Handelman sought to bridge CPS projects with a wider group of scholars and students involved in integrative work. Dr. Handelman also asked to what extent this work needs to go beyond philosophy as it has evolved in our century, in order to be relevant to the needs of people outside the disciplines. We are bombarded with information, pulled in many directions. This tempts us to hasty integration, resulting in oversimplification. One instance of knowledge fragmentation is the inability of experts to keep up with developments in their own fields and subfields, let alone in other disciplines.
Experts are further divided along ideological lines.
Handelman discussed an extended quotation from Emerson that characterizes our social state as fragmentation through identification with particular capacities and occupations. Here we are encouraged to embrace an ancient vision of our rightful state as whole persons in which our occupational identities are integrated with the rest of our capacities. Handelman presented CPS with a challenge. We seek to apply and promote an integrated worldview, a ready-made synthesis, so to speak. Handelman suggests that individuals may need to discover integrity in their own way.