Towards transdisciplinary education

Basarab Nicolescu

doi:10.4102/td.v1i1.300

Abstract

The methodology of transdisciplinarity is founded on three postulates: there are, in Nature and in our knowledge of Nature, different levels of Reality and, correspondingly, different levels of perception; the passage from one level of Reality to another is insured by the logic of the included middle; and the structure of the totality of levels of Reality or perception is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time. After giving an exposition of these postulates the author contends that transdisciplinarity does not rest on a transfer from modern science. Instead, modern science, via its most general aspects, makes it possible to identify the postulates of transdisciplinarity. However, once they are formulated they have a much wider validity then in modern science itself, namely they could be applied in the field of education and culture.It is argued that transdisciplinary education, founded on the transdisciplinary methodology, will allow scientists to establish links between persons, facts, images, representations, fields of knowledge and action.

Highlights

The methodology of transdisciplinarity is founded on three postulates: there are, in Nature and in our knowledge of Nature, different levels of Reality and, correspondingly, different levels of perception; the passage from one level of Reality to another is insured by the logic of the included middle; and the structure of the totality of levels of Reality or perception is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time
One can find multiple after-the-fact explanations and rationalisations without ever successfully dissipating the feeling that there is an irrational element at work at the heart of the process
Neither the masses nor great decision makers, as actors in a well-defined civilisation, seem able to stop the decline of their civilization, even if they become more or less aware of the processes at work

Summary

KNOWLEDGE TK

IN VIVO Correspondence between world (Object) and internal world (Subject) understanding external analytic intelligence new type of intelligence - harmony between mind, feelings and body oriented towards power and posses- oriented towards astonishment and sion sharing binary logic exclusion of values included middle logic inclusion of values.

In the left part are symbolically drawn the levels of Reality

This ternary partition