Foundations of transdisciplinarity

If we go through a list of some of the main problematiques(1) that are defining the new Century, such as water, forced migrations, poverty, environmental crises, violence, terrorism, neo-imperialism, destruction of social fabric, we must conclude that none of them can be adequately tackled from the sphere of specific individual disciplines. They clearly represent transdisciplinary challenges. This should not represent a problem as long as the formation received by those who go through institutions of higher education, were coherent with the challenge. This is, unfortunately, not the case, since uni-disciplinary education is still widely predominant in all Universities. There are exceptions, but few, of interdisciplinary attempts, especially in areas such as planning and philosophy, which are integrative disciplines to begin with. The situation is not solved, as frequently attempted, creating supposed teams conformed of specialists in different areas, around a given problem. With such a mechanism one can only hope to achieve an accumulation of visions emerging from each of the participating disciplines. An integrating synthesis is not achieved through the accumulation of different brains. It must occur inside each of the brains and, thus, we need to orient higher education in a way that makes the achievement of such a purpose possible. Two possibilities are proposed in this paper, in terms of a weak and a strong transdisciplinarity. The former can be applied following traditional methods and logic, and is essentially practical. The latter represents an epistemological challenge that introduces a kind of quantum logic, as a substitute for linear logic, and breaks with the assumption of a single reality. It is based on three pillars: Levels of Reality; the Axiom of the Included Middle; and Complexity. Three Laws of Transdisciplinarity are proposed. Strong transdisciplinarity is still in the making, thus representing an unfinished scientific programme that offers fascinating possibilities for advanced reflection and research. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.