John Godfrey Saxe’s "The Blind Men and the Elephant" analogy might best be explained as:

A) The blind men represent different feelings about an issue, the elephant represents the specific problem that people have different feelings about, and the challenge is figuring out which perspective is the right one… so the truth or essence of the issue is easily solved as a problem. The analogy illustrates the difficulty of acknowledging others' feelings when viewed from the perspective of the blind men or the elephant (versus a less integrated interdisciplinary perspective).

B) The blind men represent a team, the elephant represents a project, and the challenge is how to get the interdisciplinary team to work effectively together. If the team believed that they had a "natural-born leader," for instance, then they might be more likely to come together around the "project elephant" because they would not be prone to laziness, intellectual confusion, or a "lack of focus"; conversely, if the team were more democratic they could vote on the best use of their senses.

C) The blind men represent people with different perspectives/beliefs; the elephant represents a complex issue, and the problem is that each perspective accurately perceives only a small part of the issue… so the truth or essence of the issue remains a mystery. The analogy illustrates the difficulty of understanding the "whole problem" when viewed from various single disciplinary perspectives (versus a more integrated interdisciplinary perspective).

D) The blind men simply cannot see, the elephant is just an elephant, and the challenge is helping each blind person to avoid stepping in the elephant droppings!

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The answer is C) The blind men represent people with different perspectives/beliefs; the elephant represents a complex issue, and the problem is that each perspective accurately perceives only a small part of the issue… so the truth or essence of the issue remains a mystery. The analogy illustrates the difficulty of understanding the "whole problem" when viewed from various single disciplinary perspectives (versus a more integrated interdisciplinary perspective).