The article approaches the process of constitution of a recent body of knowledge about transdisciplinarity. It is based on documental sources of international congresses and colloquiums on the theme and presents this process as part of the current broad movement of criticism against the dominant paradigm that presides over modern science. This paradigm fragments and reduces reality, because it is centered on disciplines that ignore what exists "between" and "beyond" their borders. It discusses the possibilities of the emergence of this new body of knowledge related to the heuristic power of the term 'transdisciplinarity', considered capable of congregating scientists from different areas and humanists in general around ideas that can represent the achievement of a great ideal: integrating knowledge and humanizing science. This proposal is innovative, as it does not consider transdisciplinarity a hyperdiscipline; rather, together with pluridisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and also the discipline, it is one of the arrows of the same bow: that of knowledge. Also because it proposes the dialog between the sciences, and also with philosophy, the arts, literature, human experience, etc. In addition, it emphasizes the heuristic capacity of this body of knowledge, organized on three pillars - "complexity", "different levels of reality" and "the logic of the included middle" -, as it enables advances in studies that have been employing it, aiming at the construction of a transdisciplinary methodology. Finally, it points to the contribution that the adoption of this body of knowledge can provide for research in the field of public and collective health.
Transdisciplinarity; Interdisciplinarity; Congresses; Paradigm; Modern Science; Public Health