On the Relationship of Metaphysics to Transdisciplinarity

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle recognizes that “each person judges rightly what he knows, and is a good judge about that; hence the good judge in a given area is the person educated in that area.” No more succinct statement can be given as the basis for our traditional disciplinary way of thinking, researching, and educating. This insight is no more than common sense. But Aristotle follows this reasonable thought by claiming that “the unqualifiedly good judge is the person educated in every area,”[1]. If the requirement for being an “unqualifiedly good judge” is that one be “educated in every area,” then the most reasonable conclusion to be drawn from this is that there are no unqualifiedly good judges. If this is so, then disciplinary thinking–its methods and procedures, its practices, authorizations, and certifications–are all we are reasonably entitled to. For who could possibly be “educated in every area”? It is no longer possible–if indeed it ever really were–to be a Renaissance person, engaged in the widest possible array of scientific, philosophical, and cultural pursuits. In our age of analysis and specialization, one who posed as such could be seen as no more than a dabbler. Perhaps only an Aristotle, who wrote on physics, logic, rhetoric, ethics, zoology, meteorology, poetics, politics, and so on, could make such a claim, but it seems far too late in the scientific and cultural evolution of humanity for us to expect another Aristotle to arrive on the scene. But just exactly what did Aristotle mean by this insight that Terrence Irwin translates as being “educated in every area”? Did Aristotle mean by this that one would need to have developed “expertise” in every area, that (in today’s terms) one would have to major in every subject, earn PhD’s in every field, in order to be the “unqualifiedly good judge”? And what does that latter phrase really signify? The word translated by “unqualifiedly” means “as such,” a good judge as such, without regard to any particular field or fields of expertise. It would not intend one who is qualified (certified) as a competent judge in some specific field rather than another, but one who is competent to judge per se. Let me note that if there were no such persons, the prospects for transdisciplinarity are dim. But could there be such persons? The key to answering this question lies in our interpretation of the requirement to be “educated in every area.” The Greek words do