ERIC Number: EJ1101139
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1081-4760
EISSN: N/A
Something Essential about Interdisciplinary Thinking
Dreyfuss, Simeon
Issues in Integrative Studies, v29 p67-83 2011
The integrative thinking essential to interdisciplinary inquiry requires not only critical reflection concerning the points of convergence and dissonance between disciplinary insights, but also something more personal and less predictable that this paper describes as "holding in relationship difference ways of knowing." Using the process of teaching a poem by Robert Hass as illustration and metaphor, this paper models its subject. Interdisciplinary "truth," the paper asserts, is phenomenological in nature, always partial and provisional, emergent as opposed to fixed. The paper gives readers an experience of a dialectical and nonlinear learning process, tolerance for confusion in the midst of complexity, and tolerance for the inherent challenges of holding different ways of knowing simultaneously in one's mind, all of which are essential characteristics of interdisciplinary thought. Both a celebration of interdisciplinary and skeptical of intimations for exclusivity, the paper makes the case that the essential qualities of interdisciplinary thought are characteristics of creative thinking in many disciplines.
Descriptors: Interdisciplinary Approach, Creative Thinking, Reflection, Learning Processes, Poetry, Figurative Language, Phenomenology, Thinking Skills, Philosophy, Critical Thinking, Epistemology, Ambiguity (Semantics)
Association for Interdisciplinary Studies. Oakland University, Macomb County, 44575 Garfield Road Building UC2 Suite 103, Clinton Township, MI 48038. Tel: 586-263-6098; Fax: 586-263-6261; e-mail: aisorg@oakland.edu; Web site: http://wwwp.oakland.edu/ais
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A