Csikszentmihalyi (1999: 314) argues that 'creativity is a process that can be observed only at the intersection where individuals, domains, and fields intersect'. This article discusses the relationship between creativity and interdisciplinarity in science. It is specifically concerned with interdisciplinary collaboration, interrogating the processes that contribute to the collaborative creation of original ideas and the practices that enable creative integration of diverse domains. It draws on results from a novel real-world experiment in which small interdisciplinary groups of graduate students were (...) tasked with producing an innovative scientific research problem and an integrative research proposal. Results show that while bisociative thinking assists in the creation of original research problems, both disciplinary skills and an interdisciplinary disposition are core to the integration of creative research proposals. Extrapolating from the results of this experiment, the article discusses the feasibility of preparing students for such work and the implications for universities and other intellectual centers. (shrink)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States, like many other funding agencies all over the globe, has made large investments in interdisciplinary research in the sciences and engineering, arguing that interdisciplinary research is an essential resource for addressing emerging problems, resulting in important social benefits. Using NSF as a case study for problem that might be relevant in other contexts as well, I argue that the NSF itself poses a significant barrier to such research in not sufficiently appreciating (...) the value of the humanities as significant interdisciplinary partners. This essay focuses on the practices of philosophy as a highly valuable but currently under-appreciated partner in achieving the goals of interdisciplinary research. This essay advances a proposal for developing deeper and wider interdisciplinary research in the sciences through coupled ethical-epistemological research. I argue that this more robust model of interdisciplinary practice will lead to better science by providing resources for understanding the types of value decisions that are entrenched in research models and methods, offering resources for identifying the ethical implications of research decisions, and providing a lens for identifying the questions that are ignored, under-examined, and rendered invisible through scientific habit or lack of interest. In this way, we will have better science both in the traditional sense of advancing knowledge by building on and adding to our current knowledge as well as in the broader sense of science for the good of, namely, scientific research that better benefits society. (shrink)

Traditionally, interdisciplinarity has been taken to require conceptual or theoretical integration. However, in the emerging field of sustainability science this kind of integration is often lacking. Indeed sometimes it is regarded as an obstacle to interdisciplinarity. Drawing on examples from sustainability science, we show that problem-feeding, i.e. the transfer of problems, is a common and fruitful-looking way of connecting disparate disciplines and establishing interdisciplinarity. We identify two species of problem-feeding: unilateral and bilateral. Which of these is at issue depends on (...) whether solutions to the problem are fed back to the discipline in which the problem originated. We suggest that there is an interesting difference between the problem-feeding approach to interdisciplinarity and the traditional integrative perspective suggested by among others Erich Jantsch and his colleagues. The interdisciplinarity resulting from problem-feeding between researchers can be local and temporary and does not require collaboration between proximate disciplines. By contrast, to make good sense of traditional integrative interdisciplinarity we must arguably associate it with a longer-term, global form of close, interdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

(1995). Migrating across disciplinary boundaries: The case of the periodicity paper of David Raup and John Sepkoski. Social Epistemology: Vol. 9, Boundary Rhetorics and the Work of Interdisciplinarity, pp. 151-164.

The extraordinary complexity of knowledge in today's world creates a paradox. On the one hand, its sheer volume and intricacy demand disciplinary specialization, even sub-specialization; innovative research or scholarship increasingly requires immersion in the details of one's disciplinary dialogue. On the other hand, that very immersion can limit innovation. Disciplinary specialization inhibits faculty from broadening their intellectual horizons - considering questions of importance outside their discipline, learning other methods for answering these questions and pondering the possible significance of other disciplines' (...) findings for their own work. This article seeks to understand more fully the factors that enhance and impede cross-disciplinary conversations and the possible longer-term effects of those conversations. Based on 46 interviews with a sample of seminar participants, it examines the experiences of faculty members who ventured (voluntarily) into multidisciplinary waters and its implications for the organization of disciplines and universities. (shrink)

This article argues that certain philosophically devised quality control parameters should guide approaches to interdisciplinary education. We sketch the kind of reflections we think are necessary in order to produce epistemologically responsible curricula. We suggest that the two overarching epistemic dimensions of levels of analysis and basic viewpoints go a long way towards clarifying the structure of interdisciplinary validity claims. Through a discussion of how best to teach basic ideas about numeracy in Mind, Brain, and Education, we discuss what it (...) means for an interdisciplinary curriculum to respect both the minds of students and the complexity of the subject matter. (shrink)

In this article we frame a set of important issues in the emerging field of Mind, Brain, and Education in terms of three broad headings: methods, models, and morality. Under the heading of methods we suggest that the need for synthesis across scientific and practical disciplines entails the pursuit of usable knowledge via a catalytic symbiosis between theory, research, and practice. Under the heading of models the goal of producing usable knowledge should shape the construction of theories that provide comprehensive (...) accounts of human learning and development spanning multiple levels of analysis. Under the heading of morality usable knowledge must be put to good use: Its application and dissemination ought to be infused with moral considerations gleaned from dialogue among all those potentially affected. Generally, the field should be shaped not only by its constituent scientific disciplines but also by its applications to education and learning. Thus we argue for the adoption of a kind of pragmatism that would be best actualized by building research-school collaborations between researchers and practitioners. (shrink)

Among others, the term problem plays a major role in the various attempts to characterize interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity, as used synonymously in this paper. Interdisciplinarity is regarded as problem solving among science, technology and society and as problem orientation beyond disciplinary constraints. The point of departure of this paper is that the discourse and practice of ID have problems with the problem. The objective here is to shed some light on the vague notion of problem in order to advocate a (...) specific type of interdisciplinarity: problem-oriented interdisciplinarity. The outline is as follows: Taking an ex negativo approach, I will show what problem-oriented ID does not mean. Using references to well-established distinctions in philosophy of science, I will show three other types of ID that should not be placed under the umbrella term problem-oriented ID : object-oriented ID, theory-oriented ID, and method-oriented ID. Different philosophical thought traditions can be related to these distinguishable meanings. I will then clarify the notion of problem by looking at three systematic elements: an undesired state, a desired state, and the barriers in getting from the one to the other. These three elements include three related kinds of knowledge: systems, target, and transformation knowledge. This paper elaborates further methodological and epistemological elements of problem-oriented ID. It concludes by stressing that problem-oriented ID is the most needed as well as the most challenging type of ID. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the expanding discourse on inter- and transdisciplinarity. Referring to well-established distinctions in philosophy of science, the paper argues in favor of a plurality of four different dimensions: Interdisciplinarity with regard to objects, knowledge/theories, methods/practices, and further, problem perception/problem solving. Different philosophical thought traditions can be related to these distinguishable meanings. The philosophical framework of the four different dimensions will be illustrated by some of the most popular examples of research programs that are labeled interdisciplinary (...) : nanoresearch/nanoscience/nanotechnology, complex systems theory/chaos theory, biomimicry/bionics, and technology assessment/sustainability research. Thus, a minimal philosophy of science is required to understand and foster inter- and transdisciplinarity. (shrink)

This article traces the history of interdisciplinarity as a contemporary form of thought and of producing knowledge in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1955 to 1975. It establishes that concepts of interdisciplinary research and teaching circulated in diverse fields of knowledge and modes of articulation, and evaluates the transformations that interdisciplinarity underwent along the way. After detailing the process by which the adjective “interdisciplinary” first came into usage in scientific publications in the late 1950s, this article discusses how interdisciplinary (...) research and teaching began to feature in debates about university reforms and the founding of new universities in the 1960s. The article then draws on the examples of Bochum, Konstanz, and Bielefeld to illustrate how debates about disciplinary specialization and interdisciplinary connections unfolded in visual modes of expression such as diagrams or sketches. In a last step, the article examines how visual and textual reflections connected interdisciplinarity to the architecture of envisioned universities, and hence related this time-specific form of thought and knowledge production to the material environments of future research and teaching. (shrink)

This article traces the history of interdisciplinarity as a contemporary form of thought and of producing knowledge in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1955 to 1975. It establishes that concepts of interdisciplinary research and teaching circulated in diverse fields of knowledge and modes of articulation, and evaluates the transformations that interdisciplinarity underwent along the way. After detailing the process by which the adjective “interdisciplinary” first came into usage in scientific publications in the late 1950s, this article discusses how interdisciplinary (...) research and teaching began to feature in debates about university reforms and the founding of new universities in the 1960s. The article then draws on the examples of Bochum, Konstanz, and Bielefeld to illustrate how debates about disciplinary specialization and interdisciplinary connections unfolded in visual modes of expression such as diagrams or sketches. In a last step, the article examines how visual and textual reflections connected interdisciplinarity to the architecture of envisioned universities, and hence related this time-specific form of thought and knowledge production to the material environments of future research and teaching. (shrink)

This paper aims to reassess the philosophical puzzle of the “applicability of mathematics to physical sciences” as a misunderstood disciplinary interplay. If the border isolating mathematics from the empirical world is based on appropriate criteria, how does one explain the fruitfulness of its systematic crossings in recent centuries? An analysis of the evolution of the criteria used to separate mathematics from experimental sciences will shed some light on this question. In this respect, we will highlight the historical influence of three (...) major disciplinary paradigms. According to the Aristotelian classification of the sciences, the separation of mathematics from physics is based on their respective objects of study. The Baconian system distinguishes these sciences by the type of knowledge involved in each field. Finally, the Whewellian disciplinary layout categorises these disciplines by their respective methods. In this paper, we argue that the cascading effect of such disciplinary categorisations—based successively on ontological, epistemological, and heuristic criteria—resulted in a profound redefinition of the border between mathematics and physics, with the consequence of obscuring the foundations of the interplay between these fields. Our approach intends to put forward such a mechanism as a constitutive piece of the puzzle of the applicability of mathematics. (shrink)

Interdisciplinarity is strongly promoted in science policy across the world. It is seen as a necessary condition for providing practical solutions to many pressing complex problems for which no single disciplinary approach is adequate alone. In this article we model multi- and interdisciplinary research as an instance of collective problem solving. Our goal is to provide a basic representation of this type of problem solving and chart the epistemic benefits and costs of researchers engaging in different forms of cognitive coordination. (...) Our findings suggest that typical forms of interdisciplinary collaboration are unlikely to find optimal solutions to complex problems within short time frames and can lead to methodological conservatism. This provides some grounds for both reflecting on current science policy and envisioning more effective scientific practices with respect to interdisciplinary problem solving. (shrink)

This is a “bottom-up” paper in the sense that it draws lessons in defining disciplinary categories under study from a series of empirical studies of interdisciplinarity. In particular, we are in the process of studying the interchange of research-based knowledge between Cognitive Science and Educational Research. This has posed a set of design decisions that we believe warrant consideration as others study cross-disciplinary research processes.

The epistemic barriers to interdisciplinarity are understudied. To fill this gap, we ask whether a university initiative designed to reduce structural barriers to interdisciplinarity also facilitates the dissolution of epistemic ones. Through analytical autoethnography of graduate training in two disciplines, sociology and ecology, we develop the concept of asymmetric epistemology to better understand the unique epistemological position that emerges for interdisciplinarians. Building from feminist science and technology studies (STS) and scholarship on epistemic identities, our work illuminates how epistemologies are embodied (...) by individuals, leading to tensions around identity, materiality, and spatiality during the practice of interdisciplinarity. While some epistemic barriers recede and others remain, we reveal that the navigation of these boundaries deeply impacts individuals’ epistemic identities. (shrink)

Contemporary interdisciplinary research is often described as bringing some important changes in the structure and aims of the scientific enterprise. Sometimes, it is even characterized as a sort of Kuhnian scientific revolution. In this paper, the analogy between interdisciplinarity and scientific revolutions will be analysed. It will be suggested that the way in which interdisciplinarity is promoted looks similar to how new paradigms were described and defended in some episodes of revolutionary scientific change. However, contrary to what happens during some (...) scientific revolutions, the rhetoric with which interdisciplinarity is promoted does not seem to be accompanied by a strong agreement about what interdisciplinarity actually is. In the end, contemporary interdisciplinarity could be defined as being in a ‘pre-paradigmatic’ phase, with the very talk promoting interdisciplinarity being a possible obstacle to its maturity. (shrink)

Incommensurability may be regarded as driving specialisation, on the one hand, and as posing some problems to interdisciplinarity, on the other hand. It may be argued, however, that incommensurability plays no role in either specialisation or interdisciplinarity. Scientific specialties could be defined as simply 'different' (that is, about different things), rather than 'incommensurable' (that is, competing for the explanation of the same phenomena). Interdisciplinarity could be viewed as the co- ordinated effort of scientists possessing complemetary and interlocking skills, and not (...) as the overcoming of some sort of incommensurable divide. This article provides a comprehensive evaluative examination of the relations between specialisation, interdisciplinarity, and incommensurability. Its aim is to defend the relevance of incommensurability to both specialisation and interdisciplinarity. At the same time, it aims at correcting the tendency, common among many philosophers, to regard incommensurability in a restrictive manner - such as, for example, as an almost purely semantic issue. (shrink)

: This paper discusses the American scientist and philosopher Charles S. Peirce's (1839–1914) classification of the sciences from the contemporary perspective of interdisciplinary studies. Three theses are defended: (1) Studies on interdisciplinarity pertain to the intermediate class of Peirce's classification of all science, the sciences of review (retrospective science), ranking below the sciences of discovery (heuretic sciences) and above practical science (the arts). (2) Scientific research methods adopted by interdisciplinary inquiries are cross-categorial. Making them converge to an increasing extent with (...) the sciences of discovery, especially the methodeutic of normative logic, is one of the future challenges for studies on interdisciplinarity. (3) The overall structure of Peirce's classification, were it to be applied in today's situation, would not, in any major respect, be radically different from what it was designed to reflect a hundred years ago, in spite of the virtually exponential creation and production of new domains and the massive increase in investment in research and scientific publication. Accordingly, charges that the sciences of discovery are becoming ever more fragmented are not new. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research in the fields of forestry and sustainability studies often encounters seemingly incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The perceived incompatibilities might emerge from the epistemological and ontological claims of the theories or models directly employed in the interdisciplinary collaboration, or they might be created by other epistemological and ontological assumptions that these interdisciplinary researchers find no reason to question. In this paper we discuss the benefits and risks of two possible approaches, Popperian optimism and Kuhnian (...) pessimism, to interdisciplinary knowledge integration where epistemological and ontological differences between the sciences involved can be expected. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research within the field of sustainability studies often faces incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The importance of this fact is often underrated and sometimes leads to the wrong strategies. We distinguish between two broad approaches in interdisciplinarity: unificationism and pluralism. Unificationism seeks unification and perceives disciplinary boundaries as conventional, representing no long-term obstacle to progress, whereas pluralism emphasizes more ephemeral and transient interdisciplinary connections and underscores the autonomy of the disciplines with respect to one another. (...) Both approaches have their merits and pitfalls. Unification runs the risk of scientific imperialism, while pluralism can result in insurmountable barriers between disciplines. We made a comparison of eight distinct interdisciplinary attempts at integration of knowledge across social and natural sciences. The comparison was carried out as four pairwise comparisons: environmental economics versus ecological economics, environmental history versus historical ecology, resilience theory versus political ecology, and socio-biology versus actor-network theory. We conclude by showing that none of these prominent eight interdisciplinary fields in and of itself manages to provide, in a satisfactory way, such an integrated understanding of sustainability. We argue for pluralism and advocate complex ways of articulating divergent ontological assumptions. This is not equivalent to pursuing knowledge unification either through scientific imperialism or by catering to the requirements of narrow practical utility. It means prioritizing interdisciplinary integration by simultaneously acknowledging the role of societal and natural factors in accounting for sustainability issues. (shrink)

The Canadian-American biologist Edmund Vincent Cowdry played an important role in the birth and development of the science of aging, gerontology. In particular, he contributed to the growth of gerontology as a multidisciplinary scientific field in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. With the support of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, he organized the first scientific conference on aging at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where scientists from various fields gathered to discuss aging as a scientific research topic. He also (...) edited Problems of Ageing (1939), the first handbook on the current state of aging research, to which specialists from diverse disciplines contributed. The authors of this book eventually formed the Gerontological Society in 1945 as a multidisciplinary scientific organization, and some of its members, under Cowdry's leadership, formed the International Association of Gerontology in 1950. This article historically traces this development by focusing on Cowdry's ideas and activities. I argue that the social and economic turmoil during the Great Depression along with Cowdry's training and experience as a biologist – cytologist in particular – and as a textbook editor became an important basis of his efforts to construct gerontology in this direction. (shrink)

(1995). Positivist discourse and social scientific communities: Towards an epistemological sociology of science. Social Epistemology: Vol. 9, Knowledge (EX) Change, pp. 233-255.

Abstract This paper explores the role of symbolic languages within and between positivist disciplines. Symbolic languages, of which mathematics is the most important example, consist of tautologically true statements, such as 2 + 2 = 4. These must be operationalized before being useful for positivist research agendas (i.e. two apples and two oranges make four fruit). Disciplines may borrow either the symbolic languages of another discipline or the symbolic language and the accompanying operationalizations. The choice has important theoretical effects, and (...) affects the kind of interdisciplinary community created. The game theory community is an example of a community based on the interdisciplinary exchange of symbolic language only, while the ? political economy? community exchanges both symbolic languages and operationalizations. (shrink)

In this article we argue that philosophy can facilitate improvement in cross-disciplinary science. In particular, we discuss in detail the Toolbox Project, an effort in applied epistemology that deploys philosophical analysis for the purpose of enhancing collaborative, cross-disciplinary scientific research through improvements in cross-disciplinary communication. We begin by sketching the scientific context within which the Toolbox Project operates, a context that features a growing interest in and commitment to cross-disciplinary research (CDR). We then develop an argument for the leading idea (...) behind this effort, namely, that philosophical dialogue can improve cross-disciplinary science by effecting epistemic changes that lead to better group communication. On the heels of this argument, we describe our approach and its output; in particular, we emphasize the Toolbox instrument that generates philosophical dialogue and the Toolbox workshop in which that dialogue takes place. Together, these constitute a philosophical intervention into the life of CDR teams. We conclude by considering the philosophical implications of this intervention. (shrink)

In discussion about the past and the future of STS studies, insufficient attention is paid to the interdisciplinary character of this interdiscipline. After a brief characterization of the dual past (anchored on one side by Rachel Carson and on the other by Thomas Kuhn) and a glance at contemporary assessments such as the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, this article references the past and the present of interdisciplinarity, especially as reflected in the scholarship of Julie Thompson Klein. The conclusion (...) seeks to indicate ways in which STS studies can draw on and make a special contribution to interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

Aristotle launched Western knowledge on a trajectory toward disciplinarity that continues to this day. But is the knowledge management project that began with Aristotle adequate for the age of Google? Perhaps an undisciplined discourse more evocative of Plato can help us constitute new, more relevant inter- and transdisciplinary forms of knowledge. This article explores the history of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, arguing for a new, critical form of interdisciplinarity that moves beyond the academy into dialogue with the public and private sectors. (...) Contemporary knowledge production should involve not only a horizontal axis stretching across academia but also a vertical axis where academic research is integrated into contemporary life. (shrink)

The dominant theory of cross-disciplinarity represents multidisciplinarity as ‘lower’ or ‘less interesting’ than interdisciplinarity. In this paper, it is argued that this unfavorable representation of multidisciplinarity is ungrounded because it is an effect of the theory being incomplete. It is also explained that the unfavorable, ungrounded representation of multidisciplinarity is problematic: when someone adopts the dominant theory of cross-disciplinarity, the unfavorable representation supports the development of a preference for interdisciplinarity over multidisciplinarity. However, being ungrounded, the support the representation provides for (...) a preference for interdisciplinarity, is invalid. The issue is even more pressing because research policy makers and funding bodies are among the adopters of the theory, which means that there is a risk of policies reflecting an unjustified preference for interdisciplinarity over multidisciplinarity. This paper presents an improved version of the dominant theory of cross-disciplinarity, obtained by completing the original version with the information it was missing. Because the improved version is more neutral regarding the value of different types of cross-disciplinarity, it is better suited for use by research policy makers and funding bodies. (shrink)

This paper assesses the origins, character and legacy of the Standing Conference on Studies in Education (SCSE), established in 1951. In the historical and theoretical context of British educational studies, the SCSE, despite its outward appearance as an elite and conservative body, represented a progressive and even radical movement, and played a significant part in the emergence of a modernised and more fully developed approach to the study of education in post-war Britain. In contrast to Scotland, educational studies in the (...) rest of Britain was slow to develop in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but came to the fore in the 1940s as a time of broader educational and social reforms. It was multidisciplinary in scope and led by interdisciplinary individuals, most notably Fred Clarke. Its journal, the British Journal of Educational Studies (BJES), founded in 1952, also represented a broad multidisciplinary ethos, although increasing disciplinary specialisation marked a trend towards the fragmentation of the field before the growth of new pressures towards the end of the century. (shrink)

This editorial introduction reviews the notions of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity and their implications for an understanding of educational studies. It examines differences between multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, also raising issues about boundary work around and across the disciplines. It discusses the question of whether education is a discipline, together with the role of the so-called 'foundation disciplines' of psychology, sociology, history and philosophy in underpinning educational studies.

This editorial introduction reviews the notions of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity and their implications for an understanding of educational studies. It examines differences between multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, also raising issues about boundary work around and across the disciplines. It discusses the question of whether education is a discipline, together with the role of the so-called ‘foundation disciplines’ of psychology, sociology, history and philosophy in underpinning educational studies.

: The main contribution of this paper to current philosophical and sociological studies on modeling is to analyze modeling as an object-oriented interdisciplinary activity and thus to bring new insights into the wide, heterogeneous discourse on tools, forms and organization of interdisciplinary research. A detailed analysis of interdisciplinarity in the making of models is presented, focusing on long-standing interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in infectious diseases, mathematicians and computer scientists. The analysis introduces a novel way of studying the elements of the (...) models as carriers of interdisciplinarity. These elements, being functionally interdependent building blocks, evolve during the modeling work and carry the disciplinary tensions in the process. This shows how the long and challenging process of defining and reformulating the object of research is crucial for understanding the dynamics of interdisciplinarity in the making. (shrink)

This paper unpacks ambiguities in the field of interdisciplinarity studies, explores where they come from and how they inhibit consolidation of the field. The paper takes its point of departure in two central fault lines in the literature: the relationship between interdisciplinarity and disciplinarity and the question of whether integration is a necessary prerequisite for interdisciplinarity. Opposite positions on the fault lines are drawn out to identify sources of ambiguities, and to examine whether the positions are irreconcilable - or disagreements (...) that may continue to coexist in a consolidated field. It is argued that if we envisage a consolidated field of IDS, there is a need to develop common ground which calls for scholars of ID to be more explicit about the meanings they ascribe to ID than we see today when the sliding between the epistemological and political dimensions of the field may go unnoticed. It is suggested that whereas ambiguity may be unwanted in the epistemological dimension, it may be quite useful in the political dimension. A systematic comparison of opposite positions offers a common frame of reference for a more productive dialogue between different positions. The analysis shows that as to integration, the difference between opposite positions can be reconciled, whereas in the relation between interdisciplinarity and disciplinarity, the positions are antagonistic and logically exclude each other. The analysis suggests that it is the premise of integration that creates the conditions of possibility for “relabelling” interdisciplinarity and for using the “silo” for disciplines. (shrink)

In order to raise awareness of the ambiguous nature of scientific-technological progress, and of the challenging problems it raises, problems which are not easily addressed by courses in a single discipline and cannot be projected onto disciplinary curricula, Technical University of Darmstadt has established three interdisciplinary study concentrations: “Technology and International Development”, “Environmental Sciences”, and “Sustainable Shaping of Technology and Science”. These three programmes seek to overcome the limitations of strictly disciplinary research and teaching by developing an integrated, problem-oriented approach. (...) For example, one course considers fundamental nuclear dilemmas and uses role-playing techniques to address a controversy in the area of nuclear security. At the same time, incorporating interdisciplinary teaching into a university that is organized around mono- or multi-disciplinary faculties also poses a number of challenges. Recognition in disciplinary curricula, and appropriate organizational support and funding are examples of those challenges. It is expected that science and engineering students, empowered by such interdisciplinary study programmes, will be better prepared to act responsibly with regard to scientific and technological challenges. (shrink)

This study presents situational analysis as a suitable framework for the development of qualitatively-oriented interdisciplinary research in the social sciences. The article argues that even though interdisciplinary research is considered a coveted form of research practice, it is not particularly well developed in the social sciences. This is partly due to institutional barriers, but also because the majority of disciplines lack a suitable theoretical and methodological framework capable of unifying a variety of theoretical bases and primarily methodological processes. Situational analysis, (...) which is based on the work of second generation grounded theorists, is ideal for this purpose, as it offers a frame for theoretical, epistemological, empirical and methodological interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

(1995). Synthesizing disciplinary narratives: George Gaylord Simpson's tempo and mode in evolution. Social Epistemology: Vol. 9, Boundary Rhetorics and the Work of Interdisciplinarity, pp. 113-150.

While much interdisciplinarity brings together proximate fields, broad interdisciplinarity sees integration between disciplines that are perceived to be non-neighboring. This paper argues that the heterogeneity among disciplines in broad interdisciplinarity calls for stricter epistemic norms of testimony for experts that act as translators between the disciplines than those suggested for intra-scientific testimony. The paper is structured around two case studies: the affective turn in social theorizing and the use of quantum mechanics in critical theory as exemplified by Vicky Kirby’s use (...) of work by Karen Barad. These are argued to be instances of broad interdisciplinary borrowing where few translators have joint expertise in both disciplines. For most, therefore, the engagement with for instance the integration between quantum mechanics and critical theory is possible only by the aid of translators. For those without sufficient interactional expertise, however, the epistemic credentials of the translations they inevitably rely upon are inscrutable. Furthermore, any comparison between translations is challenged since translations are argued to be few due to the cognitive divergence between disciplines in broad interdisciplinarity. Consequently, the epistemic integrity of broad interdisciplinarity can only be secured through additional norms of testimony for translators. The paper proposes that (a) all translator’s testimony in broad interdisciplinarity must aim to be neutral with respect to disputed issues within the relevant disciplines and (b) any deviation from (a) must be clearly highlighted. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a philosophical analysis of interdisciplinary scientific activities. I suggest that it is a fruitful approach to view interdisciplinarity in light of the recent literature on scientific representations. For this purpose I develop a meta-representational model in which interdisciplinarity is viewed in part as a process of integrating distinct scientific representational approaches. The analysis suggests that present methods for the evaluation of interdisciplinary projects places too much emphasis non-epistemic aspects of disciplinary integrations while more or less (...) ignoring whether specific interdisciplinary collaborations puts us in a better, or worse, epistemic position. This leads to the conclusion that there are very good reasons for recommending a more cautious, systematic, and stringent approach to the development, evaluation, and execution of interdisciplinary science. (shrink)

Two major science policy issues are the integration of knowledge across academic disciplines and the accountability of science to society. Instead of adding new or external criteria for research evaluation, I argue, these goals can be pursued by subjecting disciplinary priorities and procedures to broader scrutiny from the rest of academia. From a social epistemological perspective, the paper discusses interdisciplinarity as a mode of epistemic accountability across disciplinary boundaries, which promises to make academia more than the sum of its disciplinary (...) parts. Drawing on discussions of interdisciplinarity and accountability in knowledge production, as well as on empirical findings of the evaluation of research proposals, the paper unpacks the notion of academic accountability into three dimensions—the recipients, contents, and practices of accountability—and illustrates the difference interdisciplinarity makes in each dimension. The analysis shows that interdisciplinarity is not simply a category of.. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to answer the question: What is interdisciplinary communication? I attempt to answer this question, rather than what some might consider the ontologically prior question—what is interdisciplinarity (ID)?—for two reasons: (1) there is no generally agreed-upon definition of ID; and (2) one’s views regarding interdisciplinary communication have a normative relationship with one’s other views of ID, including one’s views of its very essence. I support these claims with reference to the growing literature on ID, which has (...) a marked tendency to favor the idea that interdisciplinary communication entails some kind of ‘integration’. The literature on ID does not yet include very many philosophers, but we have something valuable to offer in addressing the question of interdisciplinary communication. Playing somewhat fast-and-loose with traditional categories of the subdisciplines of philosophy, I group some philosophers—mostly from the philosophy of science, social–political philosophy, and moral theory—and some non-philosophers together to provide three different, but related, answers to the question of interdisciplinary communication. The groups are as follows: (1) Habermas–Klein, (2) Kuhn–MacIntyre, and (3) Bataille–Lyotard. These groups can also be thought of in terms of the types of answers they give to the question of interdisciplinary communication, especially in terms of the following key words (where the numbers correspond to the groups from the previous sentence): (1) consensus, (2) incommensurability, and (3) invention. (shrink)

Some scholars see interdisciplinarity as a special case of a broader unificationist program. They accept the unification of the sciences as a regulative ideal, and derive from this the normative justification of interdisciplinary research practices. The crucial link for this position is the notion of integration: integration increases the cohesion of concepts and practices, and more specifically of explanations, ontologies, methods and data. Interdisciplinary success then consists in the integration of fields or disciplines, and this constitutes success in the sense (...) that unification is epistemically desirable. In contrast to this account, I defend the thesis that successful interdisciplinary interaction does not necessarily imply the integration of these disciplines. I show this at the hand of two cases. In both the case of evolutionary game theory and the case of hyperbolic discounting, genuine interdisciplinary exchange took place. From both exchanges, the respective economic fields emerged substantially altered – it wasn’t just a juxtaposition of disciplines in which disciplinary identities remained unchanged. Yet in neither case did the disciplines integrate. Rather, they developed their own concepts and methods, their own explanations, own ontologies, and their own views of what proper data standards were. Furthermore, the fields that emerged from these exchanges were very successful, if measured at the hand of properties like explanatory success, increase of control, bibliometrics and grant yields. Thus, I argue, there are cases of interdisciplinary success without integration. (shrink)

The last decade has seen an increasing number of references to quantum mechanics in the humanities and social sciences. This development has in particular been driven by Karen Barad’s agential realism: a theoretical framework that, based on Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, aims to inform social theorizing. In dealing with notions such as agency, power, and embodiment as well as the relation between the material and the discursive level, the influence of agential realism in fields such as feminist science (...) studies and posthumanism has been profound. However, no one has hitherto paused to assess agential realism’s proclaimed quantum mechanical origin including its relation to the writings of Niels Bohr. This is the task taken up here. We find that many of the implications that agential realism allegedly derives from a Bohrian interpretation of quantum mechanics dissent from Bohr’s own views and are in conflict with those of other interpretations of quantum mechanics. Agential realism is at best consistent with quantum mechanics and consequently, it does not capture what quantum mechanics in any strict sense implies for social science or any other domain of inquiry. Agential realism may be interesting and thought provoking from the perspective of social theorizing, but it is neither sanctioned by quantum mechanics nor by Bohr’s authority. This conclusion not only holds for agential realism in particular, it also serves as a general warning against the other attempts to use quantum mechanics in social theorizing. (shrink)