DOCSLIB.ORG

Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics O'Riordan, Timothy (Ed.); Lenton, Timothy (Ed.) Book — Published Version Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future British Academy Original Paperbacks Provided in Cooperation with: Oxford University Press (OUP) Suggested Citation: O'Riordan, Timothy (Ed.); Lenton, Timothy (Ed.) (2013) : Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future, British Academy Original Paperbacks, ISBN 978-0-19-726553-6, Oxford University Press, Oxford, http://dx.doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197265536.001.0001 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/162999 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ www.econstor.eu Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future Edited by Tim O’Riordan and Tim Lenton Published for THE BRITISH ACADEMY by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP © The British Academy 2013 Database right The British Academy (maker) First edition published in 2013 Some rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes without the prior permission in writing of the British Academy, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution –Non Commercial –No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Publications Department, The British Academy, 10–11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton Printed in Great Britain by T.J. International, Padstow, Cornwall ISBN 978-0-726553-6 For our next generation who will live through what we create for them James, Zoë, Joseph, Esther, Edward and Sammy Contents List of figures and tables xi Foreword by Sir Crispin Tickell xiii Preface xv Acknowledgements xix Notes on contributors xxi PART 1 Tipping points and critical thresholds 1 1.1 Metaphors and systemic change 3 TIM O’RIORDAN, TIM LENTON, AND IAN CHRISTIE PART 2 Earth system tipping points 21 2.1 Tipping elements from a global perspective 23 TIM LENTON PART 3 The culture dimensions 47 3.1 Skittles 49 The story of the tipping point metaphor and its relation to new realities GILES FODEN Commentary 3.2 Aligning contrasting perspectives of tipping points 73 MATTHEW TAYLOR vii Contents PART 4 Food security, biodiversity, and ecosystems degradation 77 4.1 Food security twists and turns 81 Why food systems need complex governance TIM LANG AND JOHN INGRAM 4.2 Human resilience in the face of biodiversity tipping points at local and regional scales 104 PATRICIA HOWARD 4.3 The Amazon in transition 127 The challenge of transforming the world’s largest tropical forest biome into a sustainable social-ecological system TOBY GARDNER PART 5 The spiritual dimension 149 5.1 Contemplative consciousness 151 LAURENCE FREEMAN Commentary 5.2 Faith and tipping points 165 DAVID ATKINSON PART 6 Politics, the markets, and business 169 6.1 Sustaining markets, establishing well-being, and promoting social virtue for transformational tipping points 173 TIM O’RIORDAN 6.2 Some socio-economic thoughts 188 PAUL EKINS 6.3 Leadership for sustainability 194 The search for tipping points SARA PARKIN viii Contents Commentaries 6.4 Leadership by business for coping with transformational tipping thresholds 213 AMANDA LONG 6.5 Private sector failure and risk management for tipping points 220 KEITH CLARKE 6.6 Creating a roadmap for sustainable, transformational change 223 JOHN ELKINGTON 6.7 Tipping points and ‘Too Difficult Boxes’ 229 CHARLES CLARKE 6.8 It tips both ways 233 THOMAS LINGARD 6.9 Perspective of a global retailer 237 MIKE BARRY PART 7 Communicating tipping points and resilience 241 7.1 Media coverage of tipping points 243 Searching for a balanced story JOE SMITH 7.2 Exploring adaptive governance for managing tipping points 258 EMILY BOYD Commentaries 7.3 Reflections of a journalist 277 PAUL BROWN 7.4 Making sense of the world 280 CAMILLA TOULMIN ix Contents 7.5 Endgame 285 JONATHAN SINCLAIR-WILSON 7.6 Beyond the linear 289 The role of visual thinking and visualization JOE RAVETZ PART 8 A precarious future 299 8.1 Into a precarious future 301 TIM O’RIORDAN AND TIM LENTON 8.2 Improving our chances of transition to sustainability 320 The role of values and the ethics of solidarity and sympathy ANDREW DOBSON Commentary 8.3 Turning the tides? 327 Parallel infrastructures and the revolt of the corporate elites IAN CHRISTIE Index 333 x Figures and tables Figures 2.1 Map of potential policy-relevant tipping elements 26 2.2 The likelihood of tipping elements occurring 32 2.3 A ‘straw-man’ risk matrix for climate tipping points 33 2.4 A schematic representation of a system being forced past a bifurcation point 37 3.1 Metaphoric and metonymic axes 58 3.2 The relationship between metaphor and metonymy 60 4.1 The food system, its external influences, and outcomes: a flowchart 98 6.1 The approach to well-being in the context of evolving natural and social capital 181 6.2 Conventional capitalism 198 6.3 Sustainable capitalism 200 6.4 Capital stocks and benefit flows 203 6.5 The infrastructure of responsibility: how individuals relate, one to another, to create a strong society 208 6.6 A new model for collaborative engagement 215 6.7 A sample of the Knowledge Wall at the Breakthrough Capitalism Forum 224 7.1 Visual thinking to understand multiple cause–effects 292 7.2 Visual thinking to understand multi-scale complexity 293 7.3 Visualization in communicating tipping point situations 294 7.4 Visualization for synergistic tipping point responses 296 xi Figures and tables Tables 4.1 Strands in the food security discourse 84 4.2 Examples of how food-chain activities affect key environmental variables 97 4.3 Examples of ‘biodiversity’ tipping points in terrestrial ecosystems 110 xii Foreword SIR CRISPIN TICKELL ‘Tipping points’ mean different things to different people. Most of them with their implications are well explored in this book. For me a tipping point is when an accumulation of small or even big changes suddenly causes a critical change. Usually we cannot identify a tipping point until we have passed it. One of the best demonstrations of tipping points is in the behaviour of ecosystems. Within the infinite complexity of living systems in which different organisms depend on each other, one break in the chain or tipping point can bring rapid change to the others linked within it. For some this means disaster; for others it means rapid, perhaps favourable, change within a new chain. This is part of the phenomenon of life. We can see this in the history of the human animal. Tribes, cities, and societies can rapidly crash or flourish. As ever, the tipping point could not have been foreseen. Usually it was a combination of unusual circumstances. Changes in patterns of rainfall came together with social and economic difficulties to bring about the collapse of classic Maya society. The Black Death coincided with the beginnings of the Little Ice Age to transform mediaeval society. A new merchant elite was able to tip over the mon- archies of King Charles I and later King James II, and thereby create the circumstances of the industrial revolution in the following century. We are certainly in turbulent times today. Our current epoch has been labelled ‘the Anthropocene’ by many geologists: it marks the period since the industrial revolution in which the human species has vastly increased its numbers; exploited the natural, often irreplaceable resources of the Earth; upset longstanding ecosystems, thereby destroying countless other species; and changed the chemistry of the land, sea, and air of the Earth in ways we have yet to understand. For example, we can observe the current xiii Foreword destabilization of climate with prospects for global warming, but can only guess at the consequences for future distribution of water and new means for producing the energy which drives our society. Whereas in the past the rise and fall of civilizations was something regional and distinct, we are now more interconnected than ever before, and as the present economic crisis demonstrates, what happens in one place immediately affects what happens in others. So what, if anything, can we do about all this? Can we discern future tipping points? Which ways could they tip us? It is fair to say that the conventional wisdom, which has led us to where we are, is under increasing challenge.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond
    This PDF is available from The National Academies Press at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18722 Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond ISBN Committee on Key Challenge Areas for Convergence and Health; Board on 978-0-309-30151-0 Life Sciences; Division on Earth and Life Studies; National Research Council 156 pages 6 x 9 PAPERBACK (2014) Visit the National Academies Press online and register for... Instant access to free PDF downloads of titles from the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 10% off print titles Custom notification of new releases in your field of interest Special offers and discounts Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the National Academies Press. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Request reprint permission for this book Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond Prepublication Copy Subject to Further Editorial Revisions Convergence Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond Committee on Key Challenge Areas for Convergence and Health Board on Life Sciences Division on Earth and Life Studies THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS Washington, D.C. www.nap.edu Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
    [Show full text]
  • Big History and Sustainability
    Dominican Scholar Master of Arts in Humanities | Master's Liberal Arts and Education | Graduate Theses Student Scholarship May 2019 Big History and Sustainability Duncan Blake Ross Dominican University of California https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2019.HUM.05 Survey: Let us know how this paper benefits you. Recommended Citation Ross, Duncan Blake, "Big History and Sustainability" (2019). Master of Arts in Humanities | Master's Theses. 1. https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2019.HUM.05 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Liberal Arts and Education | Graduate Student Scholarship at Dominican Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master of Arts in Humanities | Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Dominican Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This thesis, written under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor and approved by the department chair, has been presented to and accepted by the Master of Arts in Humanities Program in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Arts in Humanities. An electronic copy of of the original signature page is kept on file with the Archbishop Alemany Library. Duncan Blake Ross Candidate Joan Baranow, PhD Program Chair Harlan Stelmach, PhD First Reader Joan Baranow, PhD Second Reader This master's thesis is available at Dominican Scholar: https://scholar.dominican.edu/humanities- masters-theses/1 Big History and Sustainability A Student Reflection By Duncan Blake Ross This thesis, written under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor and approved by the program chair, has been presented to an accepted by the Department of Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Humanities Dominican University of California San Rafael, CA May 2019 ii Copyright © 2019 by Duncan B.
    [Show full text]
  • Manifesto for General Systems Transdisciplinarity
    www.systema -journal.org Systema 4(1) : 4-14 (2016) www.bcsss.org Manifesto for General Systems Transdisciplinarity David Rousseau1,2,3,4,5 *, Jennifer Wilby6,7,8,9,10, Julie Billingham11,12, and Stefan Blachfellner13,14,15,16,17 1 Director, Centre for Systems Philosophy, Surrey, UK 2 Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Systems Studies, Business School, University of Hull, UK 3 Member of Scientific Council, Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, Vienna, Austria 4 Honorary Research Fellow, Religious Experience Research Centre, School of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, Wales, UK 5 Member, Centre for Spirituality Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Hull, UK 6 Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull, UK 7 Visiting Researcher, Willumstad School of Business, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA 8 Academician, International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences, Vienna, Austria. 9 Vice President, International Society for the Systems Sciences 10 Member of Scientific Council, Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, Vienna, Austria 11 Scientific Advisor, Centre for Systems Philosophy, Surrey, UK 12 Industry Principal, Business Strategy and Programs, Demandware Inc., Boston USA 13 Managing Director, Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, Vienna, Austria 14 Managing Director, European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research, Vienna, Austria 15 Vice President, International Federation for Systems Research, Vienna, Austria 16 Lecturer, University of Applied Science Upper Austria, Campus Steyr, Austria 17 Lecturer, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria ABSTRACT In August 2015 the authors launched their Manifesto for General Systems Transdisciplinarity at the annual conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences.
    [Show full text]
  • A View on Transdisciplinary Perspective in the Human Sciences
    Volume 21, 2018 DEFINING THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN SCIENCES: A VIEW ON TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES Giorgia Rimondi* Russian Institute for Advanced Studies [email protected] (Moscow State Pedagogical University), Moscow, Russian Federation & University of Parma, Parma, Italy Marco Veronese Independent researcher, Milan, Italy [email protected] * Corresponding author ABSTRACT Aim/Purpose The authors argue that interdisciplinarity, together with the more recent concept of transdisciplinarity, can be seen as a coherent attempt not so much to reas- semble the fragmented structure into a whole, as to create a fruitful collabora- tion and integration among different disciplines that takes into account their specificity. Background At the threshold of the Modern Age, a series of paradigm shifts in Western thought caused its fragmentation into a variety of academic subdisciplines. Such diversification can be considered the result of epistemological shifts and chang- es in the division of intellectual labor. Contribution Which semantic horizons can this new approach open, and on which theoretical foundations could a dialogue between disciplines be produced? The growing im- portance of this problem is evidenced by the emergence, during the last dec- ades, of philosophical reflections on the interactions among different research fields. Findings The possibility of transdisciplinarity in modern science finds its theoretical premise in M. Foucault’s seminal work on the organization of knowledge, The Order of Things, which hinted at the existence of gaps in the grid of knowledge, leading, as a result, to the possibility of creating transdisciplinary connections. Impact on Society The paper aims to contribute to the contemporary discussion of the need to overcome boundaries between disciplines.
    [Show full text]
  • Transdisciplinarity As a Discipline and a Way of Being: Complementarities and Creative Tensions ✉ Cyrille Rigolot 1
    COMMENT https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-00598-5 OPEN Transdisciplinarity as a discipline and a way of being: complementarities and creative tensions ✉ Cyrille Rigolot 1 Transdisciplinarity is generally defined by the inclusion of non-academic stake- holders in the process of knowledge production. Transdisciplinarity is a pro- mising notion, but its ability to efficiently address the world’s most pressing 1234567890():,; issues still requires improvement. Several typologies of transdisciplinarity have been proposed, generally with a theoretical versus practical dichotomy (Mode 1/ Mode 2), and effort has focused on possible linkages between different types. However, in the last two decades, transdisciplinarity has significantly matured to the extent that the classical theoretical versus practical distinction appears clearly limited. In this paper, a reframing of the debate is proposed by considering transdisciplinarity as a new discipline and as a way of being. The conception of transdisciplinarity as a discipline can be related to the recent development of the broader discipline of “integration and implementation sciences” (i2S), to which “practical” Mode 2 transdisciplinarity is a major contributor. When transdisci- plinarity is considered as a way of being, it is inseparable from personal life and extends far beyond the professional activities of a researcher. To illustrate this conception, the work and life of Edgar Morin can be used as an exemplary reference in conjunction with other streams of thought, such as integral theory. Transdisciplinarity as a discipline and transdisciplinarity as a way of being have complementarities in terms of researchers’ personal dispositions and space for expression in academia. The proposed distinction also raises the question of the status of consciousness in transdisciplinary projects, which may be a fruitful controversial topic for the transdisciplinary research community.
    [Show full text]
  • Transdisciplinarity for Sustainability: a Unifying Framework for Navigating Transformational Learning Systems
    Paper ID #22079 Transdisciplinarity for Sustainability: A Unifying Framework for Navigating Transformational Learning Systems Dr. Linda Vanasupa, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Linda Vanasupa has been a professor of materials engineering at the California Polytechnic State Uni- versity since 1991. She also serves as co-director of the Center for Sustainability in Engineering at Cal Poly. Her life’s work is focused on creating ways of learning, living and being that are alternatives to the industrial era solutions–alternatives that nourish ourselves, one another and the places in which we live. Her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees are in materials science and engineering from Stanford University and her B.S. degree in metallurgical engineering from the Michigan Technological University. Dr. Carol J. Thurman, Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Carol Thurman serves as the Academic Assessment Manager for Georgia Tech’s Center for Serve- Learn-Sustain. She holds a doctorate in Educational Policy Studies with a concentration in Research, Measurement, and Statistics. Dr. Thurman’s professional experience includes higher education academic and program assessment, program evaluation, project management, teaching K-12 both in the U.S. and internationally, teaching university research and statistics courses, and serving as a K-12 school district research specialist. Dr. Thurman’s research interests include transdisciplinary research approaches to understanding and addressing sustainability social issues that reside in the complex space. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2018 Transdisciplinarity for sustainability: A unifying framework for navigating transformational learning systems Abstract We began this work with an intent to create an assessment strategy for community-engaged learning focused on sustainability.
    [Show full text]
  • Teaching & Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field
    Teaching & Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field Leonid Grinin, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers, Andrey Korotayev To cite this version: Leonid Grinin, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers, Andrey Korotayev. Teaching & Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field. France. Uchitel, pp.368, 2014, 978-5-7057-4027-7. hprints- 01861224 HAL Id: hprints-01861224 https://hal-hprints.archives-ouvertes.fr/hprints-01861224 Submitted on 24 Aug 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Public Domain INTERNATIONAL BIG HISTORY ASSOCIATION RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES INSTITUTE OF ORIENTAL STUDIES The Eurasian Center for Big History and System Forecasting TEACHING & RESEARCHING BIG HISTORY: EXPLORING A NEW SCHOLARLY FIELD Edited by Leonid Grinin, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers, and Andrey Korotayev ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House Volgograd ББК 28.02 87.21 Editorial Council: Cynthia Stokes Brown Ji-Hyung Cho David Christian Barry Rodrigue Teaching & Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field / Edited by Leonid E. Grinin, David Baker, Esther Quaedackers, and Andrey V. Korotayev. – Volgograd: ‘Uchitel’ Publishing House, 2014. – 368 pp. According to the working definition of the International Big History Association, ‘Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods’.
    [Show full text]
  • Liminality and the Transitions Inherent in Pluridisciplinary Collaborative Work
    Towards Transdisciplinarity: Liminality and the Transitions Inherent in Pluridisciplinary Collaborative Work Christine Z. Miller Abstract Page 1 of 23 Although the value of cross-disciplinary teams is widely accepted, JBA Special Issue 2: relatively little attention has been given to the work that precedes 35-57, Spring 2016 addressing a team’s objective or stated problem, that is, the work © The Author(s) 2016 required to negotiate their various disciplinary perspectives. This article ISSN 2245-4217 considers how the notion of liminality, a cultural and social state of www.cbs.dk/jba “betweenness,” might be used to conceptualize transitory stages in the development of pluridisciplinary groups and teams that are comprised of individuals from many diverse disciplines. It suggests how anthropologists can play a role in guiding and facilitating this particular domain of invisible work. Keywords Liminality, invisible work, pluridisciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary teamwork Journal of Business Anthropology, Special Issue 2, Spring 2016 “Life is multiple disciplinary. Disciplines are the result of the artificial fragmentation of knowledge.” (Choi and Pak 2006:357) Introduction The increasing use of cross-disciplinary teams in business and academic settings reflects a growing awareness of the limitations of singular forms of inquiry to address the complex problems in societies and organizations (Conklin 2005, Johnson 2009). All too often, the dominant approach to problem solving has involved parsing out bits and pieces to individuals or homogeneous teams and then attempting to bundle the results together. However, a paradigm shift is currently underway that acknowledges different classes of problems, some of which require a multilevel approach and the integrated perspective of multiple disciplines.
    [Show full text]
  • SPSP 2020 International Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice
    SPSP 2020 International Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice Abstracts of Research Accepted for Presentation* at SPSP 2020 *Due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the 8th biennial conference of the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice, scheduled to take place at Michigan State University in July 2020, was cancelled. Prior to cancellation, conference submissions had been reviewed and the list of accepted research was finalized. This booklet contains abstracts of all research accepted for presentation at SPSP 2020, except in cases where an author preferred that their abstract not be published. Table of Contents I. About SPSP ...................................................................................................... 3 II. Organising Committees .................................................................................... 4 III. SPSP Statement on the Covid-19 Pandemic.................................................... 5 IV. Abstracts of Symposia ...................................................................................... 6 V. Abstracts of Contributed Talks ........................................................................49 2 I. About SPSP Philosophy of science has traditionally focused on the relation between scientific theories and the world, at the risk of disregarding scientific practice. In social studies of science and technology, the predominant tendency has been to pay attention to scientific practice and its relation to theories, sometimes willfully disregarding the world except
    [Show full text]
  • Transdisciplinarity: a Review of Its Origins, Development, and Current Issues
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research Kingsborough Community College 2015 Transdisciplinarity: A Review of Its Origins, Development, and Current Issues Jay H. Bernstein CUNY Kingsborough Community College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/kb_pubs/37 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Published by AU Press, Canada Journal of Research Practice Journal of Research Practice Volume 11, Issue 1, Article R1, 2015 Review: Transdisciplinarity: A Review of Its Origins, Development, and Current Issues Jay Hillel Bernstein Kingsborough Community College City University of New York 2001 Oriental Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11235, UNITED STATES [email protected] Abstract Transdisciplinarity originated in a critique of the standard configuration of knowledge in disciplines in the curriculum, including moral and ethical concerns. Pronouncements about it were first voiced between the climax of government-supported science and higher education and the long retrenchment that began in the 1970s. Early work focused on questions of epistemology and the planning of future universities and educational programs. After a lull, transdisciplinarity re-emerged in the 1990s as an urgent issue relating to the solution of new, highly complex, global concerns, beginning with climate change and sustainability and extending into many areas concerning science, technology, social problems and policy, education, and the arts. Transdisciplinarity today is characterized by its focus on “wicked problems” that need creative solutions, its reliance on stakeholder involvement, and engaged, socially responsible science.
    [Show full text]
  • Transdisciplinarity As Methodological Framework for Going Beyond the Science-Religion Debate by Basarab Nicolescu
    Transdisciplinarity as Methodological Framework for Going Beyond the Science-Religion Debate By Basarab Nicolescu The war of definitions How transdisciplinarity was born Transdisciplinarity is a relatively young approach: it emerged seven centuries later than disciplinarity, due to the Swiss philosopher and psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980). The word itself first appeared in France, in 1970, in the talks of Jean Piaget, Erich Jantsch and André Lichnerowicz, at the international workshop “Interdisciplinarity – Teaching and Research Problems in Universities”, organized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) , in collaboration with the French Ministry of National Education and University of Nice 1. In his contribution, Piaget gives the following description of transdisciplinarity: "Finally, we hope to see succeeding to the stage of interdisciplinary relations a superior stage, which should be "transdisciplinary", i.e. which will not be limited to recognize the interactions and or reciprocities between the specialized researches, but which will locate these links inside a total system without stable boundaries between the disciplines" 2. This description is vague, but has the merit of pointing to a new space of knowledge “without stable boundaries between the disciplines”. However, the idea of a “total system” opens the trap of transforming transdisciplinarity in a super- or hyperdiscipline, a kind of “science of sciences”. In other words the description of Piaget leads to a closed system, in contradiction with his own requirement of the instability of boundaries between disciplines. The key-point here is the fact that Piaget retained only the meanings “across” and “between” of the Latin prefix trans , eliminating the meaning “beyond”.
    [Show full text]
  • From Interdisciplinarity to Postdisciplinarity: Extending Klein's Thinking Into the Future of the University
    ISSUES IN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES Vol. 37(2), pp. 90-109 (2019) From Interdisciplinarity to Postdisciplinarity: Extending Klein’s Thinking into the Future of the University by Frédéric Darbellay Centre for Children’s Rights Studies University of Geneva Abstract: Complexity is among the main drivers that justify and guide the genesis and establishment of multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to the production and application of knowledge. Complexity can be read in the relatively canonical taxonomy of these concepts that structure epistemological reflections on the dynam- ics of knowledge production lying between and beyond disciplinary boundaries, a taxonomy that Julie Thompson Klein and other leading interdisciplinarians have proposed. The introduction of the concept of postdisciplinarity into this conceptual evolution allows for further reflection on more or less likely scenarios for the devel- opment of university institutions, scenarios more or less transgressive of the disci- plinary status quo. These possible epistemological and institutional mutations would require actors who are cognitively available and open to change, or even frankly “undisciplined,” with the goal of transforming academic institutions into the univer- sity of the future by fostering breakthrough innovation. Keywords: complexity, interdisciplinarity, Julie Thompson Klein, postdisciplinarity, scenarios, transgression We are not students of some subject matter, but students of prob- lems. And problems can be cut right across the borders of any subject or discipline. Karl Popper We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein From Interdisciplinarity to Postdisciplinarity | 91 1. Introduction Interdisciplinarity has become a concept that has the wind in its sails and that seems to promise a bright theoretical and practical future.
    [Show full text]