Article 1: Any attempt to reduce the human being by formally defining what a human being is and subjecting the human being to reductive analyses within a framework of formal structures, no matter what they are, is incompatible with the transdisciplinary vision.
Article 2: The recognition of the existence of different levels of reality governed by different types of logic is inherent in the trandisciplinary attitude. Any attempt to reduce reality to a single level governed by a single form of logic does not lie within the scope of transdisciplinarity.
Article 3: Transdisciplinarity complements disciplinary approaches. It occasions the emergence of new data and new interactions from out of the encounter between disciplines. It offers us a new vision of nature and reality. Transdisciplinarity does not strive for mastery of several disciplines but aims to open all disciplines to that which they share and to that which lies beyond the.
Article 4:
The keystone of transdisciplinarity is the semantic and practical unification of the meanings othat traverse and lie beyond different disciplines. It presupposes an open-minded rationality by re-examining the concepts of “definition” and “objectivity”. An excess of formalism, rigidity of definitions and a claim to total objectivity, entailing the exclusion of the subject, can only have a life-negating effect.
Article 5:
The transdisciplinary vision is resolutely open insofar as it goes beyond the field of the exact sciences and demands their dialogue and their reconciliation with the humanities and the social sciences, as well as with art, literature, poetry and spiritual experience.
Article 6:
In comparision with interdisciplinary and multidisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity is multireferential and multidimensional. While taking account of the various approaches to time and history, transdisciplinarity does not exclude a transhistorical horizon.
Article 7:
Transdisciplinarity constitutes neither a new religion, nor a new philosophy, nor a new metaphysics, nor a science of sciences.
Article 8:
The dignity of the human being is of both planetary and cosmic dimensions. The appearance of human beings on Earth is one of the stages in the history of the Universe. The recognition of the Earth as our home is one of the imperatives of the transdisciplinairty. Every human begin is entitled to a nationality, but as an inhabitant of the Earth is also a transnational being. The acknowledgement by international law of this twofold belonging, to a nation and to the Earth, is one of the goals of transdisciplinary research.
Article 9: Transdisciplinarity leads to an open attitude towards myths and religions, and also toward those who respect them in a transdisciplinary spirit.
Article 10:
No single culture is privileged over any culture. The transdisciplinary approach is inherently transcultural.
Article 11:
Authentic education cannot value abstraction over other forms of knowledge. It must teach contextual, concrete and global approaches. Transdisciplinary education revalues the role of intuition, imagination, sensibility and the body in the transmission of knowledge.
Article 12:
The development of a transdisciplinary economy is based on the postulate that the economy must serve the human being and not the reverse.
Article 13:
The transdisciplinary ethic rejects any attitude that refuses dialogue and discussion, regardless of whether the origin of this attitude is ideaological, scientistic, religious, economic, political or philosophical. Shared knowledge should lead to a shared understanding based on an absolute respect for the collective and individual Otherness united by our common life on one and the same Earth.
Article 14: Rigor, opening, and tolerance are the fundamental characteristics of the transdisciplinary attitude and vision. Rigor in argument, taking into account all existing data, is the best defence against possible distortions. Opening involves an acceptance of the unknown, the unexpected and the unpredicatable. Tolerance implies acknowledging the right to ideas and truths opposed to our own.
Final Article:
The present Charter of Transdisciplinarity was adopted by the participants of the first World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, with no claim to any authority other than that of their own work and activity.
In accordance with procedures to be agreed upon by transdisciplinary-minded persons of all countries, this Charter is open to the signature of anyone who is interested in promoting progressive national, international and transnational measures to ensure the application of these Articles in everyday life.
Convento da Arrabida, November 6, 1994
Editorial Committee: Lima de Freitas, Edgar Morin and Basarab Nicolescu.