Basarab Nicolescu, Disciplinary Boundaries
Basarab Nicolescu, Disciplinary Boundaries
Basarab Nicolescu, Disciplinary Boundaries
The astonishing fact is that no rigorous definition of disciplinary boundaries exists till
now in literature. Based upon the transdisciplinary approach2, we are able to give such a
rigorous definition.
We define disciplinary boundary as the totality of the results – past, present and future –
obtained by the laws, norms, rules and practices of a given discipline. Of course, there is a
direct relation between the extent to which a given discipline has been mathematically
formulated and the extent to which this discipline has assumed a boundary. In other words, the
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http://basarab.nicolescu.perso.sfr.fr/ciret/ARTICLES/liste_articles.html
1
Julie Thompson Klein, Interdisciplinarity – History, Theory § Practice, Wayne State University Press, Detroit,
1990.
2
Basarab Nicolescu, La transdisciplinarité, manifeste, Monaco, Rocher, "Transdisciplinarité" Series, 1996.
English translation: Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. New York: SUNY Press, 2002, translation from the French
by Karen-Claire Voss.
1
more mathematically formalized a given discipline is, the more this respective discipline has a
precise boundary.
Most of the disciplines are not mathematically formalized and therefore their boundaries
are fluctuating in time. In spite of this fluctuation, there is a boundary defined as the limit of
the totality of fluctuating boundaries of the respective discipline. For example, it must be clear
for everybody that the economy will never give information on God, that religion will never
give information on the fundamental laws of elementary particle physics, that agriculture will
never give information about the neurophysiology, or that poetry will never give information
on nanotechnologies.
nothing between two disciplinary boundaries, if we insist to explore this space between
disciplines by old laws, norms, rules and practices. Radically new laws, norms, rules and
The above definition remains valid for multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, which
Not only disciplines but also religions and ideologies have boundaries.
This crucial fact is the result of the structural incompleteness of the levels of Reality.
existence of disciplinary boundaries. This might seem paradoxical but it is only a fake
paradox. Disciplines are blind to incompleteness due to arbitrary elimination of the Hidden
Third in these disciplines, i. e. the arbitrary elimination of the interaction between Subject and
2
Object. Once this unjustified assumption is eliminated, disciplines are inevitably linked one to
another.
How does one understand this link between disciplines in the presence of
This dream of the fusion of disciplinary boundaries was present from the beginnings of
transdisciplinarity3. This project goes back to the talk of Erich Jantsch4 at the international
workshop “Interdisciplinarity –Teaching and Research Problems in Universities”, organized
in 1970 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in
collaboration with the French Ministry of National Education and University of Nice5.
Such a fusion of disciplinary boundaries is simply impossible in transdisciplinarity,
because it would lead to a new boundary, whose even existence is incompatible with
transdisciplinarity. Links and bridges between disciplines are still however possible: they are
mediated by the Hidden Third, which can not be captured by any discipline and by any
boundary. The most obvious sign of the presence of these links and bridges is the modern and
post-modern migration of concepts from one field of knowledge to another.
Basarab Nicolescu
3
Basarab Nicolescu, “Transdisciplinarity – past, present and future”, in Moving Worldviews - Reshaping
sciences, policies and practices for endogenous sustainable development, COMPAS Editions, Holland, 2006,
edited by Bertus Haverkort and Coen Reijntjes, p. 142-166.
4
Erich Jantsch, “Vers l’interdisciplinarité et la transdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement et l’innovation”, in Léo
Apostel et al. (1972).
5
Léo Apostel, Guy Berger, Asa Briggs and Guy Michaud (ed.), L’interdisciplinarité – Problèmes
d’enseignement et de recherche, Centre pour la Recherche et l’Innovation dans l’Enseignement, Organisation de
Coopération et de développement économique, Paris, 1972.