Prophets of Transdisciplinarity

Today is the 12th anniversary of the Charter of Transdisciplinarity, adopted at the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity at the Convento da Arrábida, Portugal (see here). 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 reads as a prophetic document, a challenge to the powers that be and a reprimand to those in academia complicit in sustaining that power. 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 are filled with prophetic rejections of all that threatens 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.

And yet, like theprophets of old, the authors hold out hope if only we turn away from our current path. This 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, and because of this perspective, not all who claim to be working in a transdisciplinary manner embrace all aspects of the charter. It is precisely the spiritualist, the mythological, the prophetic in this charter that raises the most suspicion.

The prophets of transdisciplinarity, however, are not waiting on a messiah, on a transfigured leader to bring salvation. They are not calling on a ruler to re-embrace a lost tradition or faith. They are 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. It is filled with a zeal for justice, equality, inclusion, and true democratic decision-making. It is infused with a missionary spirit, and perhaps it suffers from the naïveté of those who seek converts. But it is an honest aspiration, one born from the deep problems that beset to world in the late 20th century, and still do in the early 21st.

Twelve years later, in a world that many have claimed changed dramatically on September 11, 2001 (if not after the invasion of Iraq in 2003), is prophecy such as this still relevant? Is such a bold, missionary, zealous calling realistic? I would argue that it has never been “realistic;” it has been and still remains, a challenge, a provocation, and like all good prophetic challenges, a vision the claims us. It says: I’m offering a way, what’s yours? If not this way, which way? The cynical, never attuned to prophecy anyway, will dismiss this as so much wishful thinking, but those with ears to hear will recognize the challenge, nay the necessity, of striving after the vision.

Comments

[Nathan]

Doug;

I have to admit that I'm uncomfortable with the t- supporters who view it as a new layer of thought superior to all previously established disciplines. When I was reading about the theoretical origins of t- a year ago, I felt like I was seeing the formation of a weird academic cult. While I'm a strong supporter of the practice of t- activities (working across disciplines, integrating methods, ...), the theoretical part makes me a little nervous. In any case, I find it a bit humorous when people arguing for the lowering of disciplinary boundaries also say that their discipline is superior to all others…