What
is Transdisciplinarity?
The
best primer on transdisciplinarity is the Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity
by Basarab Nicolescu (trans. by Karen-Claire Voss, State University
of New York Press, 2003). Basarab Nicolescu is a quantum physicist
working at CNRS in Paris and the founder of CIRET—Centre Internationale
pour Recherches et Études Transdisciplinaire. It is my hope
that the following remarks will serve as a prolegomena for
an introduction.
Transdisciplinarity
is not a method, but an approach—to everything. Moreover, unlike
using a method, lf one truly adopts transdisciplinarity, it entails
ontological change; i.e., a change of being.
It
is based on two ideas from quantum physics. First, it encompasses
the logic of the included middle, a logic that is quite different
then binary, Aristotelian logic—there is no A this is A and non-A
at the same time. That logic excludes the middle. In fact, it
is fundamental that there is no middle, no third possibility. Yet
the middle is a part of Reality and must be accounted for. The
logic of the included middle has been show to be mathematically
formalizable by the late mathematician Stéphane Lupasco. It is
a logic that is ideally suited to accounting for complexities of
various kinds. While binary logic is useful in its place—for example,
it would be a serious mistake to use the logic of the included middle
while crossing a street, lest one be run over by a large truck—it
is decidedly not useful for dealing with other situations.
The
second idea in transdisciplinarity is that Reality is comprised
of more than one level. Each level of Reality has its own laws
and logic. Phenomena on the quantum level, for example, behave
differently than those on the level of the everyday.
All
of our contemporary institutions—political, social, economic, and
religious—are founded on binary logic and the idea that Reality
is comprised of only one level. They are based on the Newtonian
view of the world and a 19th century view of what constitutes
the scientific. Such a view is hardly adequate to enabling us to
deal with the unprecedented complexity that we must confront in
the 21st century. This is why our institutions all fall
short of being able to deal with the problems they are called upon
to try and resolve. And this is precisely why the transdisciplinary
approach is urgently called for. Our epistemology must begin to
be informed by quantum physics. We have had a technological revolution
and a computer revolution. Why have we not yet had a revolution
based on quantum physics? Our daily life is dominated, in fact,
by a technology that is entirely based on quantum physics, yet our
thought process remains rooted in an outmoded world-view. It is
transdisciplinarity that can move us beyond the chichotomised categories
that function to limit us.
Transdisciplinary
Ateliers
Nicolescu
calls for the creation of ateliers or “work-groups”
that “would be the locus for gathering together a group of teachers
and students from a particular institution that would generate and
oversee their own organization and would all be animated by the
transdisciplinary attitude.”
“Universities,” he writes,
should
create ateliers of transdisciplinary research (free from any
ideological, political or religious control) comprised of researchers
from all disciplines. It is a matter of gradually introducing
researchers and creators exterior to the university including
musicians, poets and artists of high caliber in specific university
projects with a view towards establishing academic dialogue
between different cultural approaches.
These
ateliers, as Nicolescu points out, would be geared toward
encouraging and developing the “application of the transcultural,
transreligious and transnational.”
He adds that “Special effort must be made so that some of these
ateliers take place in, or in close collaboration with, universities
in developing countries.”
The
choice of the word “atelier” is apt. In English and in
French we normally use the word to refer to a place set apart
for an artist. An atelier is a place in which works
of art are created. Since the formation of a human being
is certainly akin to the process of creating a work of art, what
better term could there be for a gathering place for people, “all
animated by the transdisciplinary attitude,” who are accompanying
one another and guiding one another on a journey of exploration?
The
transdisciplinary atelier is a place where enthusiasm would be the
norm, not the exception, where people could read and think and
contemplate where they could explore ideas and experiment together.
I am convinced that, once created, these transdisciplinary ateliers
could and indeed would lead us back to a rediscovery of the true
meaning of the word ‘university’—a place dedicated to the study
and contemplation of the universe. Moreover, we would discover
that in studying the Object, the universe, the macrocosm, we would
inevitably learn about the microcosm: i.e., the Subject, as well.
And finally, that would lead us to the rediscovery of their essential
unity.
While
I fully agree with Nicolescu that such ateliers need to be created
within every university, it is also my belief that they should
also exist outside universities. I cannot stress this
enough, it is time—high time—that we actively endeavored to bring
these ideas to the People. We have made great inroads in making
transdisciplinarity known and legitimate within the academy.
Certainly, we cannot abandon our efforts in this respect. But
we do need to widen our scope and create events that will atract
Everyman. What is needed now is for us to deliberately undertake
to create occasions, occasions at which all and
more of what someone like a Marsilio Ficino created is present.
That means cultivating the Joy, Poetry, Eros, and Love I have
talked about. That means leaving the grand rooms in often stately
buildings and fashionable eating rooms where we so often hold
our meetings and going out into places like local community centers
and primary and secondary schools, places of worship, and even
private homes. Given the current state of things in the world,
I think that we must move to do this immediately; we cannot wait
until tomorrow, because, as Basarab Nicolescu wrote in his Manifesto
of Transdisciplinarity, “tomorrow may be too late.” I
would alter that to say “tomorrow will be too late.” We
must act now.
To
that end, we are endeavoring to create a space here in this spacious,
light-filled apartment that will support a number of activities,
planned as well as spontaneous, that can function to enable ourselves
and the people with whom we are in contact to develop. What I
have written here constitutes a veritable invitation, an invitation
to rediscover and reanimate the original, life-affirming meaning
of the world ‘university.’ In as much as most of the powers-that-be
in today’s world are pushing all of us in the direction of death,
rather than that of the affirmation of life, I suspect that this
paper also constitutes a challenge. It is my belief that we are
up to it.
Andy
Green and I both want to launch a series of workshops based on
our respective areas of expertise. Andy Green, for example, is
an expert on lute music and lute tablature, he is an accomplished
photgrapher, with a keen eye for capturing the moment, as it were,
and he is an historian. He is also something an expert on the
topic of Pythagoras. He is presently planning several workshops
with these things as their focii.
I
myself am an historian of religions. I specialize in esotericism
during the Renaissance period, but I am competent in a number of
other areas as well: mysticism, feminism, transdisciplinarity,
and issues in contemporary culture. During the twelve years I lived
in Istanbul, I put on a number of workshops, including ones on spiritual
alchemy and Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own. Here,
I would like to do that, and also offer a workshop on contemporary
Turkey, accompanied by a showing of a DVD I produced in Istanbul
with photographer James Snow, called The Dream of Istanbul.
Projet
CIRET-UNESCO, “Évolution transdisciplinaire de l’Université: document
de synthèse,” p.2. Privately circulated, 1996.
[2]
Basarab Nicolescu, “The Transdisciplinary Evolution of the University:
Conditions for Sustainable Development.” Paper presented at the
International Congress, Universities’ Responsibility to Society,
organized by the International Association of Universities, Shulalongkorn
University, Bangkok Thailand, November 12-14, 1997.
Phone: 0796-327-8233
Email: orpheus@agkc.co.uk
