Philosophy Now Forum

After reading Nicolescu's Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, it is hard to imagine how any thinking person could retreat to the old, safe, comfortable conceptual framework. Taking a series of ideas that would be extremely thought-provoking even when considered one by one, the Romanian quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu weaves them together in a stunning vision, this manifesto of the twenty-first century, so that they emerge as a shimmering, profoundly radical whole.

Nicolescu’s raison d’être is to help develop people’s consciousness by means of showing them how to approach things in terms of what he calls “transdisciplinarity.” He seeks to address head on the problem of fragmentation that plagues contemporary life. Nicolescu maintains that binary logic, the logic underlying most all of our social, economic, and political institutions, is not sufficient to encompass or address all human situations. His thinking aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred, something which increasing numbers of persons, will find to be an enormous help, among them wholistic health practitioners seeking to promote the understanding of illness as something arising from the interwoven fabric—body, plus mind, plus spirit—that constitutes the whole human being, and academics frustrated by the increasing pressure to produce only so-called “value-free” material.

Transdisciplinarity “concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline,” and its aim is the unity of knowledge together with the unity of our being: “Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge.” (44) Nicolescu points out the danger of self-destruction caused by modernism and increased technologization and offers alternative ways of approaching them, using a transdisciplinary approach that propels us beyond the either/or thinking that gave rise to the antagonisms that produced the problems in the first place. The logic of the included middle permits “this duality [to be] transgressed by the open unity that encompasses both the universe and the human being.” (56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond……………………………………….

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:55 pm Are you familiar with Dr. Bastard Nicolescu and his work with CIRET and Transdisciplinarity?

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:14 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:55 pm Are you familiar with Dr. Bastard Nicolescu and his work with CIRET and Transdisciplinarity?

Are you sure that Dr. Nicolescu can claim to be a legitimate authority in this field? For some reason, I have misgivings.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:23 pm
Bastard Nicolescu is a Theoretical......

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:33 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:23 pm
Bastard Nicolescu is a Theoretical......

We can all be experts theoretically, Nick.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Mon Sep 25, 2017 1:15 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:33 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:23 pm
Bastard Nicolescu is a Theoretical......

We can all be experts theoretically, Nick.

everyone is an expert in reading their own handwriting...

-Imp

Eodnhoj7 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:06 pm Is it time for philosophy to re-synthesize itself into something new?

-1- wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2017 6:09 am

Eodnhoj7 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:06 pm Is it time for philosophy to re-synthesize itself into something new?

No, not at all.

All philosophy is a repetition of itself. Human wisdom is fininte, capacity to be wise is finite, and has its limits cut out for us. We need to assimilate wisdom in a lifetime, and that span of time has been a constant of between 50-90 years of thought in a person's life.

I would not say we are fracting; in my opinion we are repeating. Crystalline memory had been termed by Kierkegaard as "recall"; the elusive nature of the real world, defined by Descartes, had been intuited by Plato in the parable of the cave wall's images; Einstein's theory of Relativity had been precognized in the language by such expressions as "cousin", "great-grand mother", etc.

I would agree with these points. What we understand of "cause and effect" is strictly "causality" continually reflecting as a logistic memory. Repetition is structure, we see this within geometry through the repetition of points. I have no argument against this because, generally speaking, we are on the same page.

In my own personal history of thinking, I think I had come up with about seven major philosophical discoveries that must have had quite a literature prior to my "instantaneous insight" experiences. My advantage, or rather, my pleasure, came from the fact that I had no or very little philosophical training, and thus the whole skid and caboodle came in a journey of discovery and self-discovery.

Philosophy seems to be fracting; but it is an optical illusion.

This is where I disagree as an optical illusion is a reality in itself. It is the highest and fullest form of reality? No, not at all. I will expand upon this point further though, for the sake of clarity, with an example:

A person hallucinates, as in see's something someone else does not see. This axiom in turn affects the person's behavior and set's off a chain of behaviors. The person may have to be hospitalized or may be more giving and generous. Either way the person acts in a manner which forms the surrounding world, which in turn forms further axioms from which this person and other people affect the world. The degree of reality within the "axiom" this person observed is irrelevant, what is real regardless of argument is that their is an "axiom".

To observe the world as fractating, in turn inevitably means (in separate respects and degrees) that the world is fractating. Which leads me to my point. You observe that philosophy is fractating. You rationalize it as a deficiency in truth or illusion. Yet you observe that the illusion exists none the less and in this respects it is forming reality. I am not trying to disagree with you for the sake of disagree with you (because we both agree that philosophy has a stable reflective holism to it).

I am disagreeing with you in the respect that this "stability" we both see has a dual element of "flux" (as evident through the fractating nature) adn this nature of "flux" seems to be emphasized in broader terms through the majority of philosophy being predicated on a strict materiality (which by nature is "flux").




One only ought to open his or her eyes to the fact that Hume's description of Passions is a direct predecessor of Maslow's Pyramid of Needs, that Hobbes' Natural Order is a complete mistake by some ineffectual thinker (plenty of parallel to it in all the ages of man), that Kant's Categorical Imperative was a stab in the dark at solving the morality riddle like those of of other ethics philosophies, to see that human wisdom repeats because that wisdom, in availability for analysis and mental assimilation, in comprehended size, in complexity that can be handled, and in general acceptabilty is a limited set, and we can't break through those limits.


In my opinion there are three major break-throughs in working and workable thought that likely hadn't been discovered priorly in man's history: the neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory, Einstein's theory of relativity (my earlier allusion to it was meant to be a joke), and Quantum Mechanics.

I would agree with these points. What we understand of "cause and effect" is strictly "causality" continually reflecting as a logistic memory. Repetition is structure, we see this within geometry through the repetition of points. I have no argument against this because, generally speaking, we are on the same page.
...
This is where I disagree as an optical illusion is a reality in itself. It is the highest and fullest form of reality? No, not at all. I will expand upon this point further though, for the sake of clarity, with an example:

A person hallucinates, as in see's something someone else does not see. This axiom in turn affects the person's behavior and set's off a chain of behaviors. The person may have to be hospitalized or may be more giving and generous. Either way the person acts in a manner which forms the surrounding world, which in turn forms further axioms from which this person and other people affect the world. The degree of reality within the "axiom" this person observed is irrelevant, what is real regardless of argument is that their is an "axiom".

To observe the world as fractating, in turn inevitably means (in separate respects and degrees) that the world is fractating. Which leads me to my point. You observe that philosophy is fractating. You rationalize it as a deficiency in truth or illusion. Yet you observe that the illusion exists none the less and in this respects it is forming reality. I am not trying to disagree with you for the sake of disagree with you (because we both agree that philosophy has a stable reflective holism to it).

I am disagreeing with you in the respect that this "stability" we both see has a dual element of "flux" (as evident through the fractating nature) adn this nature of "flux" seems to be emphasized in broader terms through the majority of philosophy being predicated on a strict materiality (which by nature is "flux").
...
Evolution is strictly a cyclic function in respect that the organism adapt's to the environment, however the environment must repeat itself (if everything repeats as you say) and in these respects nothing really evolves. I am not against evolution, however it is striclty a perspective that if rumor holds to be true is going out of style in certain countries. It is a philosophy founded during the industrial period when the nature of the environment itself was changing and by default a zietgiest was founded within the western spirit that not only opened itself to this way of thinking by may have caused it.

Relativity, as the observation of flux, was founded in Pre-socratics such as Heraclitus. Quantum Mechanics is a subgroup of Relativity in some respects, however it may be argue, as the observation of the "apeiron" or the "chaos" which was the substance from which "being" was formed. The pre-socratics observed this, specifically Anaximander (I recommend reading this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeiron_(cosmology) and it formed the basis for quantum mechanics (or at least aspect of it).

The problem occurs is that the apeiron is "infinite" and "boundless" so by default your emphasis on quantum mechanics as a modern root discipline/discovery by default places "wisdom" to have an infinite nature for consciousness by default has roots in this. This may be interpreted as you contradicting yourself.

I prefer to emphasize the point however that this reiterates the nature of philosophy as having dual elements of "stability" and "flux". The problem, and maybe I should have word this better, appears to be the emphasis on relativity/flux/materiality that philosophy has preoccupied itself with which in turn causes its to fractate more and more rather maintain a unity.

One could look at this from an academic standpoint that most fields and sciences can barely communicate with eachother without their being some form of misunderstanding (the above link by Nick gives further clarity to this).

My point is that everyone agrees that everything is "Relative" but noone agrees on the nature of "relativity".

-1- wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:28 am

I would agree with these points. What we understand of "cause and effect" is strictly "causality" continually reflecting as a logistic memory. Repetition is structure, we see this within geometry through the repetition of points. I have no argument against this because, generally speaking, we are on the same page.
...
This is where I disagree as an optical illusion is a reality in itself. It is the highest and fullest form of reality? No, not at all. I will expand upon this point further though, for the sake of clarity, with an example:

A person hallucinates, as in see's something someone else does not see. This axiom in turn affects the person's behavior and set's off a chain of behaviors. The person may have to be hospitalized or may be more giving and generous. Either way the person acts in a manner which forms the surrounding world, which in turn forms further axioms from which this person and other people affect the world. The degree of reality within the "axiom" this person observed is irrelevant, what is real regardless of argument is that their is an "axiom".

To observe the world as fractating, in turn inevitably means (in separate respects and degrees) that the world is fractating. Which leads me to my point. You observe that philosophy is fractating. You rationalize it as a deficiency in truth or illusion. Yet you observe that the illusion exists none the less and in this respects it is forming reality. I am not trying to disagree with you for the sake of disagree with you (because we both agree that philosophy has a stable reflective holism to it).

I am disagreeing with you in the respect that this "stability" we both see has a dual element of "flux" (as evident through the fractating nature) adn this nature of "flux" seems to be emphasized in broader terms through the majority of philosophy being predicated on a strict materiality (which by nature is "flux").
...
Evolution is strictly a cyclic function in respect that the organism adapt's to the environment, however the environment must repeat itself (if everything repeats as you say) and in these respects nothing really evolves. I am not against evolution, however it is striclty a perspective that if rumor holds to be true is going out of style in certain countries. It is a philosophy founded during the industrial period when the nature of the environment itself was changing and by default a zietgiest was founded within the western spirit that not only opened itself to this way of thinking by may have caused it.

Relativity, as the observation of flux, was founded in Pre-socratics such as Heraclitus. Quantum Mechanics is a subgroup of Relativity in some respects, however it may be argue, as the observation of the "apeiron" or the "chaos" which was the substance from which "being" was formed. The pre-socratics observed this, specifically Anaximander (I recommend reading this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeiron_(cosmology) and it formed the basis for quantum mechanics (or at least aspect of it).

The problem occurs is that the apeiron is "infinite" and "boundless" so by default your emphasis on quantum mechanics as a modern root discipline/discovery by default places "wisdom" to have an infinite nature for consciousness by default has roots in this. This may be interpreted as you contradicting yourself.

I prefer to emphasize the point however that this reiterates the nature of philosophy as having dual elements of "stability" and "flux". The problem, and maybe I should have word this better, appears to be the emphasis on relativity/flux/materiality that philosophy has preoccupied itself with which in turn causes its to fractate more and more rather maintain a unity.

One could look at this from an academic standpoint that most fields and sciences can barely communicate with eachother without their being some form of misunderstanding (the above link by Nick gives further clarity to this).

My point is that everyone agrees that everything is "Relative" but noone agrees on the nature of "relativity".

I read this above, and I had three types of reactions, repeating and alternating in no particular order: either I did not understand what you said, or else I lacked the knowledge of facts referred to, or else I vehemently opposed in my mind what you said.

I will nevertheless read up on Anaximander, as you suggested, since I think he has an uber-cool name.


In simpler term's, as my emphasis on "clarity" can cause a paradoxical "lack of clarity", Anaximander's observation of the apeiron is one of, not "the", foundations for quantum mechanics (therefore relativity by extension). In this respect, even "new fields" are not completely "new".