Transdisciplinarity: Marginal Direction or Global Approach of Contemporary Science?

Abstract

Aim/Purpose The article is designed to contradict the existing opinion that “transdisciplinarity is a marginal direction of contemporary science.” Background The difficulties of implementing transdisciplinarity into science and education are connected with the fact that its generally accepted definition, identification characteristics, and methodological features are still missing. In order to elimi-nate these disadvantages of transdisciplinarity, its prime cause and initial idea had to be detected. Then an attempt was made to analyze correspondence of the existing opinions about transdisciplinarity with the content of its prime cause and initial ideas. Methodology The bibliometric content analysis of the literature reviews on the subject of transdisciplinary was used in order to determine correspondence of the opin-ions about transdisciplinarity with the meaning of its prime cause and initial ideas, as well as to generalize these opinions. This method allowed detecting and classifying opinions into 11 groups including 39 stereotypes of transdiscipli-narity. For substantiation of transdisciplinary approaches consistency with the approaches of the contemporary science C.F. Gauss random variables normal distribution was used. The “Gauss curve” helped to show the place of transdis-ciplinary and systems transdisciplinary approaches in the structure of academic and systems approaches. The “Gauss curve” demonstrated the step-by-step broadening of the scientific worldview horizon due to sequential intensification of synthesis, integration, unification, and generalization of the disciplinary knowledge.