Abstract:

As the prefix “trans” indicates, transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines. Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge. The methodology of transdisciplinarity is founded on three postulates: i. The ontological postulate: There are, in Nature and in our knowledge of Nature, different levels of Reality and, correspondingly, different levels of perception; ii. The logical postulate: The passage from one level of Reality to another is insured by the logic of the included middle; iii. The complexity postulate: The structure of the totality of levels of Reality or perception is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time.

The transdisciplinary approach leads to a new Principle of Relativity, as a consequence of the coexistence between complex plurality and open unity: no level of Reality constitutes a privileged place from which one is able to understand all the other levels of Reality. A level of Reality is what it is because all the other levels exist at the same time. This Principle of Relativity is what originates a new perspective on culture, religion, politics, art, education and social life.

Founded on this Principle of Relativity, we will analyze the similarities and the differences between postmodernity and cosmodernity, a transdisciplinary perspective of modernity which integrates the old notion of cosmos.