Transdisciplinarity as Epistemology, Ontology or Principles of Practical Judgement

Abstract

Transdisciplinary ProblemsProfessional practices occur in workplaces, social systems that confound simple analysis, where things change and turn messy. There are many disciplinary approaches to take (e.g. anthropological, psychological and sociological) but, I propose, attempts to determine what and why things happen within professional practice prove difficult from any single disciplinary and epistemological perspective. I take these transdisciplinary problems to be issues that are complex and involve societal concerns, which lose their very nature when deconstructed to simple disciplinary interventions and, indeed, confound such mono-disciplinary interventions. These issues need to be taken at their face value, informed by a range of knowledges and resolved within the constraints of the socio-political context that, in many cases, created them.Transdisciplinary issues require professional engagement in a wide range of professional contexts. Mitrany and Stokols (2005) point to the sectors of urban planning, public policy and environmental management that, they state: long have understood that complex problems such as community violence, environmental degradation, transit-related injuries, sustainable development and urban change are unlikely to be resolved in the absence of efforts to integrate knowledge drawn from several different disciplines. (2005, p. 437) P. Gibbs ( )

Re-evaluating work-based learning pedagogy

“…Research into the ideas that inform practice continues, e.g. transdisciplinarity within professional engagement (Gibbs, 2015), and newer areas of expertise, like coaching pedagogy, are now beginning to inform WBL. This range of part-time WBL continues to provide solutions for Europe 2020, creating lifelong learning opportunities for adult learners within both undergraduate and postgraduate HE.…”

Transdisciplinary Generalism: Naming the epistemology and philosophy of the generalist

“…Furthermore, both transdisciplinarity and generalism seek to notice patterns. Pragmatic transdisciplinarity uses phronetic abductive reasoning as a form of logic that ebbs and flows between inductive and deductive reasoning of the disciplines in order to seek unity and insight that lies beyond the disciplines 68 . It describes “looking for coherence, correspondences and ‘ridges’ across the differences, generating knowledge by finding, identifying and communicating patterns across diverse disciplines and discourses.” 65 p.1053 Nicolescuian transdisciplinary hermeneutics—“the art of interpretation to create meaning” 25 p.191 —aligns with generalist interpretive medicine 3 and requires movement between the parts and the whole in cycles of illumination and integration 69 .…”

“…63 There is also a growing application to health care. 68,100 Some name transdisciplinarity as an "intellectual foundation" for generalist research 101p.905 and a "scientific essential" to counter specialized knowledge fragmentation. 102p.487 Some have already described links between transdisciplinarity and primary care as they are both "open, participatory, respectful and focussed on the real world."…”

Developing a Conceptual Model of STEAM Teaching Practices

“…Transdisciplinary teaching involves multiple disciplines and the space between the disciplines while moving beyond those specific disciplines to produce new perspectives (Gibbs, ). This type of inquiry helps learners see the connections between their content and others (Pohl, ).…”