Context: The problems that are most in need of interdisciplinary collaboration are “wicked problems,” such as food crises, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development, with many relevant aspects, disagreement on what the problem is, and contradicting solutions. Such complex problems both require and challenge interdisciplinarity. Problem: The conventional methods of interdisciplinary research fall short in the case of wicked problems because they remain first-order science. Our aim is to present workable methods and research designs for doing second-order science in domains (...) where there are many different scientific knowledges on any complex problem. Method: We synthesize and elaborate a framework for second-order science in interdisciplinary research based on a number of earlier publications, experiences from large interdisciplinary research projects, and a perspectivist theory of science. Results: The second-order polyocular framework for interdisciplinary research is characterized by five principles. Second-order science of interdisciplinary research must: 1. draw on the observations of first-order perspectives, 2. address a shared dynamical object, 3. establish a shared problem, 4. rely on first-order perspectives to see themselves as perspectives, and 5. be based on other rules than first-order research. Implications: The perspectivist insights of second-order science provide a new way of understanding interdisciplinary research that leads to new polyocular methods and research designs. It also points to more reflexive ways of dealing with scientific expertise in democratic processes. The main challenge is that this is a paradigmatic shift, which demands that the involved disciplines, at least to some degree, subscribe to a perspectivist view. Constructivist content: Our perspectivist approach to science is based on the second-order cybernetics and systems theories of von Foerster, Maruyama, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, coupled with embodied theories of cognition and semiotics as a general theory of meaning from von Uexküll and Peirce. (shrink)

Our aim is to identify the conditions of possibility of a successfulprocess of ethical deliberation. To achieve this goal, we turn toAristotle’s definition of ‘deliberation’ as a rational process that seeks tomake decisions. We focus also on the need of incorporationof the other’s perspective in what Rawls labels ‘overlapping consensus’;on Lafont’s three requirements of deliberation; and on Ricoeur’s foursteps to fully engage with one’s commitments through action. In orderto complement the picture of deliberation we get when reading theseauthors in conjunction, (...) we add what in our eyes constitute two majorconditions often neglected. We then point out the shortcomings of twomanifestations of the current interest in the successful processes of deliberation.Firstly, we address ethics committees. Given that their primaryconcern is precisely ethics, they should be –and often are– the organizationswhich more enthusiastically embrace and promote ethical processesof deliberation. Yet they tend to fail in some respects, which wepoint out. Secondly, we confront the contradictions surrounding therecent proliferation of codes of ethics and suggest how their value couldbe maximized. (shrink)

A classic epistemological problem in the social sciences is how to analyse and understand social change. In media and communication studies, for example, the concept of mediatisation has sparked off such a debate, since one of the main criticisms against the approach is that researchers rather take change for granted without being able to empirically establish if and how change has occurred. In this article is suggested a model for analysing social change through an analysis of how generational identity as (...) “we-sense” is produced in narratives about media use. The empirical basis for the discussion is picked from a recently finished project on media generations in Sweden and Estonia, building on foremost qualitative material. The article concludes with accounting for the merits of using a generational perspective for analysing social change. (shrink)