The Construction of Worldviews and the Dissemination of Scientific Results

Abstract: This essay consists of four parts: an introduction by Vanlandschoot to the Woridviews project and the Centrum Leo Apostel, the text of a videotaped interview with Apostel shown at the 1989 meeting of the A1S at Sonoma State University, a fuller account of the Worldviews project by Vanlandschoot, and excerpls from an essay in self-criticism by Apostel, with final reflections by Vanlandschoot. IN THE 1982 Issues in Integrative Studies there is an article by Professor Raymond C. Miller. In his “Varieties of Interdisciplinary Approaches in the Social Sciences: A 1981 Overview ” he mentions the 1972 OECD book on interdisciplinarity (OECD 1972). 1 quote: “During the turmoil of the late sixties I wrote a small paper in which I attempted to make some basic distinctions between various kinds of interdisciplinary approaches in the social sciences, A few years later the seminal OECD study appeared, entitled Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities. Not only did this study set the framework for almost all subsequent discussion on the subject, but it also established the term ‘interdisciplinarity ’ in our professional jargon ” (Miller, 1983, 3). Professor Apostel was one of the authors who wrote an article in the 1972 OECD book. The title was “Conceptual Tools for Interdisciplinarity: An Operational Approach. ” In her book, Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice, Julie Thompson Klein recalls the OECD’s introductory description of the book as a “truly seminal ” work. It was a “‘preliminary balance sheet. ’ a ‘working tool ’ that did indeed become ‘the starting point for new thought and action. ’ Even now this book remains the most widely cited reference on the subject of interdisciplinarity because it ‘channeled ’ hitherto sporadic, disperse