In the last post of this series I do not propose to add another paradigm to the five already studied but rather to offer some more general methodological considerations. While these thoughts arise out of reflection on the different paradigms studied in this series, it is hoped that they will be of help in the further planning and in the realization of the transdisciplinary course. From a methodological point of view perhaps the best place to begin is with the very idea of a discipline. What constitutes a discipline as opposed to an idea, a theory or a perspective? If we do not have some clarity and some consensus on what we mean by a discipline it is most unlikely that we will be able to explain clearly what we mean by “transdisciplinary”. A second methodological consideration concerns the relationship between a discipline, a paradigm and a method. When a new discipline, such as sociology, is developed it is with a view to studying some new problem, often using new methods, in pursuit of some theoretical and/or practical objectives. We may think of a paradigm as a kind of model for this study of the new problem, while methods are…

In the second semester of 2024-2025 a group of professors and collaborators will offer a transdisciplinary course in the Alphonsian Academy entitled “La persona umana come essere relazionale. Prospettive transdisciplinari”. The course will be comprised of three parts: 1. Introduction 2. Selected Authors and Texts 3. Five Paradigms (personalist, phenomenological, psychological, sociological and theological). This is the second of a series of posts in which I will examine (in my own name, not in that of the research group) in a preliminary way each of these five paradigms…) II. The Personalist Paradigm In the first post of this series we examined how the meaning of the term “paradigm” has itself undergone significant “shifts”. From being a simple, identifiable pattern (as in a grammatical paradigm) a paradigm has come to refer to something like a comprehensive, prescriptive model for collective living (as in “the technocratic paradigm”). It is clear that such a move is potentially of enormous importance for ethics because it implies the moral evaluation of alternative, competing models of human interaction. In the planned transdisciplinary course, we will be examining five different paradigms of the human person as a relational being. Let us begin by taking an initial look…

In the second semester of 2023-2024 a group of professors and collaborators will offer a transdisciplinary course in the Alphonsian Academy entitled “La persona umana come essere relazionale. Prospettive transdisciplinari”. The course will be comprised of three parts: 1. Introduction; 2. Selected Authors and Texts; 3. Five Paradigms (personalist, phenomenological, psychological, sociological and theological). This is the first of a series of posts in which I will examine (in my own name, not in that of the research group) in a preliminary way each of these five paradigms. This initial post will take a closer look at the very idea of a paradigm, especially in the context of moral-theological discussion. I.  The Term “Paradigm” Shifts Paradigm A good place to begin a study of the term “paradigm” is with amo, amas, amat, or, more precisely, with the structure -o, -as, -at that is discernible in the conjugation of the verb amare in Latin. This structure may be considered a grammatical paradigm because it can serve as a model for the conjugation of similar verbs such as abominare. The least we can say of a paradigm is that it consists in a recognisable structure that can be imitated and repeated with…