Interdisciplinary Flashcards
Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary work
integrates knowledge and modes of thinking from 2+ disciplines to advance knowledge that would otherwise not have been possible in one discipline. ***ID work gains strenght from provisional epistemic status; it sholdn’t seek to establish truths or to affirm every ID discovery.
Discipline = rich collections of theories, accounts, and findings believed to be acceptable in a specific, temporal scholarly community. attached to certain methods and forms of communication; quasi, stable, partially interated, semi-autonomous
Why is it difficult to assess the quality of ID work?
1 different standards btw disciplines, 2 lack of conceptual clarity about ID work, 3 developing validation criteria is part of the inquiry process. Therefore, researchers tend to rely on indirect markers like number of patents, pubs, funding, rather than direct markers of epistemic quality. (Mansilla and Gardner)
How do ID researchers tend to validate knowledge?
1, CONSISTENCY with multiple separate disciplinary standards (even conflicting standards), 2, BALANCE in weaving together perspectives, 3, EFFECTIVENESS in advancing understanding - so ability to practically problem solve or hold predictive power. (Mansilla and Gardner) *These are core epistemic symptoms of quality ID work.
4 difficulties in ID research
language, methods, institutional constraints, cognitive constraints
Trans/multi/inter disciplinary
- multidisciplinary – gives different perspectives without integrating
- interdisciplinary – multiple disciplines woven together
- transdiciplinary – totally cuts across boundaries
Mode 1 vs 2
Mode 1 - we presume separation of science and society, all research must be in a form understood by colleagues, able to attract a limited consensus amongst a specialized group. MODE 2: Research is increasingly carried out in context of application, diverse stakeholders. multiple sources of expertise. Frameworks emerge that are not reducible to disciplinary structures, transgresses boundaries. flatter hierarchies, applied, transdisciplinary, accountability, scoeity is in conversation, debated in the agora, transgressing, dialogical, contextualized. HAS INFORMAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SINGLE MEASURE FOR QUALITY. it’s not just that sci gives to people, but that ppl give to sci too.society is transforming science, so you need to bring people into knowledge production by asking ‘where is the place of people in our knowledge?’ –> context, implications. it’s hard to say where sci and society begin and end. KNOWLEDGE TRANSGRESSES, COMMUNICATION IS 2 WAY – OCCURS IN THE AGORA (public gathering space which is neither state nor market)
3 attributes of Mode 2
carried out in application/dialogue, actors bring heterogeneous skills and expertise to the problem, transcends disciplines/transdisciplinary. OBSTACLES - equality, semantic appeal, transcnends instit boundaries
exogenous vs endogenous knowledge
exogenous - created by real probs of comm and demand that universities perform their social mission; Endogenous - production of new knowledge w aim of realizing unity of science.
Ways to use ID
(Aram) instrumental ID - scholars borrow ideas from other disciplines to enhance prob solivng in home discipline; Conceptual ID - critically examines assumptions/power in disciplinary work. epistemological ID - restructuring an approach to a field
According to Aram, what 2 general assumptions are there about the knowledge enterprise and nature of reality?
1, those who endorse objective reality independent of perception and social conception; reality is stable and essential. here, ID knowledge shows our inability to see the world thoroughly in traditional disciplines. 2, those who think nature/knowledge are formed by experience and situation and perception. ***Aram looked whether ID correlates to an assumption about reality. (liberal studies seen as proxy for ID). most people saw ID as having a content value (value in perceiving reality / building understanding) and meta-contributions (value in knowledge organization principles). people acknowledged a both/and view of reality - knowledge is constructed AND stable.
Of what use is ID work to you?
Aram — content value (value in perceiving reality / building understanding) and meta-contributions (value in knowledge organization principles).
Aram: 4 types of ID knowledge
commitment to disciplinary knowledge integration, interplay between fields but primarily affecting one’s own field, borrowing disciplines to shape external world, integrating fields with purpose of solving problems.
Consilience
metaphysical worldview that literally means the jumping together of knowledge by linking facts and fact based theories across disicplines to create shared explanations; evidence from different disciplines converge to united conclusions
Ionian Enchantment
there’s unified truth of the world; belief in the unity of sciences, the world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws.
EO Wilson on religion
science achievese the same end as religion, but gets it right. “Science is religion liberated and writ large.” Science saves the spirit through liberation of mind. “When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here.” The only way to establish consilience is through natural ssciences.So, we blur disciplines and create hybrids in movn’t toward consilience (molecular genetics, chemical ecology). IN THE END, THERE IS NOTHING THAT SCIENCE CAN’T ANSWER. Phil is shrinking and will be turned into science. in the end, it will be science and the creative arts as 2 branches of learning. **search for consilience gives consilience gives purpose to intellect; promises orer, not chaos, lies beyond the horizon.
