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Francesco Panico and Hans DielemanThe Narrative as a Way to
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a Polyphonic Way 123
The Narrative as a Way toConstruct TransdisciplinaryKnowledge:
Building UponExperience in a Polyphonic Way1Francesco Panico and
2Hans Dieleman, 1Center for Eco Literacy and Dialogues of Knowing,
UniversidadVeracruzana, Campus para la cultura, las artes y el
deporte, S/N, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, Email:
[email protected],2 College of Sciences and Humanities
Autonomous University of Mexico City, Colonia Doctores, Delegacin
CuauhtemocMexico City, Mexico, Email: [email protected]
When trying to glimpse at the possible realiza-tion of
transdisciplinary, Basarab Nicolescupoints throughout his work at
the powerful
potentials of the narrative, particularly in its
literarymanifestation. In response to that and with theintention to
contribute to the further developmentof transdisciplinary theory
and methodology, weaim to explore the potentials of the narrative
as aform of transdisciplinary knowing that is rigorousyet escapes
from the strict methodology imposedby positive science. Our
contribution will explorethe narrative in its aesthetic form
(literature), inits form of vivid culture as well as in its form
ofcosmological fundamentals (stories and legends).It will analyze
if and how the narrative offersa platform to entangle the abundant
heritage ofhuman experiences, both in a historic as well as inan
individual way. It will finally asks if this lively,discontinuous
and complex way of knowing may be abase for the construction of a
more open, accessibleand democratic house of knowledge.
Keywords: Transdisciplinarity, narrative, lit-erature, polifony,
knowledge.
1 Introduction
The structure of the expression representsa piece of reality
while the meaning or theidea is nothing more than a shadow.
Paul Valery, The dialogue of the tree
A word of a beautiful maiden that did not sufferyet the erosion
of time is now expanding like anexplosion of life and meaning, a
little bit everywherein the world, [1]. Indeed, this is an odd way
to startan article, as indeed, it is a curious choice to start
amanifest to spread the message of a new and maidenword. The style
of the unique Manifest of Transdis-ciplinarity is drenched with
messianic virtues andglimpses of new beginnings, thus presenting a
mid-way between a triumphant outpouring of the spiritand a treaty
that leaves spaces of meaning open forunderstanding, attainable
when interpreted withinthe genus (the manifest itself) where they
belong to.
We continue to ask ourselves however why Nico-lescu adopted such
a descriptive style: to favor theincursion of a new vocabulary
within existing knowl-edge and formal education?; to provide (as he
claims)
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a Polyphonic Way 124
in a secure axiomatic form the argument about some-thing that,
by its very nature, cannot be penetrateddue to the limited light of
reason?; or only becauseit was unconsciously created in this way by
the lessdemanding hugs of his intuition? Was choosing theform of a
manifest the easiest way to avoid the cum-bersome problem of the
elucidation of the conceptsand procedures of transdisciplinarity
or, more sim-ply, to adjust to the fact that approximation
alwaysleads to partial understanding?
It looks like Nicolescu wants to tell us how ev-erything that is
ambiguous can be the subject oftransdisciplinarity, like the face
of the moon that ishalfway between viewed and invisible, or
anythingelse that is in between being discussed and silenced.What
way can there be to approach this kind ofapprehension, when we know
that the axiomaticknowledge is prior to us, and emerges rather from
aninherited disposition than from intimate intuition,without
worldly mediation? Certainly it is difficultto find an answer to so
many doubts and questions,a reason why we prefer to see the
Manifest as anexercise in style and as a fortunate encounter
ofwords intended to be associated so they communi-cate something to
us. To be able to do so however,they need to be submitted to a
creative power thatorganizes them and gives them an organic
meaning.
Remaining faithful to our own assumptions we, inthis article, do
not consecrate a definition of trans-disciplinarity but try to
explore, with hopefully sug-gestive outcomes, small regions of its
vast territory,following some of the meandering paths of the
verbalact of narration. Unlike Nicolescu, who explores theimmense
wealth of knowledge forms starting fromthe basis of his training as
a physician, we drawfrom the experience of the narrative to
discover ourhorizon of meaning. To clarify a little bit where
wewant to arrive, we like to present a short quote fromThe Wizard
of Vienna of Sergio Pitol [2]:
Of the various instruments of man, themost astonishing is
undoubtedly the booksays Borges. All the others are extensionsof
his body. The microscope, the telescopeare extensions of the sight;
the telephonean extension of the voice; then we havethe plow and
the sword, extensions of thearm. But the book is something else:
thebook is an extension of his memory andimagination.
The book is obviously one of the many marks leftby the passage
of man on earth, and it seems tobe among the most significant ones
since in it, asthe above words suggest, mankind has left memoryof
all that has meant being a man. Often phi-losophy, religion or
science suggest us comfortingdefinitions of what that means, but we
neverthelesshave not found the anthology of complete
humanexperience anywhere, equally not in books. Theamazing metaphor
inherent in the great Borgesianlibrary warns us that the quest for
existential secu-rity will not be found in any corner. What
mankindpassed on to us is a rich universe of everything wehave
been, are and will be, and paradoxically thathas been transmitted
largely through books. Farfrom pretending to be exculpators of the
book, thisremark merely wants to suggest that the humanbeing is
basically and fundamentally that what hehas told about himself over
time, orally and graphi-cally, instead of a sublimated essence of
some deusex machina1. Mankind, as already suggested by theGreeks,
is created through stories that are necessaryto establish identity
and to avoid getting lost in theawkward whirlwind of time. This
afterwardness inthe construction of identity [3] has been forged
inmany stories (myths and literature) in which theunequal and
divers human phenomenon has shownmany ways of communication and
collaboration.
Transdisciplinarity, which essence is in that whatis external
and additional to the scientific method(without abandoning
science), aiming at recoveringall the exuberance and complexity of
the human ex-perience, cannot overlook or ignore the fertile
groundof the narrative, in either its epistemological
searchprocess, its professional practice or in the transmis-sion of
the knowledge it creates2.
1... the story is present at all times, all places and in
allsocieties; the story begins with the very history of
mankind;there is and there has never been any community
withoutstories; all classes and all groups have their stories
andoften these stories have aspects in common among diversand even
opposite cultures: the story mimics good and bad,international,
transhistorical and transcultural literature,the story is there as
life.
2It is important to mention right now that the fictionalnature
of the narrative does not represent a different levelof truth of
what is put forward (less real or even devoid oftruth), but is the
very essence of the linguistic frameworkthat allows access to the
very reality and is the form totransmit to other realities. In
Latin the verb fingeremeans to capture something through a form
(figmentum).The late medieval poet Giovanni Boccaccio in his
Trat-tatello translates the Latin carmina fingere to finzione
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2 The Literary Narrative
In this article we restrict ourselves to the literarynarrative
as a forefront representation of the oral andwritten word, while we
are obviously aware that thenarrative is much wider than the
restricted domain ofliterature or verbal arts. The literary
narrative how-ever is of paramount essence to transdisciplinarity
asit historically represents a plural and complex way ofstructuring
reality and consequently understandingit. In the narrative, as in
the arts and myths ingeneral, the categories of reality and truth
do nothave a vital importance or essential weight [5] andthe
principles of classical logic have been avoidedfrom the
beginning3
, in particular those of non-contradiction andof the excluded
middle that both are central inNicolescus understanding of
transdisciplinarity [1].The narrative celebrates the loss of
centrality anddirection in communication. Its image is that of
themirror that multiplies instead of reflects. Its prolif-eration
is in fact an escape, an abdication from thesecurity of that what
is and a resignation to identifywith that. In this infinite process
of multiplicationthe faces of both the creator and the created
dontstop to show and hide and when the image ultimatelyfades, its
underlying query converts in an absurdityand arid stubbornness. The
narrative does not sepa-rate, as it knows how to encompass totality
and torestrict to the blind imperative of demonstration. Inthe
narrative, knowledge does not suffer lacerationsas all can be seen
and grasped.
In this sense we could explore, as we will do later,the path of
polyphony. The great Russian liter-ary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin [6]
believed that wecould find polyphony, among other things, in
theuniqueness of the individual, which in fact consistsof different
Is heard and held over time. Man isa living mosaic in a constant
state of listening andappropriation. So are society and history
that arenourished by a myriad of views, discourses, denialsand
camouflages. This represents the richness andcomplexity of reality
as a place where truth is de-nied and the denial becomes an
intangible truth4.
in the sense of composition.3The logic to which we refer is that
of the aesthetic forms
mentioned by Bakhtin [6], and not that of the formalcategorical
principles of classical tradition.
4Freeing the distant and wise Hellenics from all liability,the
exercise of power and its formalization in generallyrecognized and
accepted hierarchical structures, are that
These Is of which Bakhtin speaks, point us in thedirection of a
notion of time that is fragmented andthat matches, in many cases
through a reality as a(grotesque) parody, denial with affirmation,
pleasurewith anger and joy with misery.
In this sense, the narrative paraphrases the trans-disciplinary
methodology of Nicolescu where knowl-edge is not simply a
concatenation of easily verifiablefacts that are accessible to
everyone in the same way,but a personal (or group) reconstruction
of mean-ing based on elements that are scattered and
oftenincoherent. Knowing is chasing the trails of a mys-tery (as in
a detective?) in the abode (possibly) ofcreativity [7]:
So therefore what is referred to as theknowledge that Pasolini
expressed whensaying I know consists of [...] beinga writer who
strives to know everythinghe writes, imagining anything that is
notknown or said, coordinating distant eventswhile bringing
together the disorganizedand fragmented pieces of a coherent
politi-cal framework thus restoring logic whereverarbitrarity,
madness and mystery seem toreign. To do all of that requires
writing astory.
So in just a few lines we are able to address amanifest and a
detective that only differ from eachother in as far as they belong
to a different typeof narrative, but that converge in the sense
thatboth have the inescapable task of having to shapethat what is
scattered. Like in a square packed withpeople, where movements and
sounds out of tuneneed the be touched by the right note of an
eventualpublic speaker to reach a center of gravity that isat first
strongly rejected by the multitude of privateconversations.
To prevent that diversity of voices ends as confusedand
disjoined Babylonian babbling, it needs higherorder synthesis and
shape, whose fictionality, towhich we refer in footnote 2, is not a
simple adjectivethat is loosely attached (the fictional), but a
nounclearly defined (fiction). Unfortunately, academicanalysis has
primarily been treating form-fiction asan aesthetic object
(literary criticism), thus entirelyruling out the whole of ethical
implications that anordering of the chaotic implies, as well as the
impact
what most of all have pronounced, not coincidentally, thewords
contradiction and exclusion.
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that applying shape or form has on thought andbehavior. As we
will try to argue in the aftermathof this writing it is precisely
here, in the order ofthe action of transdisciplinary knowing, where
theaesthetical and the ethical may converge.
As will be clear by now, the point of referenceto reflect on our
impressions is Basarab NicolescusManifest that we consider that to
be the most presti-gious, most intriguing and most precise approach
totransdisciplinarity, as it sees modern science as justone of the
many ways of responding to the humanlonging for understanding.
Longing in the sense oflooking at ourselves in the reflection of
any otherness;letting human dignity prevail over depersonalizedyet
dominant laws of history; urging a reanimationof the subdued call
to man to take responsibilityfor his own knowledge; giving new life
and utopianbreath to the dwindling candles of a civilization thatis
mired in an expiring progressivism.
Finally, with this text we intend to give a small andmodest
contribution to the practice of the narrativeas a way to
differentiate the metaphorical from whatwe call reality (the facts)
and truth (how toreckon) knowing that, as is clear from the words
ofValery presented at the beginning of this article, themeaning of
a text lies more in the magnificence andcoherence of its
architecture (as in geometry, seen bySocrates as the supreme art)
and less in the contentof the argument or the alleged claims.
3 The Animal That Talks
The definition that the wise philosophers of Greekantiquity gave
to men and women was that of theanimal of language. The individual
that did notspeak or that was dead received an indisputabledistinct
ontological status or, quite simply, belongedto another category of
existence like a cypress or atiger for who the whistling wind or
shattering roarcould never reach the dignity of true
communication.For Parmenides, language was the arrangement intime
of the act of thought, as there was, in Being,absolute coincidence
between idea and word; it wasnot necessary to link thought with
representationor interpretation or, which is in the end the
same,illusion. Language was not submitted to any kindof mental
schizophrenia, as thought emerged fromthe rational and reliable
companion that we call thetruth: ... thinking and being are the
same, saidthe born in Elea.
However, the most interesting in all of that is notthe
epistemological status of truth or opinion, butthe way a long
philosophical tradition, from the pre-Socratics to the present day,
has tried to explain theproblem of knowledge. Parmenides wrote a
poemto represent his ontological argument; Plato, as wellas many
centuries after him Galileo, resorted to theliveliness and the
unfinished style of dialogue whileHegel, Heidegger, Derida and many
others - uselessand tiresome to mention all - tested the
preciousSaussurean scheme of the signifier and the signifiedto try
to express the intangibility of language. Ev-erything, it seems,
ends in poetry [8] or, in case thisis more acceptable, in a
complicated and not alwayspleasant exercise of style. From this we
dare to con-clude that fiction, as we understand it now, is notthe
prerogative of art only but merely a technicalprocess that
underlies any attempt of expression.
Throughout history mankind experienced count-less ways to shape
the chaotic while trying to addressthe maddening complexity of
reality by reducing itsunderstanding to simplified and therefore
abridgedworlds. Are cosmologies not attempts to encirclethe
incomprehensible and to provide us with a se-cure place from which
to speak? Are we sure thatscience can lead us out of the place of
existentialdoubt if we admit that we can reduce the Method ,for
example, to a matter of style? Will the Method5
not be one of the many ways of organizing discourseand
experiences, rather than an infallible tool forthe truth? And will
science not be yet one morefruitful cosmology, as the philosophers
of Hellas ap-parently conceived it? As Sciascia said in El casoMoro
[9], the truth is the filter that sits between usand reality (the
same reality that Nicolescu, in theManifest, calls
trans-subjective) since, for us poormortals thrown in chaos, what
ultimately counts ishow this reality is apprehended, that is, how
it isrepresented and organized. So the truth, as Cassirer[10]
guessed right in his philosophy of symbolic forms,is a plausible
(and consistent) abstraction of reality,and not a natural
coincidence between the fact andits representation. In short,
representation acquiresa status of being that is separate and
distinct fromthe fact to which it refers.
All this presents us with the problem of the cen-trality of the
act of expression (in our case, verbal)and the pleasant possibility
of seeing this act as be-
5We refer to the Galilean method that still in general
under-pins the scientific exercise.
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a Polyphonic Way 127
ing separate from the factual content that is usuallyattached to
it as a guarantee of its truth. The oldghost of plausibility,
suggested by Aristotle, doesnot appear because it is put to the
test of reality (asthe very citizen from Stagirus argued himself
for thecase of history), but receives its full proof in any actof
representation or, to put in other words, fiction.In this respect
man is undoubtedly a talking animal,while speaking and writing are
traces of our passagethrough the journey of the soul. So as a
partialclosure, with the intent to underline the
fictionalfoundation on which all claims of truth rest, we turnour
focus to the sweet Lust, the crystal lady of Valery[11], who
crossed out the daily appearances of Devilas the fruit of the
despicable literature against thecorruptible minds of men, while
suddenly, servantof Fausto announces the entry of a man who saidhe
was a friend of the master. ...and who... spookItalian with a
Russian accent.: nothing more andnothing less than
Mephistopheles.
4 Polyphony
It is proven that man, since he wants to fly throughthe endless
skies of thought and rejoice with theexclusive materials of his
mind, has not yet beengranted the precious gift of solitude. As a
result hisvoice, the single efflux that sprouts from the
indi-vidual, is doomed to be emptied into the containerin which
everything is mixed: the world. And inthis world he also finds the
voices of others, not onlypeople but equally things, ideas, mirrors
that, inshort, bring him back to the image of his body andthe sound
of his words; thus revealing other things,other ideas and other
words, to the point that allthe distance that separates him from
other people,things, ideas and words, condenses in him and
isreleased when he decides to build the story of whatcorresponds to
him: his life or, if he settles for muchless, some pieces taken
from her.
Music catches well the subtleties of polyphony,and interprets it
(in the strict performative sense)as a simultaneous set of
different voices (human orinstrumental) that are placed in
different shades andgo in parallel or opposite directions, thus
showing itsconsistency as part of the unique and
unrepeatabletotality of a concert. That what most of all alertsour
interest and curiosity is undoubtedly the wholeof divergent voices
that find their musical coherencein performing dissonance, and that
lead us to the
apparent absurd thought that harmony, in a broadsense, is a well
orchestrated dialogue of dissonantvoices in the sense of note
against note or punc-tum against punctum (counterpoint). This
scenarioof polyphonic counterpoints constitutes, for
presentpurposes, a powerful metaphor6 that enables us tofind the
potentials of contradiction (represented pre-cisely by the
counterpoint) for realizing synthesisrather than for creating
irreconcilable separation.Mikhail Bakhtin, while going over the
cultural his-tory of the novel, used polyphony to refer to
thesocial nature of the I that writes and, consequently,of any I
that narrates, provoking in that way achange of the well-known
commonplace of man astalking animal into man as animal that is
spokento. This reversal of direction is not simply one ofthe many
language games Wittgenstein saw as es-sential to humans, but places
us in a concrete way infront of the arduous task of recognizing the
illusoryand ideological nature of any linguistic act and, asa
consequence, of each word we use to cope withthe challenging
journey of life. We are made of anindefinite number of voices that
manifest themselves,in most cases, through an equally indefinite
combi-nation of materials, among others, linguistic; butthese do
not belong exclusively to us, as we sharethem with others within
certain historical and geo-graphical settings that determine their
senses (weuse the plural as they are multiple) and their
possibleapplications. This implies a substantial ambiguityof
language (heteroglossia), as the linguistic act towhich we refer is
submitted to the empire of con-juncture. During such an act,
participants choosewords and develop discourses to free themselves
froma situation they are, volente o nolente, wrapped
in(dialogism).
However, the animal that is spoken to and the
6It is important to mention that the metaphorical sense thatwe
refer to, does not intend to substitute a reality that itaims to
explain by other means and through other exam-ples, but intends to
settle in the threshold that facilitatesthe connection between
areas that, apparently, are not re-lated. To illustrate this, we
could say that the metaphor isan extension of the quantum discovery
of non-separability(by which two entities continue to interact
despite their re-moteness), to the polymorphous universe of
language. Theformula of all is in all is nothing more than the
transferof a microphysical truth (for instance the memory of
thefirst moment of life of the universe is maintained in
eachparticle that currently makes up that universe, a reasonwhy
time and history require a different meaning) to therealm of poetic
truth where memory, through metaphor(its iconic weapon), represents
the distant.
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a Polyphonic Way 128
talking animal are placed in different positionswithin the order
of what we want to express. Thefirst leads us to accept the
performative nature oflanguage (like a concert), where no speaking
subjectcan break away from the linguistic universe thatis
pre-created yet constantly changing, in which heparticipates as an
executor; the second leads us to ac-knowledge that language is,
despite of its enormousrange of use and of the multiple scenarios
to whichit leads, the way we have chosen to communicate,thus
actively participating in the construction of thishuman phenomenon
which we observe and live today.As a result, the talking animal is
fragmented into amyriad of voices of which he is certainly not
alwaysable to capture the contrapuntal unifying potential.At that
point polyphony becomes a powerful toolfor understanding the
ethical dimension of both thelinguistic act as well as the
individuals behavior ina given environment.
Has this awkwardness, that most of us humansexperience,
something to do with the parallel inabil-ity to establish harmony
within the contrapuntalgame intonated by our words and by our
actions?Everything we said resonates in the wise words ofMontaigne
[12] when he wrote that:
[...]our life is composed, like the harmonyof the world, of
opposite things, as wellas of various soft and hard tones, sharpand
blunt ones as well as tender and se-rious ones. What does the
musician thatonly loves some of them wants to tell? Itis necessary
that he uses and mixes themtogether. Equally for us the good and
theevil are implicit in our life. We can donothing without this
mixture; the one is asnecessary as the other. Trying to wrestlewith
this natural necessity is to imitate thefolly of Ctesiphon who was
trying to fightwith his mule by kicking it.
The natural need that Montaigne refers to is, para-doxically, a
melting pot of arbitrariness for our poorsight. But in part this is
also true for nature as onthe microphysical level, as quantum
physics showedus, nothing is something full of possibilities7, so
hope
7Here the following words of Miltons Satan resonate: [...]we
have been begotten and created by our own essenceand by virtue of
our vitalizing power, while fatal coursecompleted its full circle
and reached the time of maturityof our birth, of this native sky,
ethereal sons, our very ownstrength [...]
is rather to be found in the future that is alwayslocked in
Pandoras box than in verifiable facts andas a result, it is to be
unfolded rather than to befound in the open. That makes us think
that webetter orient ourselves at what is hidden behindthe
appearances of what we put forward right nowthan at what is built
from knowledge in a measur-able world. True knowledge is always
postponedand found in a plausible future, as Aristotle wiselystated
in his Poetics, assigned to the likelihood andnot the factual
findings of the historical narrative.The problem for us, limited
humans, is to find outhow to understand and practice this simple
warningthat contemporary physics provides us with, avoid-ing at the
same time that the desire to argue andprove things that are by
nature improvable, preventus from being clear.
So what Nicolescu defines as levels of reality,the included
middle and complexity, that what hedesignated as the pillars of
transdisciplinary method-ology, must be understood as metaphors
that are notless effective or less true than the
logical-deductiveproofs. Is Nicolescu not telling us that the
areaof non-resistance is the place where the reality ofthe object
and that of the subject meet and free usfrom the difficult act of
knowing?, is the metaphornot an indication that we are approaching
the areawhere reality no longer resists8, but is allowed
topenetrate and, in parallel, invades the delicate fibersof
consciousness? We believe that the passage fromthe microphysical
world of inherent uncertainty tothe macro-physical one of
measurable certainties isinherent in any path of wisdom or poetic
intuition.Yet we have neglected that path in recent years
andrelegated it to play not more than a miserable roleof
embellishing, in fetish and anti-esthetic ways, thereality that we
thought we mastered through thearms of technology.
The voice of Nicolescu in the Manifest is a po-ethical call (in
the sense of a hope aimed at a possi-ble future) that, as it
belongs to an axiomatic genre,organizes and combines its content in
a stylistic way.We see this as its main virtue because as a
resultit comfortably surpasses pathos and efficacy, leav-ing the
desire for philosophical argument presentin the text, but more as a
guest than as an owner.The powerful ethical and militant voice we
hear sur-
8I understand as Reality first of all that which resists
ourexperiences, representations, descriptions, images or
math-ematical formalizations.
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Francesco Panico and Hans DielemanThe Narrative as a Way to
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a Polyphonic Way 129
passes that of the physicist who seeks to disclosethe physical
foundations of his transdisciplinary pro-posal. The polyphony of
the text is in the presenceof all those voices that inspired his
writing and, asBakhtin mentioned, belongs not only to the
personaluniverse of Nicolescu, but to the entire field of use
oflinguistic materials that he deployed. In a nutshell,the Manifest
is an example of polyphonic realizationsubmitted to a certain
architectural form, whose pil-lars rest on the firm foundation of
an ethical stanceand a poetic proclivity. To end, on another level
ofinterpretation more often given to the content: isNicolescu not
describing transdisciplinarity as theconvergence of different
fields (or voices) of know-ing in order to realize the dream of the
unity ofknowledge?
5 Fiction
We often fall in the trap of misunderstanding the nar-rative,
due to categorical overindulgence or economyof thought, and think
of it as the exclusive preroga-tive of art. But if we accept that
human beings arepredominantly talking animals that, during
linguisticacts, attempt to structure understandable worlds
forcommunication purposes, we may conclude that weare rather
animals that tell than talk. This bringsus to the question
regarding the relationship, asoutlined above, between reality and
truth.
The withdrawal of the existence of a full coin-cidence between
reality and truth was one of thefounding discoveries of modern age,
with Kant inthe role of material executor of this finding.
Butadmitting that the world cannot be reflected as itis does not
mean that we surrender to chaos or, theopposite, to the
inevitability of a destination alreadycreated by someone. Realizing
- for purely historicalreasons - that we have been thrown into a
worldthat holds few similarities with the ideal images wehave of
it, opens up the possibility to recognize andtake advantage of the
quality of the narrative char-acteristic of all human phenomenon.
It helps us tosee truth as the formal coincidence between a
realitywe observe on the one hand and one we envisionin words and
actions and that we, sometimes, putin writing on the other hand.
The acceptance ofthis narrative truth means that every truth
mountedis the result of narrative invention. The notion oftime that
exists in the one-way arrow of Newtonianphysics actually bears
resemblance to that of the
Augustinian Confessions in which consciousness ofworldly things
was perceived as being the antithesisof eternity. Past, present and
future humans do notrepresent a worldly derivate of divine
essences, asin the work of Plato, but are rather the result ofthe
necessity, typically human, to build chains ofmeaning without which
we would not be able to seeor, even less, imagine ourselves.
So it would be no nonsense to say that what looksto be certain
about humanity is, among other things,this narrative boldness in
which both the handspainted in a Neolithic cave as well as the
leavespasted in a book about the Neosphere, appear to
berevelations. However, the animal that tells displaysin a
narrative its truth through fiction that allowshim to bring order
to the abode of chaos and tobuild from there his reality. But for
this reality toacquire a full and communicable meaning, it mustbe
consistent, that is, correctly built, architecturallybalanced and
capable of organizing those materials ofexperience that are largely
to be found in the word; aword that, as Bakhtin warns us, is not a
prerogativeof the subject in his abysmal loneliness and
infinitefreedom, but is declined gloss by a discursive andmultiform
context that is in constant motion witha large variety of power
mechanisms in constantoperation.
To explain this better, anthropology may help us,through the
introduction of two authors, CliffordGeertz and Marc Aug who,
coming from a disci-plinary field that was already hybrid
(somethingthat questions the naive equivalence made
betweendiscipline and disciplinarity that is often used to
crit-icize the rigid boundaries of the knowledge createdby the
first) both faced the challenging problem ofinterpretation as a
necessary operation for arrivingat knowledge. We begin with Geertz
[13] to thenfocus, in the next section on ethics and aesthetics,on
Auge:
To elaborate descriptions taken from thepoint of view of the
actor of things relatedto a Berber chieftain, a Jewish merchantand
a French military in 1912 Morocco,clearly constitutes an
imaginative act thatis by any means different from
preparinganalogous descriptions of, lets say, the re-lationships
between a physician living ina French province, his silly and
adulter-ous wife and the futile lover of nineteenth-century
France.
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So what is fiction, when we consider the narrativeof an
anthropologist on the culture and society inlate nineteenth-century
Morocco as equivalent toa history imagined by an alchemist of
language asFlaubert, roughly in the same period? Does the actof
interpretation leads us to conclude that, by natu-ral disposition,
the human being cannot go beyondappearances?, or is it that there
is no appearancebecause there is no singular reality, but
realitiesthat depend on both the contradictory nature
ofconsciousness as of that of matter? If beyond men,disillusioned
by the abjections they are able to createbecause of their weakness
and finiteness, we thoughtthe world of consciousness would never
have reachedthe perfection of the natural arrangement, now
wediscover that the same unevenness, although we lack(and not
little) apprehension, is found in the veryreality. So where to hang
on to when both the in-side and outside world have lost the
characteristicsnecessary for us to repair our existential
security?,and where can we find the ethical principles thatshould
underlie our behavior, if the reality that wepreviously thought as
given (though inaccessible inits entirety) is, in itself, a fiction
(in the sense ofa construction which is both necessary and
circum-stantial, build of elements put together by a law thatat the
same time precedes the construction9)?, howdo we relate to a
pluri-real world that combineslaws that are never definitive,
materials composedby others that materialize themselves in
improvisedways?, what do we do with a living reality in per-petual
construction that constantly interprets itself?We like to suggest,
as an answer to these questions,to think of reality as a poetic
scenario that is con-stantly completing, in a provisional way, a
fiction.This, always being closed and insufficient, is the
pos-itive, necessary and synthetic moment of creation orof, in some
way or other, a possible embodiment ofthe entire universe;
necessity as a carrier of emergentillusions of totality, to impose
order on chaos. It ishoping that things acquire a visible and
recogniz-able body that allow for memory to play with them(or to
forget); it is the always frustrated hope thatevery creative act by
nature conveys something inour attempt to reach the ultimate and
final essence
9We use the term necessary to point at the synthetic mo-ment
that strives for unity, and to the term circumstantialto refer to
the one who has the tendency to fragment. Thisspecification is
entirely conceptual regarding the universethat moves, contradictory
but not incongruously, betweenorder and chaos [14].
of totality.
Hence, here we encounter the crucial importance ofresponsibility
because, in a universe without absolutecenter, the inescapable law
of coexistence requires torelativize all centers sought of by the
ego, referringto them as part of a horizon of dialogue and
inclusionwhere no voice is silent. This democratic natureof
fiction, besides having a clear ethical sense, alsoimplies an
aesthetic dimension in the sense that itgives classical antiquity,
symmetry and proportion.The universe, without having moral
consciousness ofbeing, is wise and creative. We might even mistake
itfor an artist who knows how to modulate and join hisvoices into a
symphony composed of contradictoryelements; his credo being
polyphony, his dimensionbeing fiction.
6 Ethics and aesthetics
We open this section with a quote from the Frenchanthropologist
Marc Auge [15]:
If I want that the others [those who are theobject of
ethnographic studies] live fiction,and beyond that their own
fiction, I have tosituate myself by definition outside of that,and
likewise outside of any kind of fiction,because my aim is to
produce documents,as Bataille would say, transcribing what Ihave
before my eyes. Am I not stressingthe non-contemporaneity of the
observerthat Johannes Fabian precisely denouncedand whose mark is
present in all anthro-pological literature?, or to conclude: am
Inot contributing to the reproduction andamplification of
ethnographic fiction?
Auge is aware, as is Geertz, that in any story wherewe intend to
enclose the explanation of an event, asfor instance in the case of
an encounter with somecultural otherness, we create a fiction
because onlywe humans know how to make a posteriori
interpre-tations out of partial data structured in function ofour
inevitable prejudices. In transcribing experience,we make a
reduction in the complexity of that what,through the selection of
scattered fragments thatwe order along a time line, i.e., we create
a fiction,building upon our own version of events, using
thematerials, both conceptual as well as linguistic, thatwe have to
our disposition. The distance between
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the experience we lived and that which we
remember(non-contemporaneity) translates into a story as ahybrid
compendium of memory and the forgotten, astory of which we are the
authors.
This tripartite scheme reminds us of the structureof Hegelian
dialectics, when applied to a particu-lar case where it would
resolve the duality betweenthesis (the experience) and antithesis
(the memory)in the synthesis of a story. Meaning that fiction,where
Auge is talking about, is the dissolving of thedualism between
experience and memory under tothe persistent macro-physical laws of
time. Withinthis dimension, there can be no memory that
exactlyreproduces the lived experience simply because thedistance
that exist between the two terms (whichwe might think of as a
contradiction), is only rec-oncilable if we give up the belief of
full coincidence,settling for a story well crafted. The polyphony
thatwe envision in this case, will submit itself to therigid but
inevitable prescription of time, and thefiction that results from
it would become, at best, awell compiled summary of that what is
experienced.As such, transdisciplinarity, in our view,
disclosesitself as an essential practice for understanding
theexperience of knowledge seen in an ethical sense, andas a force
capable of giving attention to the diversityof voices intrinsically
present anywhere, and yes indoing so, it will be able to express
all voices in anappropriate and consistent way.
Summarizing and paraphrasing both Auge andNicolescu, we may say
that on the macro-physicallevel of non-contemporaneity,
transdisciplinarity isthe practice that tries to create a fiction
(and hencea methods of inquiry) that is appropriate for andopen to
the diversity of voices, thus intending toface the challenge of
knowledge. But, what happenswith the issue of experience and the
proprietorshipof living knowledge? To try to clarify this
question,we return to Nicolescus concept of the zone
ofnon-resistance. This zone is the place where twotendencies come
together, the subject and the ob-ject, who finally, through the
occurrence of a thirdelement (the hidden third), dissolve their
distances.As we saw above, for Hegel the pair of opposites thatare
at the basis of the dialectical relationship (in theontology of the
development of reality as well as inthe logical understanding of
it), is composed of rigidand isolated bodies that need to be put in
motionso that, like a pair of two molecules that both rejectand
attract each other, a third unifying element may
arise from their encounter. For Nicolescu, the thirdelement does
not require a temporal dimension butmanifests itself, like in
Kierkegaard, like a flash ofeternity within the natural order of
time. In thearea of non-resistance the antagonism between sub-ject
and object is resolved in the contemporaneityof the occurrence of
the third party, i.e., an absolutepresent that allows
transdisciplinarity to penetratethe elusive realm of the sacred.
Through the ideaof no-contemporaneity, Aug places us, without
anyescape, in front of the problem of time, i.e., in frontof the
need to bring order to the chaos that sur-rounds us, following the
linear structure created inthe past, in the present and in the
future. The past,present, and the future of the ethnologist are
notthe same as those who he is studying, his fictionsare different.
Only in moments of real coexistence,the researcher and the
researched (subject and ob-ject) share, in the full sense of the
word, the notionof time; only in the act of jointly repairing a
roofwhen a heavy downpour takes them by surprise orwhen they eat
and laugh together, they experiencecontemporaneity, that is to say
experience that doesnot require the constant mediation of
interpretationin order to be understood; in these experiences
theyare taken by surprised by unforeseen occurrencesof chance. What
do we do in these circumstances,when we are not in a position to
control and reg-ulate the temporal chain of causalities?
Aristotlesummarized the virtue of the wise, not the struc-tured
narrating of fiction but in his intelligence toknow to do the right
thing at the right time (phrone-sis). The subject of
transdisciplinarity knowledgecomes close to the profile of
Aristotles wise, whenin the zone of non-resistance fiction is a
fiction inoperation (a narrative of contemporaneity) wherethe
aesthetic dimension of construction of a balancedform goes hand in
hand with the ethical compositionof a balanced behavior10. In this
place where thesubject and the object meet in
contemporaneity,ethics and aesthetics convert in synonyms. This
is,in our understanding, the place where the impor-tant elements of
honesty and openness of Nicolescustransdisciplinary proposal, get
their meaning, senseand specificity.
So we conclude by saying that, in the microphys-ical level of
contemporaneity, fiction is that what,ethically and aesthetically,
structures the actual ex-
10The concept of auto-ethics of Morin [16], points at a
horizonof kindred understanding.
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Francesco Panico and Hans DielemanThe Narrative as a Way to
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a Polyphonic Way 132
perience of both the subject and the object.
7 Conclusions: The Occurrence ofa Poetic Disposition
Although it is impossible for us humans to mate-rially access
different realms of the macro physicalworld, and although we are
confined to unavoidabletemporary fiction, we can try to introduce
ourselvesto the universe of the full vacuum through what
wehistorically have experienced as poetry. Not in thesense of
poetry as an artistic achievement but ratheras a poetic attitude
that we have lost by giving toomuch importance to an instrumental
pragmatismfounded on the belief that to achieve balance andharmony,
it is inevitable to eliminate those factorsthat hinder the
achievement of the goal that we setout for ourselves; we obscured
the polyphony inher-ent in any reality up to the point that we now
donot even recognize it anymore; we have dropped ouranxieties in
the seemingly calm, but very dangeroushorizon where synthesis is
replaced by elimination.War, even though difficult to recognize, is
not anaccident within the tortuous path of progress (al-though we
believe so) but is, dramatically, the onlyway weve found to make up
for and cope with theloss of memory of who we are: animals that
talk inan overwhelming concert of voices. To build an arte-fact of
beauty is, in the end, the virtue of civilizedman who knows how to
recognize and give space toall the voices that compose him.
Transdisciplinarityis, therefore, the new episteme and new tekne
ofcivilized man.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the University of Veracruz andthe Autonomous
University of Mexico City for sup-porting the effort that meant the
writing of thisarticle. Likewise we thank our families for being
aconstant reference point in our lives and in our workeveryday.
References
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[3] Ricoeur, P., 2007. Tiempo y narracin XXI
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[4] Barthes, R., 1996. Introduccion al analisis estruc-tural de
los relatos, Ediciones Coyoacan Mexico.
[5] Eco, U., 2011. Confesiones de un joven novelista,Lumen,
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[6] Bakhtin, M., 2007. La cultura popular en la EdadMedia y el
Renacimiento. El contexto de FrancoisRabelais, Alianza Editorial,
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[7] Tabucchi, A., 1999. La gastritis de Platon, Ana-grama,
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[8] Steiner, G., 2012. La poesa del pensamiento, Fondode Cultura
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[9] Sciascia, L., 2010. El Caso Moro, Tusquets,Barcelona.
[10] Cassirer, E., 1978. Filosofa de las formas simblicas,Fondo
de Cultura Economica, Mexico.
[11] Valery, P., 2003. Mi Fausto, A. Machado Libros,Madrid.
[12] Montaigne, M., 2011. Ensayos completos, Porrua,Mexico.
[13] Geertz, C., 2004. La interpretacin de las culturas,Gedisa,
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[14] Prigogine, I., 2013. Las leyes del caos, Planeta,
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[15] Aug, M., 1998. Las formas del olvido, Gedisa,Barcelona.
[16] Morin, E., 2006. El mtodo VI: la etica, Catedra,Madrid.
About the Authors
Dr. Francesco Panico is a full professor in the Cen-ter for Eco
Literacy and Dialogues of Knowing of theUniversity Veracruzana in
the state of Veracruz, Mexico.Postdoc at the Center for Research in
EnvironmentalGeography (CIGA) of the National Autonomous
Univer-sity of Mexico (UNAM). Doctor of History and Regional
Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & ScienceISSN:
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Francesco Panico and Hans DielemanThe Narrative as a Way to
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a Polyphonic Way 133
Studies at the University Veracruzana. National Systemof
Researchers (SNI), Level I. Profile Promep (Ministry ofEducation).
Level V of academic productivity at the Uni-versity Veracruzana.
Email: [email protected];[email protected]. The topics that he work
are: the rela-tionship between ethics and aesthetics and its
connectionwith research; Literature as transdisciplinary
experiencie.
Dr. Hans Dieleman is of Dutch/Flamish origin andworks as a full
professor in the College of Sciences andHumanities of the
Autonomous University of MexicoCity. Previously he worked in the
Center of Environ-mental Studies of the Erasmus University
Rotterdam inthe Netherlands, that he combined for several years
withcoordinating a European-wide Master program in En-vironmental
Management of the European Associationof Environmental Management
Education (secretariat inVarese, Italy). He also worked as an
invited professorin the Dauphine University in Paris, France and
asa visiting professor in the Metropolitan University ofMexico
City. He was a member of the academic teamthat prepared the
Doctoral Program in TransdisciplinaryStudies of the University
Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico.
He is a member of the Interuniversity Research Pro-gram on
Climate Change (PINCC), initiated by the Na-tional Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM) and amember of the Mexican National
Network of Researchersin Social-Cultural Studies of Emotions
(RENISCE),equally initiated by the UNAM; a member of the Na-tional
System of Researchers of the Mexican Council ofScience and
Technology (Conacyt), a fellow of TheAtlasand a member of the
European Sociological Association.He is a co-founder and honorary
member of the inter-national NGO Cultura21 specialized in cultures
ofsustainability, with offices in Germany, Denmark, Franceand
Mexico. He co-received two national Dutch distinc-tions for his
work in Education for Sustainability andis a co-receiver of a 2010
national Mexican distinctionfor the development of the
Sustainability Plan for theMetropolitan University of Mexico
City.
His main research themes are sustainability, education,art and
transdisciplinarity. Specific themes are episte-mology (of the
South), transdisciplinary hermeneutics,reflective practice,
emotional intelligence and embodiedcognition and multilevel
governance. The past 15 years hehas been working on the development
of the field of Artand Sustainability that allows him to integrate
several ofthe above-mentioned themes.
Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & ScienceISSN:
1949-0569 online, c2014 TheATLAS
Vol. 5, pp. 123-133, (December, 2014)