Inter- und Transdisziplinarität: Heuristik und Begründung

Summary

Inter- and Transdiciplinarity: Heuristics and Justification. Difficulties to define the concept of discipline are symptomatic for the inadequacy of such man-made confines and demarcations. This becomes most obvious in the context of an application of the distinction (introduced by Leibniz and Reichenbach) between a heuristic and a justifying component in the process of scientific research to the transdisciplinary realm called, ‘interdisciplinarity’. The omnipresence and fertility of heuristic and justifying interdisciplinarity in scientific praxis shows that any attempts to find an adequate concept of discipline has become obsolete nowadays, for it cannot find its equivalent in the subjects we are dealing with. All forms of “Grenzfrageninterdisziplinarität”, in particular, demonstrate that such confines do not exist. This has a bearing not only on modern philosophy of science but also on the scientist himself in order to integrate interdisciplinary fields into his own research program.