My Vision on Interdisciplinarity
Mariano Artigas
Dissertation in the Seminary organized by the Group of Peircean
Studies of the University of Navarre.
Pamplona, May 17, 2001.
Contents
Interdisciplinarity as an Integration of Disciplines
Interdisciplinarity and the Search for Sense
Naturalism and Intedisciplinarity
Implications of the Current Scientific Worldview
Science, Person, and Truth
Notes
Presently, when someone intends to write about a theme, the
first and easiest step to take is to browse for it in the internet.
To prepare this seminary, I looked in the internet for the word
“interdisciplinarity” in the web searcher alltheweb. I found
10,819 entrances, a number that broadly exceeds the possibilities
of my intervention. I examined a series of them, and I will use
some to develop my ideas.
The first example takes us to the University of British Columbia
in Canada1, where the Faculty of Graduate Studies is
located. The purpose of this Faculty is to search for connections
across the boundaries. These studies are developed in a faculty
dedicated to graduate studies, which includes 19 investigation
centers, 7 graduate programs, one magazine and 2 living facilities.
For example, in the Center for Applied Ethics there is an
investigation group on genetics and ethics, and another on animal
wellbeing, which is said to be one of the central topics of our
time: the treatment on animals in agriculture, investigation,
sport, and company is the object of undergraduate studies, graduate
studies, investigation and teaching.
I will highlight that in the corresponding explanations the
typical ideas behind interdisciplinarity will appear. Besides the
already mentioned idea of “connections across the boundaries”,
other characteristic ideas are:
- Crossing disciplinary boundaries (almost the same),
- Building bridges,
- Starting from the problem, not from the point of view of any
particular discipline,
- Listening hard to the unfamiliar language of other
disciplines,
- Trying to forge new methods and approaches from different
fields,
- Creating new knowledge that could not have emerged form the
perspective of any one discipline.
I find it interesting to retain the following idea from this
list: they all deal with different disciplines, and a relationship
among them is tried to be established, seeking the achievement of
results that can only be obtained through their mutual
fertilization. Without different disciplines, there is no prime
material to build interdisciplinarity upon. And it is presupposed
that interdisciplinarity respects the characteristics belonging to
each discipline.
In the already mentioned examples, two types of results are
obtained. In some cases, an integration of disciplines is produced,
resulting in the creation of a whole new discipline. This practice
is common to both natural and social sciences, as it has happened
with biophysics, biochemistry, sociobiology, bioethics,
neuroscience or philosophy of language.
The different “philosophies of” (language, nature, religion,
etc.) are philosophical disciplines built upon an interdisciplinary
base. Their nature is interdisciplinary. In other cases, a
“cooperation” among disciplines is produced. This happens when
problems that demand the intervention of several disciplines are
addressed. In this case, the contributions made from each
discipline must be synthesized, without creating a new discipline.
This happens with problems so complex that they demand cooperation
between disciplines. For example, in problems relating the
environment, ethic codes in businesses or in medicine, or in animal
wellbeing.
I found a different perspective on the Paris Interdisciplinary
University’s webpage2, where I read:
“Its aim is to contribute to the renovation of a dialogue broken
by a certain modernity between the order of the facts and the order
of the values, facilitating the dialogue among scientists,
philosophers, theologians, and actors of the economic milieu, with
the purpose of understanding better the articulation between
scientific investigation and the search for sense”.
In this case, a different purpose is pursued. It focuses on the
“search for sense”, of a broken dialogue that must be recomposed,
of the articulation of the world of facts and the world of values.
In classic terms, it is a search for a kind of sapient knowledge
that allows the inclusion of different kinds of knowledge in a
general frame that gives them sense and relates them with the
central values of human life.
The problem is important. But it is complicated, because there
are many states in which the person that deliberates on
interdisciplinarity may be: it is not the same if a believer or an
agnostic makes himself this question, or a scientist that wants to
integrate his science with a search for sense, or a theologian who
wishes to update his Theology to the progress of science. It also
depends on the historic circumstances: it is not the same to
present this problem in the XIII century than in the beginning of
the XXI century.
Nevertheless, there is a factor that often influences the
current approaches in a decisive way. I am referring to the
enormous development of experimental science, which involves the
temptation of converting this science in the key for the search for
sense.
Naturalism is a popular approach in some philosophical circles.
It has being proposed, for example, to naturalize epistemology3,
which means studying science adopting a scientific approach, common
to the study of any other aspect of reality. Without doubt, this is
possible, although it is troublesome that this approach narrows
everything that can be said about science. There is also discussion
of naturalism in other fields. In general, two types of naturalism
can be distinguished: methodological and ontological.
Almost everyone would agree in accepting the legitimacy of
methodological naturalism. Each discipline adopts a specific
approach and it relinquishes the dimensions that may not be
included in this approach. Scientific disciplines do not need to
present ultimate, fundamental questions. The problem is that
epistemological naturalism may be interpreted as an ontological
naturalism that denies the realness of what lies outside the range
of a specific method. Ontological naturalism is tightly related to
reductionism.
The sympathizers of the unity of science or of the unification
of knowledge sustain, precisely, that this union is possible and
desirable, among other reasons, to end the fragmentation of
knowledge in different fields with no communication between them.
It is known that within the Vienna Circle, Otto Neurath was the
greatest defender of the unification of science. He promoted a
magnum project; The Encyclopedia of Unified Science,
although his plan was finally frustrated (by the way, it is curious
that The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas
Kuhn was originally published as part of this Encyclopedia4).
Neurath spoke of “Physicalism”. Without detaining ourselves in
details that would be too complex to address here (since the
doctrines of the Circle where more differentiated than what they
seemed), “physicalism” sounds like a kind of reductionism that
takes physics as a basic science. One of the better known writings
by Neurath is titled “Sociology in Physicalism”5.
Reductionism has being the aim of many critiques in the last
decades. Various reductionist attempts have failed, and it is
commonly admitted that a plurality of irreducible, emerging levels
exist6. In September of 1986, the 13th International Conference on
the Unity of Sciences was celebrated in Washington D.C..A previous
preparatory reunion lead to the publication of two volumes, the
second one completely dedicated to the relationship between the
unity of science and reductionism7.
The different authors show concordance in the rejection of
reductionism. They even reject the reduction of chemistry to
physics; the two sciences with the greatest similarities, and even,
it might be said the greatest amount of elements in common. The
situation is such that presently, those who sustain positions where
they may seem to be, or actually be, naturalists and even
materialists, frequently use the descriptive term
“non-reductionist”, such as it happens in the case of “Physicalist
non-reductionist” in the field of mind theories8. But the intention
to realize a kind of unification of all knowledge “from the roots
up” is still alive. This can be appreciated in works with a great
echo in society9, but also in more academic territories. For
example, in the introduction of a wide anthology of texts dealing
with philosophy of science, published in 1991 with the objective of
becoming a reference, there is an affirmation that non-reductionist
materialism is part of the actual consensus in philosophy of
science10.
It is easy to convert methodological naturalism into an
ontological one: it is only necessary to stop giving importance to
a certain type of questions. I think this is one of the greatest
challenges of our time. Rudolph Carnap provides an example in his
autobiography. He says that when he first entered college, he
walked away form religious doctrines in a definite way. At first he
substituted the idea of a personal God for a sort of pantheism.
Then, he keeps saying, he realized that pantheism was not
necessary, “since natural phenomenon, including those of man and
society as part of nature, may be explained through the scientific
method, without any idea of a God”11.
The evolutionist theories are a paradigmatic case which
frequently present themselves as the final explanation of reality,
or al least an explanation that cannot be overcome. I must confess
I was surprised when, due to my investigations, I found the reason
for which the Congregation of the Index includes The Creative
Evolution of Henri Bergson in its index of prohibited books of
June 1st, 1914 (at the time, 13 editions of this work had already
been published in French). The argument on which the inspector of
the book bases his banning was that, in his opinion, the text was
“an effort of atheist thought to explain the genesis of the world,
the mystery of the universe, and specially of mankind, without a
powerful and wise God, creator, organizer, and governor of things.
God is a result of ignorance. Science proves that nature takes care
of itself, since it acts by itself. This is the theme of
Bergson”12. Contemporary philosophers and theologians would surely
modify this interpretation of Bergson, but without any doubt, the
problem just addressed conditions significantly present debates. If
the scientific worldview is accepted, it would seem that divine
action is simply unnecessary. It can not be said that this idea is
simply innovative. When Thomas Aquinas formulated his five ways for
demonstrating the existence of God, he only addressed two
objections. One of them is precisely this one; that things created
can be explained without the idea of God. The second objection is
the existence of evil. Both of these objections are still perceived
today as fully contemporary problems.
There are different variants of reductionism and naturalism.
They are enough to attract the attention of who is interested in
the fertile articulation of knowledge, both on a philosophical and
theological level. And there are also different options that
someone who wishes to overcome reductionism and naturalism may
take. I am going to allude now a personal proposal that I have
developed broadly in my book The Mind of the Universe13.
It seems to me that, these days, we find ourselves in a
privileged position to address our problem. For the first time in
history, we count with a very complete scientific worldview. Thus,
we know the basic features of the components and functioning of the
principle levels of nature, in its synchronic (actual situation)
and diachronic (evolving history) aspects. As it is logical,
scientific disciplines have advanced in a fragmented fashion. Until
the late XIX century, nothing was known of the interior of the atom
and, therefore, very little could be known about the mechanisms of
chemistry. Until nuclear physics was developed, the true nature of
stars was almost unknown. The progress of molecular biology and,
therefore, the knowledge of life, has swiftly grown in the second
half of the XX century. There is still much to discover, but we
possess a basic scheme of the principle aspects of the natural
world.
The situation of epistemology is also privileged. Until the
beginning of the XX century, philosophy of nature was just a hobby
that some philosophers and scientists maintained. The Vienna Circle
gave it a great impulse in Europe and America as well, but it also
conditioned it with a serious positivist handicap that is gradually
getting left behind.
Presently, studies made from logical, sociological, historical,
and methodological points of view have outstandingly developed.
This fact, summed to the progress made by many scientific
disciplines, provides enough elements to propose an equilibrated
philosophy of science that may correspond science such as it exists
in reality. At the same time, it may deepen, with certain guarantee
of success, in the philosophical problems that it presents.
The social impact of science has also reached a great level.
Sometimes it presents serious ethic challenges that make evident
the tight relation between scientific progress, and the search for
truth, and the will to serve mankind.
It seems to me that this privileged position offers a very
adequate base for a dialogue among the different sciences,
philosophy, and theology, which may lead to significant
contributions in the field of articulated knowledge. I have found a
way to produce this dialogue in which the peculiarities and
autonomy of each discipline of knowledge are scrupulously
respected. And this dialogue may be developed in various
directions, although philosophy is always the mediator of the
dialogue as I am going to demonstrate now.
The central idea consists in warning that experimental science
not only includes the statements, theories, and models conceived in
each of the moments in which they have been formulated within each
of the scientific disciplines. The conditions that make possible
the existence and progress of the scientific enterprise are also
included in experimental science. In fact, experimental science is,
above all, a human-directed activity towards a double objective:
finding knowledge of nature that may be submitted to experimental
control and, therefore, it may be used to obtain a controlled
dominion over nature. But we can only obtain this goal if three
suppositions that may be considered as necessary conditions of the
scientific enterprise in general, occur:
- That a natural and intelligible order exists (ontological
supposition),
- That we (humans) are able to know it (epistemological
supposition),
- That the goal of the enterprise is valuable enough to pursue
its accomplishment (ethic supposition).
Many authors have pointed out, in one way or another, the
existence of these three suppositions that form part of science,
although they do not intervene as explicitly formulated statements.
Other authors have gone further, pointing in a direction I have
chosen for my work: to know that scientific progress broadens,
needs, and feeds back justification of these three suppositions.
The analysis of this feedback leads to a series of problems of
great importance in our day, which I have only partially explored,
providing some idea on multiple issues that may be studied
subsequently.
The following concepts are central in the ontological level of
today’s scientific worldview: dynamism, self-organization,
information, emergency, and creativity. These topics are
interesting by themselves, and in many actual conversations they
are related with present discussions on natural finality,
evolution, and contingency. And, if you take them to an ontological
level, they present questions on the immanence of God in the world,
the natural creativity in relation with the divine creativity, the
existence of not only natural finality but of a divine plan.
In the epistemological level, scientific progress manifests, in
an unsuspected manner, human capacities that where previously
thought of as only latent and that have developed thanks to
scientific work. Experimental science is seen as the result of some
methods in which creativity, interpretation, and argumentation,
have played a central part. And it is seen as something that
conducts to a progressive knowledge of the singularity of the human
being, which combines the material and spiritual dimensions in a
personal unity.
In the ethical level, experimental science is found inextricably
bonded to the fundamental values of human existence. First of all,
because it constitutes a systematic and rigorous effort of search
for truth that has been socially institutionalized.
The search for truth is one of the main ethic values of human
life, and it constitutes the principal engine of scientific
investigation. Here, the ethic value of scientific realism is
manifested. In this context, it would be very interesting to deepen
in the modalities of truth in the different levels of human life:
truth and experimental science, truth and philosophy, moral truth,
truth and social and political life, and religious truth. The
scientific progress, in the other hand, contributes to the
diffusion of the implicated values of the institutional character
of science: cooperation, honesty, rigor, transparency, and
publicity. It can be affirmed that the development of science and
technology has outstandingly help to spread this values, so
necessary for the progress of science and its applications.
In my book I develop some of the ideas mentioned before, I
allude others, and finally, I comment some subjects that may be
studied in the future. Without intension of being exhaustive, I
address seven topics: the implication of God in the creation, the
divine plans, the transcendence of God, the divine paths on earth,
the greatness and meagerness of mankind, integral naturalism, and
the relation between natural, human, and divine creativity. In this
selection I focused specially on theological issues since through
this book I intended to participate in the dialogue between science
and religion. But throughout the text it is evident that philosophy
is the protagonist of this dialogue. It necessarily is, since only
philosophy has the capacity to provide connecting bridges for two
perspectives separated by different aims and methodologies.
Philosophy also has its characteristic aims and methodology,
but, because of its own nature, it is concerned with making
explicit the implicit suppositions made by science, to analyze and
study them in a thematic way, and examine the implications of
scientific progress in these suppositions. Therefore, philosophy is
a natural bridge for a fruitful dialogue between experimental
sciences and questions of a metaphysic type in their broadest
sense, whether they deal with the features of the world, human
nature, or religious dimensions.
To all said before, a later possibility to explore must be
added: the study of the implications of particular scientific
theories. In The Mind of the Universe, my considerations
center on the general suppositions of the scientific activity and
the feedback process between scientific progress and them. However,
I highlight at the same time that this approach may be applied in
the study of the implications of a great variety of particular
scientific achievements. In this sense, this approach is a seed
that is already manifesting some of its fruits, but it contains
other potentialities that would deserve a more adequate treatment,
especially if you consider the present circumstances, both of the
progress of science and the progress of epistemology, and even in
the attitude of scientists, some of them more favorable to this
kind of works.
One of the major difficulties in working with this approach is
probably found in the fear of philosophers and theologians to deal
with issues that seem to collide, sometimes, beyond the
possibilities of someone who does not have a specific scientific
specialization. However, it seems to me that philosophers and
theologians too have to deal with many issues that demand effort as
well, sometimes considerable, to dominate other fields of human
activity. But possessing a sufficient knowledge to aboard specific
and well focused problems is within reaching distance of any
scholar interested in these issues. It seems to me that this is a
task with notable repercussions in our time, and that these
repercussions are increasing.
The feedback between scientific progress and the general
suppositions on science acquires a peculiar relief when we consider
the science-making subject. It is frequently thought that the new
discoveries provided by the sciences demonstrate not only that
there is continuity between humans and animals, but that the human
being is nothing but a type of animal more evolved than the others,
and it is not possible to speak properly of spiritual dimensions,
nor ontological essential diversity. However, the approach
previously exposed leads to a very different perspective.
Obviously, I do not pretend to undertake this problem in all its
complexity. I just wish to illustrate what type of reflections can
be made when using the method I have adopted in The Mind of the
Universe.
Against a simplistic methodology that admits the existence of
pure facts, which presumably would arrive at, by induction, general
laws, contemporary epistemology has evidenced that scientific
theories are always human constructions. We construct them by
displaying strong doses of creativity and interpretation. The
procedures of experimental science are always interpretative. We
must construct languages that enable us to raise questions about
nature in a way in which it can respond to us in the only language
it knows: facts. This requires highly sophisticated procedures.
The method of experimental science requires, at leas implicitly,
a minimum dose of realism; concretely, that we possess the
capability of reaching a cognitive caption of the natural world. In
this line, Jarret Leplin wrote: “At least a minimum epistemological
realism that sustains that science can obtain theoretical
knowledge, is crucial for the rationality in the methodological
level. More specifically, I sustain that, unless the investigator
supposes the existence of a certain truth regarding whether the
entities and processes on which he theorized or experiments exist
or not, and respecting its properties, unless he deals with this
questions as objective episteme in the organization and direction
of his work, a great part of his career will lack sense and be
arbitrary”14.
Scientific realism continues to be the center of broad debates.
I have already mentioned before that the study of truth and realism
in the different sciences and intellectual activities could be a
magnificent meeting ground to articulate interesting
interdisciplinary reflections.
Contemporary epistemology points out, with fundament, that in
experimental science we always manage our own constructions, and
that limits for its demonstrability exist. Many consider that
realism influences scientific activity as an aspiration or
normative idea in a Kantian sense, without ever being able to speak
of the truth of concrete formulations. It seems to me that this
idea, quite extended, influences very important aspects of
contemporary culture, not always positive, and that the analysis of
scientific truth is a task worth undertaking.
It is not necessary to accept a strong type of realism to admit
the singularity of human beings. The argumentative capacity remains
clear too when someone is satisfied with the empiric adaptation of
the theories and renounces to address the problem of its truth. The
empiricist behavior, supposing that it can exist and grow in a
coherent manner, would be sufficient for demonstrating the peculiar
singularity of human beings. But it is undeniable that we, humans,
search for truth. In a phrase full of philosophical density, John
Paul II wrote: “You can define the human person as one who seeks
truth”15. Experimental science bears sense, especially as a search
for truth.
It has been like this since the beginning. When modern
experimental science was opening its way, during the XVII century,
Galileo would have avoided the obstacles he had to confront if he
would have followed the advice the experts gave to him, which can
be resumed to presenting his heliocentric in accordance to what was
ordinarily considered by the accepted astronomical theories: as a
useful hypothesis for saving phenomenon and making predictions. The
strong realist sense of Galileo prevailed. The same can be said of
Kepler. Only his realism explains the long years of perseverance in
search of some laws that, in his opinion, should exist and should
be intelligible to all. Something similar has always occurred. The
scientist can play the roll of an instrumentalist philosopher or
positivist in the weekends, but on Monday morning, when he marks
his card in the investigation center where he works, he will once
again base his work in an implicit realism.
Realism admits many shades or appreciations. It is difficult, in
quantum physics, to know when we have reached real aspects of
nature: in this discipline we study phenomenon quite distant from
our own experience and our possible representations. In the other
hand, in other scientific disciplines, biology for example,
discoveries have a strong realist tone, since they refer to
phenomenon that we may represent and that occur within stable
organizations with which we can experiment quite directly.
Alasdair MacIntyre has affirmed that experimental science has an
ethical meaning when thought of as a search for truth16. He
concludes that natural science is a moral task. In The Mind of
the Universe I have analyzed the reasons he gives for
supporting this strong thesis. He affirms that scientific realism
can be contemplated “as what Kant denominated a regulative ideal.
What did it regulate and what will it regulate? The scientist’s
interpretation of his own work. since Galileo, realism has been the
ideal that imposes restrictions on what may be qualified as a
scientific solution and provides an interpretation of the
scientific results. the practice of science throughout time implies
a continual adhesion to realistic objectives”17. Experimental
science bears sense in the same degree it correlates with the
search for truth. The compromise with this task explains why
science is a moral task. Scientific progress implies the historic
fulfillment of this historic task; a proof that it can be
accomplished, and also that we progress through our effort, full of
morality, for reaching true knowledge of the natural world.
In this line, and in consonance with the importance attributed
to history, MacIntyre affirms: “the continuities of history are
moral continuities, continuities of tasks and projects that can not
be defined but in reference with the intrinsic goods that the
objectives of such tasks and projects imply. This tasks and
projects are found incarnated in practices, and the practices are
incarnated in institutions and communities. The scientific
community is one among the moral communities of humanity, and its
unity only results comprehensible when you take in account the
compromise with realism. In this way, the continuities of history
of this community are, above all, continuities in its regulative
ideas. The construction of a representation of nature is, in the
modern world, and analogue task to the construction of a cathedral
in the medieval world, or the foundation and construction of a city
in the ancient world, tasks that could have also been
endless”18.
These allusions are sufficient to indicate some paths that are
being opened today to an interdisciplinarity that scrupulously
respects the variety of different perspectives and, at the same
time, looks for the achievement of new lights that may only be
reached by using bridges between them. I would like to finish by
pointing out that, in my opinion, we are dealing with a clearly
philosophical task which bears great interest. One of the clearly
philosophical tasks is the search of connections between the
diverse perspectives that constitute the framework of human life,
together with the search for sense. That is interdisciplinarity. I
have tried to illustrate some examples taken form my own
philosophical activity which, from my point of view, is strongly
anchored on interdisciplinarity.
(1) This information was taken from:
http://www.iisgp.ubc.ca/interdisciplinarity/index.htm.
(2) Cfr. http://uip.edu/presentation.html
(3) It can be verified, for example, in: : H. Kornblith (ed.),
Naturalizing Epistemology, The MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.)
1994.
(4) T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, vol. II, n. 2, The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1970 (2ª ed. aumentada;
1ª 1962).
(5) O. Neurath, “Sociología en fisicalismo”, in: Alfred
J. Ayer (ed.), El positivismo lógico, Fondo de
cultura económica, México 1978, pp. 287-322.
(6) Cfr. M. Artigas, “Emergence and Reduction in Morphogenetic
Theories”, in: E. Agazzi - A. Cordero (eds.), Philosophy and the
Origin and Evolution of the Universe, Kluwer, Dordrecht 1991,
pp. 253-262.
(7) G. Radnitzky (ed.), Centripetal forces in the
sciences, vol. II, Paragon House, New York 1988.
(8) Cfr. A. Beckermann, H. Flohr y J. Kim (eds.), Emergence
or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive
Physicalism, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 1992; J. Kim,
Supervenience and Mind, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge 1995, y Philosophy of Mind, Westview Press,
Boulder (Co.) 1996.
(9) For example: E. O. Wilson, Consilience. La unidad del
conocimiento, Círculo de Lectores, Barcelona 1999.
(10) R. Boyd, P. Gasper y J. D. Trout (eds.), The Philosophy
of Science, The MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1991, p.
xii-xiii.
(11) R. Carnap, Autobiografía intelectual,
Paidós, Barcelona 1992, p. 36
(12) L. Janssens, opinion on L’Évolution
Creatrice, in: Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
Faith, Index, Protocolli 1914-1917, fol. 93, p. 1.
(13) M. Artigas, La mente del universo, Eunsa, Pamplona
1999
(14) J. Leplin, “Methodological Realism and Scientific
Rationality”, Philosophy of Science, 53 (1986), p. 32. Puede
verse también: J. Leplin, A Novel Defense of Scientific
Realism, Oxford University Press, New York 1997.
(15) John Paul II, enc. Fides er Ratio, nº 28.
(16) A. MacIntyre, “Objectivity in Morality and Objectivity in
Science”, en: H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. y Daniel Callahan (eds.),
Morals, Science and Sociality, The Hastings Center,
Hastings-on-Hudson (New York) 1978, pp. 21-39.
(17) Ibid., p. 31.
(18) Ibid., pp. 36-37.
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