Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions) [Paperback]

Basarab Nicolescu (Author), Karen-Claire Voss (Translator)

Book Description

Series: SUNY Series in Western Esoteric Traditions | Publication Date: January 3, 2002

Unifies science and the sacred based on what we've learned from Quantum physics.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Basarab Nicolescu is a theoretical physicist at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Paris. He is the author of several books including Science, Meaning, and Evolution-The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme, translated from the French by Rob Baker, winner of the 1992 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best History Book. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (January 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 079145262X
• ISBN-13: 978-0791452622
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #421,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excerpt from review essay by the translator, July 17, 2002

By 

Karen-Claire Voss (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions) (Paperback)

Excerpt from a review essay by Karen-Claire Voss, translator of Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity.

After reading 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 21st 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." (p. 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." (p. 56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond.

You must read this book for yourself. It constitutes a veritable treasury of living ideas assembled by a visionary who is also a renowned scientist. To my mind, this is a peerless combination. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity indeed serves to rekindle our hope, (p. 2) and can lend all of us heart to proceed on the "quest for a tomorrow." (p. 3)

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excerpt from a review essay by the translator, July 17, 2002

By 

Karen-Claire Voss (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions) (Paperback)

Excerpt from a review essay by Karen-Claire Voss, translator of Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity.

After reading 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 21st 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." (p. 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." (p. 56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond.

You must read this book for yourself. It constitutes a veritable treasury of living ideas assembled by a visionary who is also a renowned scientist. To my mind, this is a peerless combination. Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity indeed serves to rekindle our hope, (p. 2) and can lend all of us heart to proceed on the "quest for a tomorrow." (p. 3)

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Could be more elegant, November 16, 2008

By 

Sadee Whip (seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions) (Paperback)

I must say that I am a bit frustrated by my encounter with something as brilliant and relevant as this book. The reason is that the subject matter could be made useful to a much wider audience if only the writing weren't so dense. I wish more intellectuals placed a stronger value on elegant lucidity. The very fact that we are becoming a more integrated society in every way, including across disciplines, makes this book relevant to not just the academic community, but society at large. Making these concepts so complicated limits their applicability to a comparatively small number of people.
While I realize the intended audience is, obviously, not society at large, I am giving it four stars for the very fact that it could have been written better. I know because Nicolescu's book "Science, Meaning, and Evolution" is much more accessible.