The Need for Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education in a Globalized World 11

Basarab Nicolescu The Need for Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education in a Globalized World 11

The Need for Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education in a Globalized World

Basarab Nicolescu, International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies (CIRET), Paris, France and University Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Email: [email protected]

doi: 10.22545/2012/00031

viable education can only be an integral edu- levels of reality, logic of the included middle, nature, cation of the human being. Transdisciplinary epistemology. Aeducation is founded on the inexhaustible richness of the scientific spirit which is based on questioning, and of the refusal of all a priori answers 1 Introduction and all certitude contradictory to the facts. At the same time, it revalues the role of the deeply rooted Why transdisciplinarity is today not only realistic a intuition, of the imaginary, of sensitivity, and of the realistic aim but also a necessary one? body in the transmission of knowledge. It is only in The first argument is the big-bang of the num- this way that the society of the twenty-first century ber of disciplines who increased from 7 (when first can reconcile effectivity and respect for the poten- universities were founded in the 13th century), to tiality of every human being. The transdisciplinary more than 8000 en 2012. A great expert in a given approach will be an indispensable complement to the discipline is totally ignorant in more than 7999 disci- disciplinary approach, because it will mean the emer- plines. The decisions which are taken in our troubled gence of continually connected beings, who are able world are based on ignorance and this fact provokes to adapt themselves to the changing exigencies of inevitable crisis which will be deeper and deeper in professional life, and who are endowed with a perma- the future. nent flexibility which is always oriented towards the Second argument: the rapid changes in our con- actualization of their interior potentialities. If the temporary world induce more and more unemploy- University intends to be a valid actor in sustainable ment and therefore human beings have to change development it has first to recognize the emergence of their jobs several times during their active life. But a new type of knowledge: transdisciplinary knowledge. passing from one job to another is practically im- The new production of knowledge implies a necessary possible in the context of an accelerated super- multidimensional opening of the process of learning: specialization. towards civil society; towards cyber-space-time; to- Third argument: recent discoveries in neurophys- wards the aim of universality; towards a redefinition iology illustrated, for example, by the works of of the values governing its own existence. Antonio Damasio [1], underline the unexpected fact Key Words: higher education, transdisciplinarity, that the analytic intelligence is too slow compared with the intelligence of feelings. Therefore, we have

Table 1: Comparison between disciplinary education (DE) and transdisciplinary education (TE). Disciplinary education (DE) Transdisciplinary education (TE) IN VITRO IN VIVO One level of Reality Several levels of Realitys External world - Object Correspondence between external world (Object) and internal world (Subject) Accumulation of knowledge Understanding Analytic intelligence New type of intelligence - harmony between mind, feelings and body Binary logic Included middle logic (absolute truth / absolute falseness) (relative truth) Oriented towards Oriented towards power and possession astonishment and sharing Exclusion of values Inclusion of values

of education–the transdisciplinary education (TE), to find equilibrium in our educative system between distinct from but complementary to our present dis- the analytic intelligence and the interior being. ciplinary education (DE) (see Table 1). Fourth argument: globalization induces an enor- It is important to realize that the disciplinary mous migratory flux of people belonging to countries knowledge and the transdisciplinary knowledge are of a given culture, religion and spirituality towards not antagonist but complementary. Both their countries of another culture, religion and spiritual- methodologies are founded on scientific attitude. ity. The new education has to establish the dialogue Building the transdisciplinary mind at the University between cultures, religions and spiritualities. is our main challenge today. Fifth argument: the rapid advance of means of In order to explore the new, transdisciplinary communication implies an increased complexity in education, we have to apply the transdisciplinary an interconnected world. The new education has methodology [2]. to invent new methods of teaching, founded on new The methodology of transdisciplinarity is founded logics. The old classical binary logic, that of “yes” on three postulates: and “no”, i. e. the logic of the excluded middle, is 1. The ontological postulate: There are, in Nature no more valid in the context of complexity. and in our knowledge of Nature, different levels The last argument I would like to formulate is of Reality of the Object and different levels of the following: solving problems in the real world Reality of the Subject. forces university to interact with society, industry, banks and ecology. These problems clearly belong 2. The logical postulate:The passage from one level to the field of “trans”: their resolution asks us to go of Reality to another is insured by the logic of beyond academic disciplines. Transdisciplinarity is the included middle. therefore realistic and necessary for the survival of 3. The epistemological postulate: The structure universities. of the totality of levels of Reality is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all 2 Disciplinary Education and the levels exist at the same time. Transdisciplinary Education The first two postulates received, in the 20th century, experimental evidence from quantum physics The transdisciplinary knowledge corresponds to an [3], while the last one has its source not only in in vivo knowledge, concerned with the correspon- quantum physics but also in a variety of other exact dence between the external world of the Object and and human sciences. the internal world of the Subject. By definition, the The key concept of the transdisciplinary approach transdisciplinary knowledge includes a system of val- to Nature and knowledge is the concept of levels of ues, the humanistic values. It leads to a new type Reality [4].

3 Emergence of a Transdisciplinary 5 Learning to Know Culture Learning to know means first of all training in the The emergence of a transdisciplinary culture capable methods which help us distinguish what is real from of contributing to the elimination of the tensions what is illusory, and in the techniques which enable menacing life on our planet will be impossible with- intelligent access to the fabulous knowledge of our out a new type of education which takes into account age. In this context the scientific spirit, one of the all the dimensions of the human being. highest goals ever attained in the human adventure, All the various tensions–economic, cultural, is indispensible. Precocious initiation into science is spiritual–are inevitably perpetuated and deepened beneficial because it provides access, from the very by a system of education founded on the values of beginning of human life, to the inexhaustible richness another century, and by a rapidly accelerating im- of the scientific spirit which is based on questioning, balance between contemporary social structures and and on the refusal of all a priori answers and all the changes which are currently taking place in the certitude contradictory to the facts. However, “the contemporary world. More or less embryonic wars scientific spirit” does not at all mean the thoughtless between economies, cultures, and civilizations never increase of teaching scientific matters or retreating stop leading, here and there, to actual wars. In fact, to an interior world based on abstraction and for- our entire individual and social life is structured by malization. Although such excess is, unfortunately, education. Education is at the center of our becom- still current, it can lead only to the exact opposite ing. The future is shaped by the education which is of the scientific spirit: previous ready-made answers delivered in the present, here and now. are replaced by other new ready-made answers (this In spite of the enormous diversity of the systems time, having a kind of “scientific” brilliance); thus, of education that can be found in various countries, in the final analysis, one dogmatism is replaced by the globalization of the challenges of our era involves another. Nor is it the assimilation of an enormous the globalization of the problems of education. The quantity of scientific knowledge which gives access different upheavals continually confronting educa- to the scientific spirit, but the quality of that what is tion in one or another country are only symptoms of taught. And here “quality” means to lead the child, one and the same flaw: the disharmony which exists the adolescent, or the adult into the very heart of between the values and the realities of a planetary the scientific approach, which is the permanent ques- life in the process of change. Most certainly, while tioning related to the resistance of facts, images, there is no miraculous recipe, there is nevertheless representations, and formalizations. a common center of questioning which it would be- Learning to know also means being capable of es- hoove us not to avoid if we truly want to live in a tablishing bridges–between the different disciplines, more harmonious world. and between these disciplines and meanings and our interior capacities. This transdisciplinary approach will be an indispensable complement to the 4 The Delors Report disciplinary approach, because it will mean the emergence of continually connected beings who are able Growing awareness of a system of education that to adapt themselves to the changing exigencies of does not keep pace with the modern world is demon- professional life, and who are endowed with a per- strated by numerous recent conferences, reports, and manent flexibility which is always oriented toward studies. The latest and most exhaustive report was the actualization of their interior abilities. developed by the International Commission on Ed- ucation for the Twenty-First Century chaired by Jacques Delors, in cooperation with UNESCO [5]. 6 Learning to Do The Delors Report strongly emphasized four pillars of a new kind of education: learning to know, learn- Learning to do certainly means acquiring a profession ing to do, learning to live together, and learning to or a craft and theoretical and practical knowledge be. In this context, the transdisciplinary approach which is associated with it. The acquisition of a pro- can make an important contribution to the advent fession or craft necessarily passes through a phase of this new type of education. of specialization. One cannot do open-heart surgery if one has not learned surgery; one cannot solve a

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science Vol. 3, pp. 11-18, (December, 2012) ISSN: 1949-0569 online Basarab Nicolescu The Need for Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education in a Globalized World 14 third-degree equation if one has not learned mathe- into account at all, these levels would in fact be levels matics; one cannot be a producer without knowing of being. The transdisciplinarity approach is based theatrical techniques. on the equilibrium between the exterior person and However, in our tumultuous world, in which the the interior person. Without this equilibrium, “to tremendous changes induced by the information rev- make” means nothing other than “to submit.” olution are but the portent of other still more tremendous changes to come, any life which is frozen into 7 Learning to Live Together one and the same occupation can be dangerous, because it risks leading to unemployment, to exclusion, Of course, learning to live together first of all signi- to a debilitating alienation. Excessive, precocious fies respect for the norms which govern relationships specialization should be outlawed in a world which is between the beings comprising a collective. However, in rapid change. If one truly wants to reconcile the these norms must be truly understood and willingly exigency of competition with the imperative of equal internalized by each being, rather than obeyed out of opportunity for all human beings, in the future every submission to exterior constraints. “To live together” profession and every craft should be an authentically does not mean simply tolerating others’ differences woven occupation, an occupation which would bind of opinion, skin color, and beliefs; submission to together in the interior of human beings threads the exigencies of power; negotiating between the joining them to other occupations. Of course, it is in’s and out’s of innumerable conflicts; definitively not simply a question of acquiring several compe- separating interior from exterior life; and merely ap- tencies at the same time but of creating a flexible, pearing to hear the other while remaining convinced interior core which could quickly provide access to of the absolute rightness of our own position. If another occupation, should that become necessary this is what it means, “living together” is inevitably or desirable. transformed into its opposite: fighting each other. Here also, the transdisciplinary approach can be The transcultural, transreligious, transpolitical, and invaluable. In the last analysis, “learning to do” transnational attitude can be learned. To some ex- is an apprenticeship in creativity. “To make” also tent, in each being there is a sacred, intangible core signifies discovering novelty, creating, bringing to that is innate. Yet, if this innate attitude remains light our creative potentialities. It is this aspect merely a potential, it can forever stay non-actualized, of “making” which is contrary to the boredom and absent in life and in action. In order for the norms of sometimes even despair which is experienced by so a collective to be respected, they must be validated many human beings who are obliged to exercise an by the interior experience of each being. occupation which does not conform to their interior There is one fundamental characteristic of the predispositions simply in order to underwrite their transdisciplinary evolution of education: to recog- basic needs. “Equal opportunity” also means the nize oneself in the face of the Other. This is a opportunity for the actualization of the creative po- question of permanent apprenticeship, which must tentialities which vary from one person to the next. begin in early childhood and continue throughout Competition could also mean the harmony of cre- life. The transcultural, transreligious, transpoliti- ative activities within a single community. Boredom cal, and transnational attitude permits us to better and despair, the source of violence, conflict, and of understand our own culture, to better defend our moral and social resignation can be replaced by the national interests, to better respect our own religious joy of personal realization, no matter what the place or political convictions. Just as in all other areas where this realization is effected, because a place can of Nature and knowledge, open unity and complex only be unique for each person at a given moment. plurality are not antagonists. Creating the conditions for the emergence of au- thentic persons also means insuring the conditions 8 Learning to Be for the maximal actualization of their creative potentialities. The social hierarchy, so frequently arbitrary Learning to be appears at first like an insoluble and artificial, could thus be replaced by the cooper- enigma. We know how to exist, but how can we ation of levels structured in order to serve personal learn to be? We can begin by learning what the word creativity. Rather than being levels imposed by a “exist” means, for us: discovering our conditioning, competition which does not take the interior being discovering the harmony or disharmony between our

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science Vol. 3, pp. 11-18, (December, 2012) ISSN: 1949-0569 online Basarab Nicolescu The Need for Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education in a Globalized World 15 individual and social lives, testing the foundations explosion of knowledge. But this privileging, if it of our convictions in order to discover that which continues, sweeps us away in the mad logic of effi- is found underneath. In a building, the stage of cacy for efficacy’s sake, which can only lead to our excavation precedes that of foundation. In order to self-destruction. make a foundation for being, one must first of all Of course it is not a question of limiting or in- proceed with the excavation of our certitudes, our be- creasing the number of hours provided for artistic liefs, and our conditioning. To question, to question or athletic activities. This would be like trying to always; here also, the scientific spirit is a precious obtain a living tree by juxtaposing roots, trunk, gift for us. This must be learned by the teachers branches, and leaves. This juxtaposition would only as well as the taught. “Learning to be” is also a lead to a semblance of a living tree. Contemporary permanent apprenticeship, in which teachers inform education concerns itself with only the leaves. But students as students inform teachers. The shaping of leaves do not make a whole tree. a person inevitably passes through a transpersonal dimension. The disrespect for this necessary process helps explain one of the fundamental tensions of 10 The Experiments of Leon our era, that between the material and the spiritual. Lederman The survival of our species largely depends on the elimination of this tension by means of reconciliation Experiments made by the Nobel Prize-winning physi- between these two apparently antagonistic contradic- cist Leon Lederman with children from disadvan- tions which takes place on another level of experience taged neighborhoods of Chicago demonstrates what than that of everyday life. “Learning to be” also we have been saying [7]. Lederman convinced some means learning to know and to respect that which secondary school teachers to initiate new methods for joins the Subject and Object. The other remains an teaching physics based on the touching of different object for me if I do not make this apprenticeship, objects and the discussion of contributions of differ- which teaches me that together we, the Other and ent sense organs–sight, touch, smell - in the process. me, create the Subject joined with the Object. All this was play: it took place in an environment far removed from the usual formal apprenticeship in mathematics and physics. And the miracle hap- 9 The Integral Education of the pened. Even children who came from very poor Human Being families, where violence, lack of culture, and disin- terest in the typical activities of children reigned There is one very obvious interrelationship between supreme, discovered the abstract laws of physics the four pillars of the new system of education: how through play. One year earlier, these same children to learn to make while learning to know, and how had been declared incapable of ever understanding to learn to be while learning to live together? any abstraction. It is interesting, moreover, to point In the transdisciplinary vision, there is also a tran- out that the greatest difficulties of the operation and srelation which connects the four pillars of the new - it goes without saying - the major part of its cost, system of education and which has its source in our were due to the resistance of the teachers: they had a own constitution as human beings. This transrela- great deal of trouble abandoning their old methods. tion is like the roof which rests on four pillars of a The teaching of teachers proved longer and more building. If any one of the pillars of the building difficult than the work with children. collapses, the entire building collapses, the roof with The Chicago experiment shows well that the intel- it. And, it there is no roof, the building falls into ligence assimilates knowledge much better and much ruin. more rapidly when this knowledge is also understood A viable education can only be an integral ed- with body and the emotions. In a living tree, the ucation of the human being, according to the apt roots, the trunk, the branches and the leaves are formulation of the poet Ren Daumal [6]: an educa- inseparable: the sap which insures the life of the tree tion which is addressed to the open totality of the moves vertically through all of them. This is the human being, not to just one of the components. prototype of what was previously referred to as the At present, education privileges the intellect over “revolution of intelligence”: the emergence of a new the emotions or the body. This was certainly nec- type of intelligence, founded on the equilibrium be- essary in the previous era, in order to permit the tween analytic intelligence, feelings, and the body. It

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science Vol. 3, pp. 11-18, (December, 2012) ISSN: 1949-0569 online Basarab Nicolescu The Need for Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education in a Globalized World 16 is only in this way that the society of the twenty-first 12 Peace and century can reconcile effectivity and affectivity. Transdisciplinarity–The Transcultural, Transreligious, 11 The Transdisciplinary Education Transpolitical, and as a Long-Term Process Transnational Attitude

Transdisciplinarity education clarifies in a new way a In the transdisciplinary perspective, there is a direct need which is presently felt more and more - the need and unavoidable relation between peace and trans- for a permanent education. In fact, transdisciplinary disciplinarity. Severely fragmented thought is incom- education, by its very nature, should take place not patible with the research of peace on this Earth. The only in teaching institutions, from the kindergarten emergence of a culture and an education of peace to the university, but also in the work place - in fact, require the transdisciplinary evolution of education everywhere, and throughout our life. and, especially, the transdisciplinary evolution of the In teaching institutions there is no need to cre- university. ate new departments and new chairs; this would be Instilling complex and transdisciplinary thought contrary to the transdisciplinary spirit. Transdis- into the structures and programs of the university ciplinarity is not a new discipline, and a transdis- will permit its evolution toward its somewhat forgot- ciplinary researcher is not some new kind of spe- ten mission today–the study of the universal. The cialist. The solution would be to create workshops university could become a place of apprenticeship in for transdisciplinary research within every teaching the transcultural, transreligious, transpolitical, and institution. These workshops would be the locus for transnational attitude, and in the dialogue between gathering together a group of teachers and students art and science which is the axis of a reunification from a particular institution who generate and over- between scientific culture and artistic culture. A see their own organization and are all animated by renewed university would become the place for wel- the transdisciplinary attitude. The same experiment coming a new kind of humanism. could be carried out within various enterprises, and There is no need to invent a totally new Univer- within other collectives, as well as within national sity, but one needs to transform the existing disci- and international institutions. plinary universities by adopting the transdisciplinary There is one particular problem which is posed methodology as their complementary methodology. by transdisciplinary education outside professional life. In a balanced society, the boundary between 13 Conclusions leisure time and apprenticeship time would gradually disappear. The information revolution could play a Important steps in this direction were made in sev- considerable role in our life for transforming training eral countries [8]. In particular, PhD programs in into pleasure and pleasure into training. The prob- transdisciplinarity are established now at the Univer- lem of unemployment of the young would certainly sity Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Texas be alleviated by a hitherto unsuspected solution. In Tech University (USA) and at the University of Stel- this context, grassroots efforts will play an important lenbosch (South Africa) [9]. role in transdisciplinary education throughout life. The transdisciplinary approach is realistic and It is quite obvious that the various areas and ages even necessary for the survival of contemporary uni- of life call for extremely diverse transdisciplinary versities, placed in the chaotic context of globaliza- methods. Even if transdisciplinary education is a tion. One necessary condition is to understand what long-term, global process, it is still important to Reality is today. We are part of the ordered move- discover and to create places which help to initiate ment of Reality. Our freedom consists in entering this process and insure its development. into the movement or perturbing it. Reality depends The university is the privileged place for an educa- on us. Reality is plastic. We can respond to the tion geared toward the exigencies of our time which movement or impose our will of power and domi- could also be the pivotal place for an education di- nation. Our responsibility is to build sustainable rected not only toward children and adolescents, but futures in agreement with the overall movement of also toward adults. reality.

The emergence of a new culture capable of con- [2] Nicolescu B., 2002. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. tributing to the elimination of the tensions menacing New York: State University of New York (SUNY) life on our planet will be impossible without a new Press. Translation in English by Karen-Claire Voss. type of learning which takes into account all the [3] Nicolescu B., 2012. We, the Particle and the World dimensions of the human being. / Nous, la particule et le monde. Brussels: E. M. E. A viable education can only be an integral educa- § InterCommunications. tion of the human being. It is founded on a new type [4] Nicolescu, B., 2009. What is Reality? / Qu’est-ce of intelligence, requiring the harmony between mind, que la Réalité?Montréal:Liber. feelings and body. The recent findings of neurophys- iology show clearly the exceptional role of feelings [5] Delors J., 1996. Learning: The Treasure Within. in education. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission Transdisciplinary education is founded on the in- on Education for the Twenty-first Century. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. exhaustible richness of the scientific spirit which is based on questioning, and of the refusal of all [6] Daumal R., 1972. Essais et Notes, I, p. 276. Paris: a priori answers and all certitude contradictory to Gallimard. the facts. At the same time, it revalues the role [7] Project ARISE – American Renaissance in Science of the deeply rooted intuition, of the imaginary, of Education. http://ed.fnal.gov/arise/index.html, ac- sensitivity, and of the body in the transmission of cessed: October 30, 2012. knowledge. It is only in this way that the society of the twenty-first century can reconcile effective- [8] Experiences of Transdisciplinary Education, 2005. ness and respect for the potentiality of every human Transdisciplinary Encounters, 18. Paris: CIRET. being. The transdisciplinary approach will be an in- http:basarab.nicolescu.perso.sfr.fr/ciret/bulletin/b18. php, accessed: October 30, 2012. dispensable complement to the disciplinary approach, because it will mean the emergence of continually [9] Transdisciplinary Doctoral Programs in the World. connected beings, who are able to adapt themselves Paris: CIRET. http:basarab. nicolescu.perso.sfr.fr to the changing exigencies of professional life, and /ciret/doctorat.php, accessed: October 30, 2012. who are endowed with a permanent flexibility which is always oriented towards the actualization of their interior potentialities. About the Author Universal sharing of knowledge - a necessity of our world - cannot take place without the emergence of a new tolerance founded on the transdisciplinary attitude, one which implies putting into practice the transcultural vision. The transcultural attitude permits us to better understand our own culture, to better defend our national interests, to better respect our own religious or political convictions. Basarab Nicolescu is a theoretical physicist in elemen- If the University intends to be a valid actor in tary particle physics at CNRS, France and professor of sustainable development it has first to recognize the philosophy at the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, emergence of a new type of knowledge: transdisci- Romania. He is member of the Romanian Academy and plinary knowledge. The new production of knowl- president-founder of the International Center for Transdis- edge implies a necessary multidimensional opening of ciplinary Research and Studies (CIRET). Basarab Nico- the process of learning: towards civil society; towards lescu is founder and director of the Transdisciplinarity cyber-space-time; towards the aim of universality; series, Rocher, Monaco, of the Romanians in Paris series, towards a redefinition of the values governing its Oxus, Paris and of the Science and Religion and Science, own existence. Spirituality, Society Series, Curtea Veche, Bucharest. His books include: Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, State References University of New York (SUNY) Press, New York, 2002; Nous, la particule et le monde, E. M. E. § InterCommu- [1] Damasio A. R., 2003. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, nications, Brussels, 2012 (3rd edition); Science, Mean- Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. San Diego: Harcourt. ing and Evolution - The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme,

Parabola Books, New York, 1991. He edited Trans- disciplinarity - Theory and Practice, Hampton Press, Cresskill, New Jersey, 2008. Forthcoming: Science, Cul- ture and Spirituality – From Modernity to Cosmoder- nity, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, New York (to be published). A complete bio-bibliography of Basarab Nicolescu can be found on the page http://www.basarab-nicolescu.fr/index.php

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Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science Vol. 3, pp. 11-18, (December, 2012) ISSN: 1949-0569 online