As I underscored in my book on Ricoeur and biblical hermeneutics, Reductionism is, and rightly so, faltering. While reductionism has been and still is popular, a transdisciplinary path, though more arduous, is gradually replacing it. Transdisciplinarity (being open to a suite of disciplines that can impact, even transform each other) is indeed becoming recognized as necessary when investigating issues like self, God, other, or more specifically anthropology, genetics, and biology. Being as well informed as possible in several disciplines is a new challenge, though of course one cannot be a specialist to the same degree in each one. Learning from one another’s expertise is also essential. Thus, I’d wager the playing surface is now being enlarged and extensive templates are becoming available for more productive transdisciplinary research in a diversity of fields.
