The real type and ideal type of transdisciplinary processes: part I—theoretical foundations

Abstract

Transdisciplinarity integrates or relates different epistemics from science and practice (Mode 2 transdisciplinarity) or from branches of disciplines if interdisciplinary integration is impossible (Mode 1 transdisciplinarity). The paper explains, based on an analysis of the historical development of the Mode 2 transdisciplinarity concept, how transdisciplinary processes link interdisciplinary applied research and multi-stakeholder discourses by facilitating methods. We elaborate on what type of problems may be managed using what knowledge, how this might be accomplished, what types of objectives are desired, and by what organizational means. Thus the paper presents ontology, epistemology, methodology, functionality, and organization of an ideal type of transdisciplinary process. Socially robust orientations are the expected outcomes of this process. These orientations provide science-based, state-of-the-art, socially accepted options of solutions which acknowledge uncertainties and the incompleteness of different forms of epistemics (i.e., of knowing or thought), in particular within the sustainable transitioning of complex real-world problems.

Appendix

From interdisciplinarity to Mode 1 and Mode 2 transdisciplinarity

The discussion on the dysfunctionality of closed disciplinary boundaries and the role of society began at the 1970 conference on interdisciplinarity (Apostel et al. 1972). At that time, it became evident that the increasing socio-technical complexity in developed Western countries called for new knowledge and values. The traditional academic system and prevailing concepts such as “man as rationale being” became obsolete and were replaced by the conception of “man as bounded rational being” (Scholz 1983; Selten 1990; Shulman and Carey 1984; Simon 1982). The societal prestige and reputation of universities diminished, as expressed by the saying, “Society has problems, whereas universities have departments” (Lind 1999). Student and academic activists demanded social leadership and a fundamental transformation of universities. Those who considered the university an organization “producing scholars and scientists” and who staunchly defended “the discipline as a cornerstone of intellectual training” (Gass 1972) were severely criticized. Students and critical academic minds wanted to take on social leadership.

Erich Jantsch, a visionary Austrian physicist and system theorist, stated, “the university has to become a political institution in the broadest sense, interacting with government … and industry in the planning and design of society’s system” (Jantsch 1972, p. 102). Jantsch criticized the narrow technological approach that sciences suggested using to cope with social crises and noted, “the classical single-track and [linear] sequential problem-solving approach itself becomes meaningless” (Jantsch 1972, p. 99). His critique also included the autonomy of the sciences, the cultivation of science for science’s sake, and the tendency of some major sciences (such as physics and mathematics) toward imperialism. Jantsch considered “science, education and innovation, above all, as general instances of purposeful human activity” that have “dominant influence in the development of society and its environment” (Jantsch 1972, p. 99). These societal trajectories were seen as the major drivers for “co-ordination in the education/innovation system” to be called “transdisciplinarity” (p. 105).

An opposite and inner-science notion of transdisciplinarity was provided by epistemologist, biologist, and cognitive developmental psychologist Jean Piaget’s (Piaget 1972) view on the epistemology of interdisciplinary relationships. Piaget was acknowledging that an integration (or merging) of concepts and methods from different disciplines works only between neighboring disciplines that have similar structures, data, and methods and modes of validation. In line with finding a unity of knowledge, Piaget considered “full transdisciplinarity“to be a meta-(system) knowledge that includes operating and regulating structures of systems in a general way.

The physicist Basarab Nicolescu (see text) aligns with Piaget, but postulates a spiritual super-level as an integrating entity (Nicolescu 2002, 2006, 2014). Inspired by his insights into quantum physics and theories such as multiple-world theory (Nicolescu 2014) and the “superposition of quantum ‘yes’ and ‘no’ states’” (Nicolescu 2006, p. 143), he stressed the difficulty of integrating the theory of relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics, as this is in contrast to the principle of the excluded middle (his approach to Mode 1) with the principle of the included middle. Nicolescu states that it is difficult for him “to understand why ‘joint problem solving’ must be the unique aim of transdisciplinarity” (Nicolescu 2006). Instead, he focuses on the need for knowledge integration in science. He considers “classical” logic (which operates with binary “true/false” states, i.e., the axiom of the excluded middle) incompatible with the findings of quantum physics. When referring to what is presumably the most important theorem related to the philosophy of science—Gödel’s incompleteness theorem—he is looking for a unity of knowledge. Here, he suggests a “spiritual meta-level” which, at its core, postulates a God-like entity, as a unifying meta-level.

Today, we may better acknowledge the differences in roles and functions of the different modes of doing science. The future will show what roles disciplinarity (Abbott 2002), interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity might find, and whether a delta science (which supplements alpha science [i.e., humanities], beta sciences [i.e., natural sciences] or gamma sciences [i.e., social sciences]) or transdisciplinarity colleges or transdisciplinary universities might develop (Scholz and Marks 2001).