About the Center

The Center Leo Apostel (CLEA) was founded in 1995 as a transdisciplinary research department. It is situated at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), but its scientific council is composed of members of different Flemish universities. It is named after the Belgian philosopher and logician Leo Apostel (1925-1995). 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, post-doc 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.

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.

Collaborations

CLEA is associated with the following international organizations:

• the Association for the Foundations of Science, Language and Cognition (AFOS), which CLEA represents for the region
• the International Quantum Structures Association (IQSA)
• the Principia Cybernetica Project (PCP)

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:

• CLPS - Centrum voor Logica Wetenschapsfilosofie / Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (head: Erik Weber)
• CICI - Centrum voor Interculturele Communicatie en Interactie (head: Hendrik Pinxten)
• ARC - Africa Research Centre (head: Filip De Boeck)
• SOPINS - Social Policy, Intervention and Solidarity (head: Robert Maier)
• CWLP - Center for World Views and Life Philosophy (head: Fons Elders)
• CTS - Center for Theoretical Study (head: Ivan Havel)
• FBC - Fernand Braudel Center (head: Immanuel Wallerstein)
• CPM - Centre for Policy Modelling (head: Scott Moss)
• DAA - Diaspora and Art (head: Antoon Van den Braenbussche)
• ISEAT - Instituto Superior Ecumenico Andino de Teologia (head: Josef Estermann)
• MIM - Lateinamerikareferat (head: Raúl Fomet-Betancourt)
• QIEG - Quantum Information and Engineering Group (head: Marek Czachor)
• CCE - Concept, Creativity, and Evolution Research Group (CCE) (head: Liane Gabora)
• PAF - Physical Anthropology Faculty (head: Jeffrey H. Schwartz)
• IWTF - Institut für Wissenschaftstheorie / Department for Philosophy of Science (head: Erhard Oeser)
• PPOX - Philosophy of Physics Group, University of Oxford (head: Harvey R. Brown)
• IHPS - Instituut voor de Geschiedenis en Grondslagen van de Natuurwetenschappen,  Universiteit Utrecht (head: Dennis G. B. J. Dieks)

CLEA co-operates with the interdisciplinary and pluralist Worldviews group, a non-profit organisation established in 1990, under the dynamic leadership of Leo Apostel. Worldviews is created as a reaction against the growing fragmentation in our actual society and is calling for integrating world-view research.