Publish at December 06 2023 Updated December 06 2023
Life and consciousness can spring from matter without a divine spark, because they are collective phenomena, holistic manifestations.
The Secret Melody (1988) by Trinh Xuan Thuan
Mono-disciplinary approaches at university have a long history, dating back to the formation of the first medieval universities, where teaching was often centered on specific disciplines, a legacy of the liberal arts that the ancient Romans deemed worthy of free men and contrasted with the mechanical or servile arts.
These liberal arts were the trivium, designed to shape the student's personality (grammar, rhetoric and dialectics), and the quadrivium, designed to acquire fundamental knowledge (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, plus medicine and law). However, the emphasis on individual disciplines has been reinforced in recent centuries with increasing specialization in different academic fields. The prevalence of mono-disciplinary approaches has therefore evolved over time, reflecting changes in the structure and philosophy of higher education.
Single-discipline academic approaches focus on the in-depth study of a single academic discipline and sometimes even a sum of details within it, while multi-disciplinary approaches integrate perspectives from several disciplines to address a given subject.
Interdisciplinary approaches go even further by encouraging collaboration between different disciplines, seeking to create a holistic understanding by transcending traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Consilience is a concept introduced by biologist Edward O. Wilson in 1998. It is the idea that knowledge from different disciplines can be unified to form a more complete understanding of the world. In other words, consilience is the convergence of knowledge across different scientific and cultural disciplines (Slingerland, Collard, 2011). It has a holistic ambition.
Consilience brings a broader, more comprehensive perspective to the problems and challenges teams face in educational or professional environments. By integrating knowledge and perspectives from different fields, teams can develop a deeper understanding of problems and potential solutions. As a result, they can work together more effectively and achieve more meaningful results. Consilience reinforces the desire tolearn as a team
Consilience brings several benefits to learning. Consilience can help learners understand concepts more deeply by examining different perspectives and making connections between them. It can also help learners develop critical thinking and creativity.
Consilience applied to complexity contributes by creating links between diverse fields, enabling a more holistic understanding of complex phenomena. It offers an overview that transcends disciplinary boundaries. It promotes an integrated approach that can reveal deeper patterns and relationships.
Martine Séville, Professor of Management Sciences at Université Lumière Lyon 2, has written an article entitled "Consilience in strategic management, a way to prevent crises and promote "strong" sustainable development of companies?"
In this article, she suggests that consilience helps strategic management researchers to imagine solutions in contexts of risk or uncertainty, by establishing links between disciplines from the natural sciences and her own work in management science. She claims that this could enable strategic management to become a force for proposing new models for dealing with hazards and crises over the long term, reducing their impact if not eliminating them!
Consilience is thus a new way of linking disciplines and accounting for complexity, according to a consortium of researchers who evoke a theory of assembly
"By conceptualizing objects via their trajectories of formation, it [note: consilience] establishes a dialogue between natural selection and physical laws, promising new avenues in the exploration of evolution and complexity. This approach could revolutionize our perception of living and inert matter".
The return of holistic thinking to the sciences reflects a growing recognition of the complexity inherent in natural systems. Complexity emphasizes the interconnectedness of elements, while consilience promotes the idea of a unification of knowledge across different disciplines.
By integrating assemblage theory, which emphasizes the interactions between diverse components, this holistic approach promotes a more complete and nuanced understanding of natural phenomena. The origins of this movement can be attributed to a challenge to reductionist approaches, emphasizing a more integrated view of the world. Consequences include a greater ability to apprehend the dynamics of complex systems, but also poses methodological and conceptual challenges in terms of how to connect the dots.
Sources
Jamieson, D. (1998). "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Issues in Science and Technology. Vol.15 (1), pp. 90-92
Séville, M. (2021). Consilience in strategic management, a way to prevent crises and promote "strong" sustainable development of companies? Marché et organisations, Vol.41, pp.103-124
Slingerland, E., Collard, M. (Eds.), 2011. Creating Consilience: Integrating the Sciences and the Humanities. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Wilson, EO. (1998), Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Tool 7 - Team learning | Cairn.info. https://www.cairn.info/la-boite-a-outils-de-l-intelligence-collective--9782100806621-page-30.htm.
How to develop collaborative practices and intelligence .... https://www.cairn.info/revue-questions-de-management-2019-3-page-99.htm.
Learning is key to transforming organizations and their employees https://www.greatplacetowork.fr/ressources/articles/l-apprenance-enjeu-cle-pour-transformer-les-organisations-et-leurs-collaborateurs/.
Dictionary of history. Liberal arts https://www.herodote.net/arts_liberaux_trivium_quadrivium-mot-91.php
Consilience in strategic management, a way to prevent crises and promote "strong" sustainable development for companies? https://isidore.science/document/10670/1.13y42o
Science et vie. Assembly theory unifies the laws of nature in physics and biology
https:// www.science-et-vie.com/sciences-fondamentales/theorie-assemblage-unifie-loi-nature-physique-biologie-115157.html
Wikipedia. (2023). Holism . https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holisme.
Techno-Science.net.Holism: definition and explanations https://www.techno-science.net/definition/277.html
Encyclopædia Universalis. Holism https://www.universalis.fr/index/holisme/.
Sante nova - Holistique: definition of this therapeutic trend . https://www.sante-nova.fr/holistique-definition-de-ce-courant-therapeutique/.
Wikipedia.org. - Holism https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holisme
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