Abstract
The hegemony of the natural and biological sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries coincided with the entrenchment of positivism as a superior methodology in knowledge acquisition and justification. Positivism exalted empiricism or experiential knowledge from sense perception. This not only led to the sciencization (empiricization) of humanities like ethics but also social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, economics, law, education and political science. Unfortunately, the radical empiricism embedded in positivism (scientism) bred a plethora of racist and sexist scholars who hid under the facades of positivistic science to justify slavery, colonialism, racial segregation and gender discrimination. The abolition of slavery and slave trade in the nineteenth century led to anti-colonial sentiments and agitations for independence in Africa, Asia and Latin America. A number of African countries attained independence in the 1950s and 1960s. This ensconced Pan-Africanism and its related nuances such as Pan-African governance, Pan-African development and Pan-African education. Consequently, Pan-African scholars embarked on the deconstruction of colonial methodologies and modes of knowledge embedded in the positivistic mono-perspectival schema in favor of post-colonial multi-disciplinary methodologies and interpretive philosophies of method. Feminist scholars in both the global North and South also used the post-colonial methodological paradigm to further expose the positivistic scientific methodology as androcentric and gender blind. This chapter therefore argues that multi-disciplinarity and inter-disciplinarity are simply a logical consequent of decoloniality and post-coloniality. The chapter contends that post-coloniality and decoloniality dethrone positivism and all its quantitative superiority pretexts in favor of interpretivism, multi-disciplinarity, mixed methodologism, qualitative analyses, epistemological justice and epistemological realism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, E. (2000). Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/
Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberg, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing. Basic Books.
Blakey, M. L. (1991). Man and nature, white and other. In F. V. Harrison (Ed.), Decolonizing anthropology: Moving further toward an anthropology for liberation. Association of Black Anthropologists/American Anthropological Association.
Chalmers, A. F. (2004). What is this thing called science? Open University Press.
Choi, B. C. K., & Pak, A. W. P. (2006). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in health research, services, education and policy: 1. Definitions, objectives and evidence of effectiveness. Clinical and Investigative Medicine, 29(6), 351–364.
Comte, A. (1975). The nature and importance of the positive philosophy. In G. Lenzer (Ed.), Auguste Comte and positivism: The essential writings. Harper and Row.
Comte, A. (1988). Introduction to positive philosophy (F. Ferre, Trans.). Hackett Publishing.
Feyerabend, P. (1975). Against method: Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge. Verso.
Fortes, M. (1955). Radcliffe-Brown’s contributions to the study of social organization. The British Journal of Sociology, 6(1), 16–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/587222
Gehlert, S., Murray, A., Sohmer, D., McClintock, M., Conzen, S., & Olopade, O. (2010). The importance of trans-disciplinary collaborations for understanding and resolving health disparities. Social Work in Public Health, 25(3–4), 408–422. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371910903241124
Giddens, A. (1982). Profiles and critiques in social theory. Macmillan Press.
Gorton, W. A. (n.d.). The philosophy of social science. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/soc-sci/
Guillin, V. (2016). Aspects of scientific explanation in Auguste Comte. Revue européenne des sciences sociales, 54(2), 17–41.
Higginbotham, E. B. (1992). African-American women’s history and the meta-language of race. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 17(2).
Howson, C. (2000). Hume’s problem: Induction and the justification of belief (p. 2000). Oxford University Press.
Hume, D. (1948). Philosophical essays concerning human understanding. A. Millar.
Hundle, A. K. (2019). Decolonizing diversity: The transnational politics of minority racial difference. Public Culture, 31(2), 289–322.
Jaganath, P. (1981). Imperialism, anthropology and the third world. Economic and Political Weekly, 16(14), 623–662.
Kizito, M. G. (2021). Kant’s deontology as a critique of Africa’s ideological ambiguity. Estudos Kantianos, MarÃlia, 9(2), 81–92.
Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Mazrui, A. A. (2005). Pan-Africanism and the intellectuals: Rise, decline and revival. In J. Mkandawire (Ed.), African intellectuals: Rethinking politics, language, gender and development. CODESRIA.
McEwan, C. (2002). What is post colonialism. In V. Desai & R. B. Potter (Eds.), The companion to development studies. Arnold.
McGregor, S. L. T. (2004). The nature of transdisciplinary research and practice. https://www.academia.edu/26721302/The_Nature_of_Transdisciplinary_Research_and_Practic
Mignolo, W. D. (2007). Introduction: Coloniality of power and de-colonial thinking. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 159.
Mignolo, W. D. (2018). Foreword. On pluriversality and multipolarity in constructing the pluriverse. In B. Reiter (Ed.), Constructing the pluriverse: The geo-politics of knowledge. Duke University Press.
Mirza, H. S. (Ed.). (1992). Black British feminism. Routledge.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2013). Coloniality of power in postcolonial Africa: Myths of decolonization. CODESRIA Book Series.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2015). Decoloniality as the future of Africa. History Compass, 13(10), 485–496.
Nicolescu, B. (1997). The transdisciplinary evolution of the university condition for sustainable development. https://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/bulletin/b12c8.php
Nicolescu, B. (2001). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. State University of New York Press.
Ochwa-Echel, J. R. (2013). Neo-liberalism and university education in sub-Saharan Africa. Sage Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013504933
Petersen, K. H., & Rutherford, A. (1986). A double colonization: Colonial and post-colonial women’s writing. Dangaroo Press.
Quijano, A. (2007). Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 168–178.
Raj, R. (Ed.). (2002). Women at the intersection: Indivisible rights. Identities, and oppression. Centre for Women’s Global Leadership.
Rigby, P. (1996). African images: Racism and the end of anthropology. Routledge.
Rosenfield, P. L. (1992). The potential of transdisciplinary research for sustaining and extending linkages between the health and social sciences. Social Science & Medicine, 35(11), 1343–1357. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(92)90038-R
Seel, N. M. (Ed.). (2012). Cross-disciplinary learning. Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_1476
Schmalz, D. L., Janke, M. C., & Payne, L. L. (2019). Multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research: Leisure studies past, present, and future. Journal of Leisure Research, 50(5), 389–393. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2019.1647751
Tamale, S. (1999). When hens begin to crow: Gender and parliamentary politics in Uganda. Fountain Publishers.
Tuhiwei, S. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books.
Walsh, C. (2018). The decolonial for: Resurgences, shifts and movements. In W. In Mignolo & C. Walsh (Eds.), On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics. Praxis.
Winch, P. (1958). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Wittgenstein, L. (1921). Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
George, K.M. (2023). Evolution of Multi-disciplinary Philosophies of Method: Colonial Antecedents and Post-colonial Paradigm Shifts. In: Marevesa, T., Jakaza, E., Mavengano, E. (eds) Multidisciplinary Knowledge Production and Research Methods in Sub-Saharan Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35531-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35531-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35530-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-35531-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)