4

Rather than producing a historical account of the specialization of knowledge, in this paper I raise the question of its unity, in the face of the increasingly complex challenges with which human beings, but also living beings as a whole, are confronted. Transdisciplinarity, first mentioned in 1970, was advanced as: 1) a means to overcome the consequences of dualistic worldviews (for instance the separation between subject and object) as well as the dispersion of specialized knowledge (an epistemological dimension); 2) an approach that would help resolve pernicious problems (a methodological dimension); 3) having an ethical dimension, which appears necessary to consider if transdisciplinarity “transgresses” disciplinary boundaries and includes other types of knowledge, which I shall illustrate through the example of transdisciplinary interviews. Thus, a question emerges: Is science only accountable to itself, or are there responsibilities to society as a whole?