In the last post of this series I do not propose to add another paradigm to the five already studied but rather to offer some more general methodological considerations. While these thoughts arise out of reflection on the different paradigms studied in this series, it is hoped that they will be of help in the further planning and in the realization of the transdisciplinary course. From a methodological point of view perhaps the best place to begin is with the very idea of a discipline. What constitutes a discipline as opposed to an idea, a theory or a perspective? If we do not have some clarity and some consensus on what we mean by a discipline it is most unlikely that we will be able to explain clearly what we mean by “transdisciplinary”. A second methodological consideration concerns the relationship between a discipline, a paradigm and a method. When a new discipline, such as sociology, is developed it is with a view to studying some new problem, often using new methods, in pursuit of some theoretical and/or practical objectives. We may think of a paradigm as a kind of model for this study of the new problem, while methods are…

In former posts we have seen how our understanding of the human person as a relational being can be broadened and deepened with the help of certain paradigms operative in different disciplines. In the case of theology this kind of investigation proves particularly complicated and delicate for myriad reasons that we will simply signal here in the form of a series of perplexing questions… In theology, is God a paradigm for understanding the human person or is the human person a paradigm for “understanding” God? Is Jesus Christ the paradigm of humanity, of personhood, of relations? of divinity? In what sense can we talk of God as a person and/or as the relations between three divine persons? Does the Bible talk of God as a person and/or a relation? How is the relation between a believer and God connected to the relations between that believer and other human beings? If extended indefinitely such a list would point us to the long and complex history of theology as a discipline. It is therefore with considerable caution that we pose the question concerning any would-be theological paradigm for the human person as a relational being. In seems best in a brief blog…

Alasdair MacIntyre has said, with insight, that every discipline is an open debate about its own history. This is nowhere more so than in the case of sociology. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) is generally, but by no means universally, acknowledged as a kind of founding father of this discipline (in the eyes of some the main alternative candidate would be Émile Durkheim – even though he himself explicitly attributes this role to Comte). During his lifetime Comte came to be considered something of a maverick or even a madman by some of his former disciples. A consideration of Comte’s project and the reactions it produced from the beginning is one way of broaching the daunting task of defining the sociological paradigm alongside the other paradigms we have examined so far in this series. The place to begin is with history, in particular with that of the French Revolution, of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the restoration of the monarchy in 19th century France. To this we must add the, partially parallel, history of the second industrial revolution with its obvious dependence on the history of advances in science and technology. Without at least a general awareness of these circumstances, Comte’s project cannot…

In former posts we saw that the so-called personalist and phenomenological paradigms are actually umbrella terms under which shelter many approaches and theories, many of which might be considered sub-paradigms. This will also be the case with the psychological paradigm. Here we have to do with an ombrellone covering a vast range of psychological theories and practices. There is no question of attempting an overview of these positions in a single blog. What seems possible, albeit in a suggestive rather than an apodictic manner, is to identify some of the contours of the umbrella itself, that is to say the very idea of psychology. To this end a famous statement of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) comes to mind: “Wo Es war soll Ich werden” which is often rendered into English, somewhat inadequately, as “Where the Id was the Ego shall be”. (The translation loses the force of Freud’s play on the first person singular pronoun Ich.) This statement was made at the end of an attempt to explain the purpose of psychoanalysis but it can serve us here as a way of identifying some key characteristics of any would-be psychological paradigm, meaning as always by paradigm “a comprehensive, prescriptive model for…

If, as we saw in the last blog, it is rather hazardous to talk of “the personalist paradigm”, this is even more the case with the term “the phenomenological paradigm”. There are two main reasons for this: first, because there is much discussion about what actually constitutes phenomenology; second, because however we understand it, phenomenology operates not with one but with a range of paradigms (the Dasein of Heidegger is a long way from l’autre of Levinas!). Still, if we take a paradigm to be “a comprehensive, prescriptive model for collective living” it is possible to find examples of authors who apply a phenomenological paradigm to the human person as a relational being. One outstanding example of this approach can be found in the thought of Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) when he reflects on what he calls intersubjectivity. Before taking a closer look at this line of thought, it will be useful to locate it in its broader philosophical context. The place to begin is with the thought of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), usually recognised as the founding father of phenomenology. For Husserl, phenomenology was a revolutionary new science that aspired to overcome some of the flagrant weaknesses of modern, empirical sciences. The…