Back Transdisciplinarity and the Unity of Knowledge: Beyond the Science and Religion Dialogue


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Lucio Florio
Latin-American Prospective to an Integration of Knowledge: Beyond “Interdisciplinarity” and “Transdisciplinarity”


Abstract

Every historical attempt to achieve a “universalis scientia” since the Modern age has crashed against the permanent temptation of syncretism. This paper is a continuation of a paper presented at the 2005 Metanexus Meeting, where it was proposed the essential issues to consider for an integration of knowledge: a. The level of reliability of the disciplines. b. Their control from inside and outside. c. The epistemological institutions to ask for control. In this paper, there is an addition of some concrete points of view to focus the discussion in a second level of reflection.

  1. Stephen Jay Gould’s “Non overlapping Magisteria” (NOMA): which is a warning to avoid the syncretism in the mixture between science and religion. Science and religion have their own different field and it is important to respect them. He defines the term magisterium as a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution. Thus, according to NOMA, the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). In conclusion, NOMA demarcates the limits between the sciences and religion in the spirit of the modern age which established the autonomy of different disciplines.

  2. It is important, however, to find the connection among sciences, philosophy and religion. In my 2005 paper I tried to organize this topic by the delimitation of the places and reliability of different disciplines. I propose now three concrete perspectives of integration of Science and Religion. These perspectives come from the Latin-American culture.
2.1. The analogical hermeneutic of Dr. Mauricio Beauchot (México): this is a way of thinking which puts in connection on one hand the hermeneutic tradition, i.e., the process of interpretation of the texts and signs, and on the other the analogy, i.e., the philosophical way of knowledge which considers that there is an ontological scale, and sciences, philosophy and theology need to adequate to it.

2.2. The “analectic” of Dr. Juan Carlos Scannone (Argentina): The Jesuit philosopher tries to linked human and natural sciences with philosophical reflection and finally with the theology. He understands the process of knowledge as a part of cultural life. According to Scannone, one of the features of the modern culture is that the “inter” (of interdisciplinary) is a phenomenon of compensation which relates the autonomy of disciplines, the specialization of sciences, and particular believers – another phenomenon of the modern age. In the modern period, the medieval hierarchy of knowledge disappears. Every science understands something of reality and the unity of knowledge is in the totality of the knowledge. Scannone asserts that religion gives the last meaning to the sciences, while needing the scientific explanations to complete its view.
  1. A historic and personal perspective of knowledge: The map as a metaphor for understanding the dynamic confluence of knowledge and experience in the person (Lucio Florio, Mapa trinitario del mundo, Salamanca 2000).

    An image which offers several advantages for the integration of knowledge is that which portraits man as being on the way. The expression ‘way’ primarily means a space which is destined for human transit, but it has a metaphorical use: we speak about ‘being on the way’ or ‘journeying’ to refer to decisions taken in time. From this perspective, man has been considered as a walker, a traveller, a pilgrim, in a physical and spiritual realm. In medieval language the Latin expression viator meant this feature of human condition, and it seems to be a symbolic archetype of the human life. This image situates human knowledge in a historical perspective: it is temporal for the subject and for cultures and humanity as a whole; it is also provisional, because it is not subsumed completely by any conquest or theory; moreover, it allows integrating extra rational factors, such as the imagination, into the cognitive process.

    The metaphor of “map” is close to the “way”. It points out to the necessity of criteria of orientation to each human being in his own history. As the person is the ultimate knower, he needs to build an original worldview to understand reality and to orientate in it. This “map” is the product of the confluence of different ingredients. On one hand, there is an “objective” knowledge obtained by the sciences, philosophy and theology. On the other hand, there is another kind knowledge gained by art, religious experiences, particular language, and collective and individual experiences. It is important to delimitate as much as possible the different contributions to the elaboration of the individual worldview. Finally, this image allows an insight of the dynamic aspect of human understanding, which is growing and being modified throughout the existence of every subject.

Conclusion:

I consider that terms as “interdisciplinary”, “transdisciplinary”, and other similar terms, have value in some dimensions of the discussion, but they need to be completed by other concrete ways of knowledge integration. NOMA is a sign of stopping, not to exclude integration but to focus to the mode of it. The three Latin-American perspectives (Beauchot, Scannone and Florio) try to propose criteria for a concrete and non syncretic worldview. Integration is, however, at the same time an objective and a personal and historical task.

Biography

Lucio Florio is Dr. in Theology for the Universidad Católica Argentina. He teaches at the Philosophy School and at the Theology School of that University and at the Santo Tomás de Aquino University, both of them in Buenos Aires. Florio has written many articles about Trinitarian theology and about topics of theology of creation. Florio is the leader of the La Plata Metanexus LS and he has the direction of a books collection on Science and Religion (“Ciencia y religión en diálogo”, Editorial Epifanía, Buenos Aires). He is the president of the “Fundación Diálogo entre Ciencia y Religión (DECYR)” of Argentina (cf.www.decyr.net).

Lucio Florio is priest of the Roman Catholic Church, of La Plata Archdioceses.

 



 

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