the subject, are transcended in this new vision. It is a distinctly postmodern point-of-view, calling on women and men, on “transdisciplinary-minded persons of all countries” to join in bringing this vision into reality, into “everyday life.” It is a bold vision; some might even say an impossible one, filled with a zeal for justice, equality, inclusion, and true democratic decision-making.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdisciplinary_Studies
God Talk
by Staney Fish
Published in New York Times 3rd May 2009
In the opening sentence of the last chapter of his new book, “Reason, Faith and Revolution,” the British critic Terry Eagleton asks, “Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?” His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance — science, reason, liberalism, capitalism — just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed. “What other symbolic form,” he queries, “has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?”
Eagleton acknowledges that the links forged are not always benign — many terrible things have been done in religion’s name — but at least religion is trying for something more than local satisfactions, for its “subject is nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself, in relation to what it takes to be its transcendent source of life.” And it is only that great subject, and the aspirations it generates, that can lead, Eagleton insists, to “a radical transformation of what we say and do.”
The other projects, he concedes, provide various comforts and pleasures, but they are finally superficial and tend to the perpetuation of the status quo rather than to meaningful change: “A society of packaged fulfillment, administered desire, managerialized politics and consumerist economics is unlikely to cut to the depth where theological questions can ever be properly raised.”
More.
Published in New York Times 3rd May 2009
In the opening sentence of the last chapter of his new book, “Reason, Faith and Revolution,” the British critic Terry Eagleton asks, “Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?” His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance — science, reason, liberalism, capitalism — just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed. “What other symbolic form,” he queries, “has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?”
Eagleton acknowledges that the links forged are not always benign — many terrible things have been done in religion’s name — but at least religion is trying for something more than local satisfactions, for its “subject is nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself, in relation to what it takes to be its transcendent source of life.” And it is only that great subject, and the aspirations it generates, that can lead, Eagleton insists, to “a radical transformation of what we say and do.”
The other projects, he concedes, provide various comforts and pleasures, but they are finally superficial and tend to the perpetuation of the status quo rather than to meaningful change: “A society of packaged fulfillment, administered desire, managerialized politics and consumerist economics is unlikely to cut to the depth where theological questions can ever be properly raised.”
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Tuesday, 13 January 2009
France's most fêted thinker
Mme Duflo is a "development economist" one of the world's greatest experts – perhaps the greatest – on why development programmes in poor countries often fail and why they sometimes succeed. Her precise field of expertise has existed less than a decade. She is among its inventors.
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Thursday, 11 December 2008
MAKING SENSE
An international, multi-disciplinary colloquium 25/09/2009: MAKING SENSE
At this colloquium we will bring the artist, curator and philosopher together, through the medium of academia, with the intent of finding new ways to frame and develop discourse. We want to create a common language that expresses how we can make sense of the world today, through the creation and reception of contemporary art. We intend this conference to bring together key players from the world of art, aesthetic philosophy and contemporary theory, in a way that can provide 'live' source material for debate and research, and so create an interface for new thought. Our main speakers secured for this event are the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and the French installation artist Sophie Calle. Our slogan MAKING SENSE begins from an explicitly Nancean thesis, and intends to mobilise the contemporary aesthetic theory and 'sense' of Jean-Luc Nancy, in relation to current works of art, and how they are shown to us by curatorial practice. The intent is to apply a theoretical debate about sense to a contemporary praxis that can 'make sense', as developed through what we can see from contemporary art, and how we actually see it. -- The Colloquium itself will take place at The Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages, The University of Cambridge, 25th September, 2009. Contact details: MAKING SENSE - call for participation: Rather than formal papers being presented in closed 20-minute slots, this colloquium is an experimental forum that encourages reaction and debate. The format of the event will be choreographed around presentations from and responses to the plenary speakers, shorter bursts of ideas that respond to the questions raised below, and artistic installation and performance. We will produce a new form of creative academic scholarship. Closing date for proposals: February 15, 2009.
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At this colloquium we will bring the artist, curator and philosopher together, through the medium of academia, with the intent of finding new ways to frame and develop discourse. We want to create a common language that expresses how we can make sense of the world today, through the creation and reception of contemporary art. We intend this conference to bring together key players from the world of art, aesthetic philosophy and contemporary theory, in a way that can provide 'live' source material for debate and research, and so create an interface for new thought. Our main speakers secured for this event are the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and the French installation artist Sophie Calle. Our slogan MAKING SENSE begins from an explicitly Nancean thesis, and intends to mobilise the contemporary aesthetic theory and 'sense' of Jean-Luc Nancy, in relation to current works of art, and how they are shown to us by curatorial practice. The intent is to apply a theoretical debate about sense to a contemporary praxis that can 'make sense', as developed through what we can see from contemporary art, and how we actually see it. -- The Colloquium itself will take place at The Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages, The University of Cambridge, 25th September, 2009. Contact details:
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Wednesday, 10 December 2008
CFP: Foreignness and Translation in New Media
Call for Papers media-N spring edition, 2009
Theme:Foreignness and Translation in New Media.
Guest Editor for this special issue is Pat Badani, Assistant Professor, Integrated Media, at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, U.S.A.
This issue will deal with the relationship between foreignness and translation in new media. We look forward to a discussion on the idea of foreignness seen as an investigation surrounding notions of travel, displacement and migration beyond those tied to the geographical movement of populations.
We are interested in the broad practice of translation in new media, in the use of an electronic system that mediates and enables the movement from one state to another. We also welcome submissions exploring the specific notion of cultural translation and migration in new media. That is to say, we are interested in a discussion on cultural markers that are displaced into foreign and extraneous locations, languages, supports and genres.
This issue expands the debate initiated during the Colloquium Foreigners in Art and Technology held at Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, Argentina (August 12 & 13, 2008).
The scope of this issue is double: theoretical and practical. We welcome submissions on critical thinking and studio practices. Artists and theorists are invited to discuss their artwork and/or critical thinking in this area.
Please submit via email to: Pat Badani at pbadaniilstuedu
Deadline: February 14, 2009
Event reviews:The editorial board also invites proposals for reviews of exhibitions, events, festivals, conferences, etc. See examples of reviews in the current issue.
[·] Media-N author's agreement is available from the Copyright Statement.
[·] Send manuscripts via email to: Rachel Clarke, Editor in Chief (rclarkecsusedu)
Theme:Foreignness and Translation in New Media.
Guest Editor for this special issue is Pat Badani, Assistant Professor, Integrated Media, at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, U.S.A.
This issue will deal with the relationship between foreignness and translation in new media. We look forward to a discussion on the idea of foreignness seen as an investigation surrounding notions of travel, displacement and migration beyond those tied to the geographical movement of populations.
We are interested in the broad practice of translation in new media, in the use of an electronic system that mediates and enables the movement from one state to another. We also welcome submissions exploring the specific notion of cultural translation and migration in new media. That is to say, we are interested in a discussion on cultural markers that are displaced into foreign and extraneous locations, languages, supports and genres.
This issue expands the debate initiated during the Colloquium Foreigners in Art and Technology held at Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, Argentina (August 12 & 13, 2008).
The scope of this issue is double: theoretical and practical. We welcome submissions on critical thinking and studio practices. Artists and theorists are invited to discuss their artwork and/or critical thinking in this area.
Please submit via email to: Pat Badani at pbadaniilstuedu
Deadline: February 14, 2009
Event reviews:The editorial board also invites proposals for reviews of exhibitions, events, festivals, conferences, etc. See examples of reviews in the current issue.
[·] Media-N author's agreement is available from the Copyright Statement.
[·] Send manuscripts via email to: Rachel Clarke, Editor in Chief (rclarkecsusedu)
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Mapping Architectural Controversies (MAC)
Mapping Architectural Controversies (MAC) is an interactive website dedicated to students and researchers working on controversies surrounding design projects, buildings, master plans, and urban and development issues. Documenting and visualising recent controversies in architecture, it also aims to address a broader audience interested in the design of cities, spatial networks and built environments as well as planners, representatives of city government, NGOs and citizens. As it is a part of the EU-funded project MACOSPOL, Mapping Architectural Controversies draws on a variety of documental sources and visual methods to explore the multifarious connections of architecture and society.
MAC comprises a research method, a teaching philosophy and a way to approach public debates. The platform serves as a database on controversies related to a variety of topics from Science, Technology, Innovation, Design and Urban Planning, provides tutorial guidance to the Mapping Controversies teaching and learning methods and their relevance to architectural studies, and showcases some initiatives in enhancing the public understanding of controversies.
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MAC comprises a research method, a teaching philosophy and a way to approach public debates. The platform serves as a database on controversies related to a variety of topics from Science, Technology, Innovation, Design and Urban Planning, provides tutorial guidance to the Mapping Controversies teaching and learning methods and their relevance to architectural studies, and showcases some initiatives in enhancing the public understanding of controversies.
More.
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