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CENTERLEOAPOSTEL
Vrije Universiteit Brussel 
Date : Sept. 22,  2000 (modified); Sep. 1995 (created)

The Center "Leo Apostel"

Intro - Contact Info - People - Research - Reports - Publications - News - Study Groups - Collaborations - Seminars


Photo: Leo Apostel in his study in Gent, about 1986

 The Center "Leo Apostel" (CLEA) is a recently founded transdisciplinary research department. It is situated at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), but its board of directors covers different Flemish universities. It is named after the Belgian philosopher and logician Leo Apostel (1925-1995, see biography of Apostel (Dutch)). Apostel donated the money of the Solvay prize, which he received for his life work, to the VUB in order to create such a center. 

The center's aim is the development of world views that integrate the results of different scientific and cultural disciplines (as elaborated by Apostel and collaborators in their treatise "Worldviews: from fragmentation to integration"). CLEA in particular tries to bridge the gap between the natural sciences and the social sciences and humanities. 

CLEA's key objectives were summarized by Apostel as: 

  • interdisciplinarity
  • construction of world views
  • broad dissemination of scientific knowledge.
CLEA employs several researchers at the graduate, PostDoc and tenure level. They perform high level research in a variety of subjects, including  the foundations of the natural sciences (and in particular quantum structures), evolution of complexity, consciousness, cognition and creativity, emergence of social systems, science and art, and intelligent webs. Applications to study or work at CLEA are welcome.

CLEA has organized the very successful interdisciplinary conference 'Einstein meets Magritte', of which the 8 volume Proceedings have recently been published by Kluwer Academic. In addition, CLEA members have published many papers and books.

Contact Information

For the members of the board of directors, collaborators and advisory board, see the CLEA participants.
Address
Center "Leo Apostel"
Krijgskundestraat 33
1160 Brussels, Belgium
(just outside the VUB campus "Oefenplein", 2nd side street on the left on the Triomflaan, when coming from the Gen. Jacqueslaan, see: how to reach the VUB)
Secretariat
Sylvia Stuer
Director
Diederik Aerts
Phone
+32 - 2 - 644 26 77
Fax
+32- 2 - 644 07 44
E-mail
einmag@vub.ac.be
World-Wide Web
http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/CLEA/
Mailing list
CLEA has an electronic mailing list, clea-wg, for all people wishing to keep informed about CLEA activities such as seminars. To join: send the one line message:
subscribe clea-wg
to Majordomo@listserv.vub.ac.be

Recent Activities

CLEA Study Groups

CLEA stimulates the organization of study groups, discussing specific themes within the general CLEA framework. These groups may include people who are not directly associated with CLEA, selected by the group's chairperson. The following groups have been created:

Collaborations

The Center "Leo Apostel" (CLEA) is associated with the following international organizations:

CLEA presides a "Research Community" of research centers collaborating on the Construction of Integrating World Views. The Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders provides these centers with funding to organize meetings and exchanges. The other participating centers are:

Interdisciplinary Seminar Series "Foundations"

The Center is responsible for organizing seminars on fundamental scientific problems and research methodologies. These are part of the interdisciplinary program for PhD. students (in collaboration with the PhD. program of the University of Antwerp). In the series "Foundations", CLEA invites scholars that are actively engaged in research on the foundations of a particular discipline. Seminars are very interactive, and addressed to a broad, interdisciplinary audience without specific knowledge of the domain. The discussions aim at confronting the foundations of the different disciplines.

Typical seminars consist of one hour of presentation by the lecturer with direct questions, followed by an hour or more of in-depth group discussion of the general subject. Seminars generally take place at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Campus Oefenplein), Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, at 5 pm, in different rooms.

You can check the abstracts and biographies of lecturers for the list of previous seminars. Many of those are available on video and can be borrowed. CLEA also organizes a series of events, lectures and discussions on present societal problems in Dutch: Stemmen.

Recent and upcoming seminars:


Artwork by the youngest CLEA collaborator, Jonito Aerts 

Further Information

This page is maintained by Francis Heylighen