Typhlology is the systematic, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary study on the issue of physical blindness, as a Human and Social Science (a path in Social and Human Sciences), in a theoretical-empirical and scientific context, being a neologism resulting from the agglutination of Greek words "tiphlos" (blind) plus "logos" (logical foundation of an argument/reasoning), whose first term, which we can understand as the genesis of terminology and conceptuality, emerged in the 19th century, was Tiflophilia (attachment/dedication to the cause/ problem of the blind person).

It is a vast epistemological field intertwined with diverse scientific affinities, for the achievement of evidence in many of its domains, namely perceptual haptic, somatosensory and kinesthetic, echolocation and locomotion (orientation and mobility), multisensory and ergoeducational, cognitive and sociocognitive, infocommunicational and sociocommunicational, as a promotional guarantee of the biopsychosocial and human development of blind people, in analogy with normovisual people.

The concept of Typhlology encloses in itself and breathes interdisciplinarity (in its own typhlo-scientific valences), multidisciplinarity (in the field of sciences that deal with similar or similar specificities) and transdisciplinarity (in the study, investigation, identification and intervention in reciprocal and systemic interactions between the psyche/mental and neurocognition/psychomotricity, evoking it in the neurodevelopmental structures, functions and dysfunctions of the brain and in its intimate organization, as well as in the cognitive instruments and in the set of mental functioning that integrate, plan and execute, in response adaptive/interface with which we interact in the involvement in everything in which we can or in which we find ourselves involved), expanding typhlology, as typhloscience, deepening it and promoting it in humanity with the inherent and suggestive scientificity of the Educommunication Pedagogical Art, simultaneously with the adjusted contributions of the ia Science, for the equation and explanation of its necessary social understanding in equity and citizenship.

In this sense, so that abstraction and propositionality, abstract categories and demonstrative or deductive analyses, on typhlological reality, do not overshadow the factual and empirical, the tangible and observable, confirmation by experimental or comparative verification, and so that any misunderstandings do not surprise the scientificity of Typhlology, we should be aware that: 

Gotthold Epihraim Lessing (1729-1781) had argued that "truth" is the "purpose of Science" and that "pleasure" is the "purpose of the Arts." Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) maintained that "Science is the reason of the World" and that Art is "its soul". 

However, and to paraphrase Albert Einstein (1879-1955), science can only determine what is, not what should be, and leaving the need for value judgments of all kinds to remain outside its domain.

It is in this perspective and observation, essentially in a holistic plan of inclusion in quality and equitable opportunities, that the importance and scope of Typhlology can be found in the joint research and analysis of different sciences, combining foundations and reasoning with each other, in a joint research and of evidence, specific studies based on experiences, practices and theories in the most varied contexts and situations, validating results in successive stages of research and development to, in this joint scientific articulation, foster hypotheses for the discovery of fruitful solutions, in the practical and scientific scope of the life sciences, with inclusive sociology and ethics in humanization, also in the areas of biology and anthropology, psychology and psychophysiology, psychomotricity, rehabilitation physics and engineering, neurosciences, artificial intelligence and others that may come to be considered necessary to integrate in this investigational interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.

It is Typhlology (already Typhloscience) that, in this theoretical-empirical and scientific framework, is concerned with valuing diversity and promoting equity in equality and opportunities for blind people, demonstrably demonstrating its potential and competences, in uniformity with people with normal vision. , in the sphere of the ecology of knowledge and well-being in society for all.

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Lisbon, June 23, 2020,

(Text by Augusto Deodato Guerreiro)