Transdisciplinarity offers a way of thinking that has features such as, a focus upon inquiry. It seeks to develop knowledge for the purposes of action in the world. It involves constructing knowledge through an appreciation of the meta-paradigmatic dimension. That is, through a point of view outside and commensurate with a given set of paradigms, knowledge is built. From this metaparadigmatic view, commonalities between the paradigms are sought (isomorphic features). This isomorphism at the cognitive and the institutional level connects the history of reduction and disjunction (what Morin calls "simple thought") and the importance of contextualization and connection (or "complex thought"). A very important piece of the transdisciplinary perspective is the integration of the knower in the process of inquiry, which means that rather than attempting to eliminate the knower, the effort becomes one of acknowledging and making transparent the knower's assumptions and the process through which s/he constructs knowledge (Montuori, 2005).

Historical approaches to knowledge have focused either on Subject or Object. Transdisciplinarity goes beyond the dualism of opposing binary pairs: subject/object, subjectivity/objectivity, matter/consciousness, linear/non-linear, nature/divine, simplicity/complexity, reductionism/holism, diversity/unity which have marked the history of idea for millennia. Transdisciplinarity brings in a third reconciling term to this dyad: the interaction. Rather than seeing knowledge as either object-focused or subject-focused, this state is framed as a process of interaction (Nicolescu, 2002).

Transdisciplinary harmony between subject and object is linked to the harmony between perception and reality. The enfolding levels of perception and reality being multiple and complex requires that comprehension occurs in a way that is multiple and complex (Nicolescu, 2002). Transdisciplinarity is radical as it addresses the roots of knowledge, it leads to questioning our ways of thinking and our construction and organization of knowledge, it requires a discipline of self-inquiry that integrates the knower in the process of knowing (Montuori, 2007).

Reality encompasses the subject, the object and the sacred, which are three facets of the same reality. The whole opens onto the area of nonresistance of the sacred, which is common to the subject and the object. Paradoxically, this area, an area of nonresistance in which the subject and the object are considered as separate, appears like an area of absolute resistance in which the Subject and the Object are unified, because this area resists all comprehension, no matter what its level. It is the harmony between levels of Reality and levels of perception that transforms nonresistance into absolute resistance. The sacred acquires a status of reality in the same way that the levels of reality do, without however, constituting a new level of reality because it eludes all knowing. Between knowing and comprehension, there is being. Yet, the sacred does not oppose reason: to the extent to which it ensures harmony between subject and object, the sacred is an integral part of the new rationality (Nicolescu, 2007; Ouspensky, 1970).

The Bushman's key to transcending dichotomies, to use Maslow's phrase, involves a willingness to allow shape-shifting, morphing, and continuous transformation of experience, feelings, body sensations, physical movement, ideas, understandings, strategies, and over-arching paradigms. Such an epistemological universe is circular and recursively dynamic rather than lineal and fixed. This is not to say that it is circular versus lineal or dynamic versus fixed. Remember that it transcends dichotomies. It will shape shift from being lineal and monadic, when appropriate, and then morph toward circularity and processual complexity, and then shape-shift again to something that is neither one nor both of the before mentioned N/om and Transformative Leadership: Shaking Things Up with the Kalahari Bushman N/om-Kxaosi Bradford Keeney, Ph.D                              

Montuori, A. (2005). Gregory Bateson and the challenge of transdisciplinarity. Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 12(1-2), 147-158(112).

Montuori, A. (2007). Forward. In B. Nicolescu (Ed.), Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Nicolescu, B. (2002). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Albany: SUNY Press.

Nicolescu, B. (2007). In Vitro and In Vivo Knowledge - Methodology of Transdisciplinarity. In B. Nicolescu (Ed.), Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Ouspensky, P. D. (1970). Tertium Organum: or the Third Canon of Thought and a Key to the Enigmas of the World. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger.