Sustainable development: reflections from complex and transdisciplinary thinking

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to reflect on sustainable development based on the principles of Edgar Morín's complex thinking and Basarab Nicolescu's transdisciplinarity. It is a documentary work approached from the interpretive paradigm, with an epistemological foundation in social constructionism, relativistic ontology, phenomenological method supported by hermeneutics. As a preamble, the relevant aspects of sustainable development are exposed, to later relate them to the principles mentioned above. From the aforementioned confrontation, we reflect on the difficulty for the construction of knowledge around sustainable development from a simple and linear thought and how transdisciplinarity can collaborate in improving the postulates of sustainability. Finally, both the transdisciplinary approach and complex thinking can enrich the epistemic and paradigmatic routes for the production of new knowledge and a better understanding of the long-awaited sustainable development.