The Emergence of “Syn-Epistemic Wholeness” from Dialectic Synergy of Disciplines: A Transdisciplinary Social Pedagogic Model

Iro Mylonakou-Keke

Pedagogical Faculty of Primary Education, School of Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2015.617195                

Abstract

Transdisciplinarity offers a different philosophy and approach both of how to effectively address issues/problems and how to improve and change difficult situations we have been experiencing in the modern world, in different and multiple levels of reality and under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. Addressing these problems becomes precisely effective because of the way transdisciplinarity achieves dynamic collaboration and integration among disciplines, epistemologies and methodologies. We could argue that, in essence, an ongoing “dialectic synergy” between disciplines, methodologies, scientists and researchers in various forms and at many interactive levels is created. The constant dialectic synergies generate the “Syn-epistemic Wholeness”. Syn-epistemic wholeness is a new “entity” that transcends the involved disciplines (or sciences) without replacing them; it rather enriches them by offering the potential of a synchronous, harmonic function in a flexible and constantly evolving methodological framework. By this logic, the Syn-epistemic Wholeness allows the emergence of a new general perception, the essence of a new “paradigm”, which has new philosophy, theory, epistemology as well as new research strategies and practices and which offers rich possibilities and alternatives to address complex, multi-parameter and multifarious problems. “Syn-epistemic Wholeness” would be an alternative term for Transdisciplinarity. This paper presents a Transdisciplinary Social Pedagogic Model, which emerged through extensive research projects and carried out within school communities in Greece. The research projects have the general orientation to address and prevent pupils’ antisocial behaviors. The Model motivates a lot of transdisciplinary dialectic synergies that incrementally and improvingly developed among: (a) the involved disciplines, epistemologies and methodologies and (b) among scientists, researchers and all other stakeholders, who were those who directly or indirectly were involved in the school and in the wider community.

Keywords

Syn-Epistemic Wholeness, Transdisciplinary Social Pedagogic Model, Dialectic Synergy, School Community

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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