This book proposes that we reform thinking to reform education, and reform education to reform thinking.
For the reform of thinking, Edgar Morin suggests principles that would allow it if we follow Pascal's remark: "I cannot know the parts without knowing the whole, nor can I know the whole without knowing the parts in detail...". These principles lead beyond fragmented knowledge which, by rendering invisible the interactions between the whole and its parts, dissolves the complex and hides the essential problems.
They also lead beyond a knowledge that, seeing only wholes, loses touch with the specific, the tonal, and the concrete. They lead to the elimination of the destructive separation between scientific thinking, which divides knowledge and does not consider the human destiny, and humanistic thinking, which ignores scientific achievements that can nourish inquiries about the world and life.
Thus, there is a need for a reform of thinking, concerning our ability to organize knowledge and that would allow us to connect the two separated cultures. Therefore, the great goals of education, which should be inseparable, could come back to the forefront: to move towards the creation of a well-structured, rather than a stuffed mind, to teach the human condition, to initiate into life, to confront uncertainty, to learn to be citizens.
[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]
