First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Interdisciplinary or team-taught courses pose special challenges and make special demands on the instructors. Yet they also offer special opportunities for learning—for instructor and student alike. This paper describes one such course taught at the University of Maryland by a historian (Kenneth Holum), an art historian (Elisabeth Pemberton), and a philosopher (James Lesher), focused on the art, politics, and philosophical environment of 5th-century Athens. Three themes emerged over the course of the semester: the centrality of the family in Athenian (...) society, the emergence of the individual as a new focus of interest in art and society, human nature as a new subject of study, and the phenomenon of cross-fertilization or ‘bi-sociation’ as the ideas developed in one field were adapted for use in other disciplines. For all their special burdens and challenges, courses such as this one can provide an opportunity to explore philosophical theorizing from a new perspective. (shrink)

Despite the recent proliferation of scientific, clinical, and narrative accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations, the phenomenology of voice hearing remains opaque and undertheorized. In this article, we outline an interdisciplinary approach to understanding hallucinatory experiences which seeks to demonstrate the value of the humanities and social sciences to advancing knowledge in clinical research and practice. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH utilizes rigorous and context-appropriate methodologies to analyze a wider range of first-person accounts (...) of AVH at 3 contextual levels: cultural, social, and historical; experiential; and biographical. We go on to show that there are significant potential benefits for voice hearers, clinicians, and researchers. These include informing the development and refinement of subtypes of hallucinations within and across diagnostic categories; “front-loading” research in cognitive neuroscience; and suggesting new possibilities for therapeutic intervention. In conclusion, we argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH can nourish the ethical core of scientific enquiry by challenging its interpretive paradigms, and offer voice hearers richer, potentially more empowering ways to make sense of their experiences. (shrink)

Universities in North America and Europe increasingly provide financial incentives to encourage collaboration between faculty in different disciplines, based on the premise that this yields more innovative and sophisticated research. Drawing from a wealth of empirical data, the contributors to Investigating Interdisciplinary Collaboration put that theory to the test. What they find reveals how interdisciplinarity is not living up to its potential, but also suggests how universities might foster more genuinely collaborative and productive research. Chapter 10 is available Open (...) Access here: https: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK395883/. (shrink)

In commenting on the state of affairs in contemporary archaeology, Wylie outlines an agenda for archaeology as an interdisciplinary science rooted in ethical practices of stewardship. In so doing she lays the foundations for an informed and philosophically relevant “meta-archaeology.”.

Natural and supernatural explanations are used to interpret the same events in a number of predictable and universal ways. Yet little is known about how variation in diverse cultural ecologies influences how people integrate natural and supernatural explanations. Here, we examine explanatory coexistence in three existentially arousing domains of human thought: illness, death, and human origins using qualitative data from interviews conducted in Tanna, Vanuatu. Vanuatu, a Melanesian archipelago, provides a cultural context ideal for examining variation in explanatory coexistence due (...) to the lack of industrialization and the relatively recent introduction of Christianity and Western education. We argue for the integration of interdisciplinary methodologies from cognitive science and anthropology to inform research on explanatory coexistence. (shrink)

The concepts of health and disease play pivotal roles in medicine and the health professions This volume brings together the requisite literature for understanding current discussions and debates these concepts. The selections in the volume attempt to present a wide range of views concerning the nature of the concepts of health and issues using both historical and contemporary sources -- Back cover.

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Cognitive Modelling presents a new approach to cognition that challenges long-held views. It systematically develops a broad-based framework to model cognition, which is mathematically equivalent to the emerging 'quantum-like modelling' of the human mind. The book argues that a satisfactory physical and philosophical basis of such an approach is missing, a particular issue being the application of quantization to the mind for which there is no empirical evidence as yet. In response to this issue, the (...) book adopts a COM (classical optical modelling) approach, broad-based but mathematically equivalent to quantum-like modelling while avoiding its problematic features. It presents a philosophically informed and empirically motivated mathematical model of cognition, mainly concerning decision making processes. It also deals with applications to different areas of the social sciences. It will be of interest to scholars and research students interested in the mathematical modelling of cognition and decision making, and also interdisciplinary researchers interested in broader issues of cognition. (shrink)

This anthology offers a unique collection of contributions focusing on the discussion about the so-called dual-process theories within the field of moral psychology. In general, dual-process theories state that in cognitive systems, two sorts of processes can be differentiated: an affective, associative process and an analytical, rule-based process. This distinction recently entered the debate on the relationship between intuitive and rational approaches to explaining the phenomenon of moral judgment. The increasing interest in these theories raises questions concerning their general impact (...) on social contexts. The anthology aims at presenting stepping-stones of an analysis of the merits and drawbacks of this development. For that purpose, the authors discuss general questions concerning the relationship between ethics and empirical sciences, methodological questions, reassessments of established terminology and societal implications of dual-process theories in moral psychology. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary Barthes addresses the enduring stimulus that Barthes offers to intellectually adventurous work across the human sciences. It contextualises his creative engagements with ethnology, historiography, philosophy, ethics, music, photography, and literature, and traces the distinctive ways which he unsettled disciplinary boundaries.

The Interdisciplinary Handbook of Perceptual Control Theory brings together the latest research, theory, and applications from W. T. Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) that proposes that the behavior of a living organism lies in the control of perceived aspects of both itself and its environment. Sections cover theory, the application of PCT to a broad range of disciplines, why perceptual control is fundamental to understanding human nature, a new way to do research on brain processes and behavior, how the (...) role of natural selection in behavior can be demystified, how engineers can emulate human purposeful behavior in robots, and much more. Each chapter includes an author biography to set the context of their work within the development of PCT. Presents case studies that show how PCT can be applied in different disciplines Illustrates the Test for the Controlled Variable (TCV) and the construction of functional models as fruitful alternatives to mainstream experimental design when studying behavior Shows how theory illuminates structure and functions in brain anatomy Compares and contrasts PCT with other contemporary, interdisciplinary theories. (shrink)

Many philosophers would, in theory, agree that the methods and tools of philosophy ought to be supplemented by those of other academic disciplines. In practice, however, the sociological data suggest that most philosophers fail to engage or collaborate with other academics, and this article argues that this is problematic for philosophy as a discipline. In relation to the value of interdisciplinary collaboration, the article highlights how experimental philosophers can benefit the field, but only insofar as they draw from the (...) distinctive methods of philosophy and overcome the charge of “amateur psychology” by more consistently collaborating with the scientists they seek to emulate. It concludes that philosophers ought to collaborate with other academics in order to gain an experience-based understanding of the methods of other disciplines in addition to an understanding of the content of these disciplines. (shrink)

For the theoretical construction that will allow the analysis to News of a Kidnapping (1996), I rely on the establishment of the sociological character of the disciplines of Literature and Criminology (the way of organizing society, through certain laws and regulations), besides having other similarities (artistic, interpretative and written dimensions), as pointed out by Perez (2006). The way of articulating these proposals is somewhat problematic, because there is no interdisciplinary link that is fully and intellectually elaborated, according to Nelson, (...) Treichler and Grossberg: difficulty that would not allow contextualizing, theorizing and questioning the bases with which we work. For this reason, Cultural Studies would have a necessary functionality: its methodology does not have guarantees on the privilege that is granted to the internal structures of the interdisciplinary. For this, I have developed two guidelines by which that phenomenon could be explained: the literary and criminological approaches. (shrink)

The expansion of ethics review, beyond its origins in medical research, is the subject of growing critical analysis internationally, especially from social science researchers. Our study builds on this analysis by considering ethics review specifically within tertiary-based educational research. As a foundation for a larger study, we explore the reporting of ethics review within articles from a snapshot of education journals. A cross-sectional review considered 125 articles from 24 journals spanning medical and nurse education, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, (...) and educational technology. Among similar types of research our findings highlight variation in institutional ethical review processes and outcomes. Despite most journals providing guidelines for reporting ethics review, adherence to these guidelines by authors or editors was not always evident, but more likely in health-related education journals. We argue that identified areas of variation may reflect the differing influence and proximity of biomedical values. This influence has been under examined in tertiary-based educational research but may contribute to inequitable learning, researching and publishing experiences, potentially adding to negative sentiment about ethics review. (shrink)

The article presents the author’s reflection on the topic of scientific communication and forms of presentation of scientific results in the form of journal publications. As a starting point for reflection served the meeting that took place on March 28, 2019 held by the editor-in-chief of the Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences Khachatur Marinosyan with new researchers. The event was mainly devoted to the structure of the representation of modern knowledge, a crucial role in which is continued to be played (...) by a scientific journal that should be considered as a special phenomenon of intellectual culture. The operation of a journal is considered from the communicative perspective. In addition to the main topics of scientific communication, during the meeting some relevant to the institutional functioning of knowledge topics were also discussed: ageism, interdisciplinarity, transmedia, formalization of knowledge, international unification and formal indexation of journals. The meeting, which format was unusual for contemporary Russian science, aroused the interest of the professional community. The relevance and just-in-time character of the “dialogical” approach to the functioning of science was evidenced by the participants. The Social Philosophy Department of the Institute of Philosophy of Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the meeting, which was attended by the beginning scientists from Lomonosov Moscow State University, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and independent researchers who do not have an institutional position in academic institutions but are engaged in research activities. The most important conclusion of the meeting is that there are the possibility and necessity of thematic updating of humanitarian and, in particular, philosophical knowledge by the work of beginning but promising authors, and editorial boards should be ready to that if they want to maintain journal’s leading status and keep up with the times. (shrink)

In the published article the Acknowledgment section is missing. The following text should have been included.

This is a superb anthology that questions the value and even the existence of honor in the contemporary world. Although readers have had the benefit of excellent works on this concept from mainly a...

The study and understanding of fundamental questions cannot be addressed by a single discipline. A plurality of insights needs to be integrated or coordinated to allow for mutual enrichment in interdisciplinary research. The intellectual character describes the set of dispositions that both configure and motivate intellectual behavior. In this paper, we explore the intellectual virtues that constitute the ideal character of an interdisciplinary researcher. We look at dimensions of several intellectual virtues – intellectual curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and (...) intellectual honest – relevant to interdisciplinarity, we discuss the significance of other character traits – intellectual creativity and intellectual trust – for integrating a plurality of insights, and we argue for the need of a social cognition approach, emphasizing the relevance of interpersonal intellectual virtues in interdisciplinary inquiry. All these virtues are key constituents of the intellectual character of interdisciplinary researchers. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. The article demonstrates the development and influence of the main diagnostic systems in psychiatry, such as the DSM and the ICD, on the concept of psychiatric diseases. The problem of classification of psychiatric disorders is one of the main topics that is the field of study of the philosophy of psychiatry. The correct diagnosis within a particular diagnostic system directly affects the choice of appropriate drug treatment, psychotherapy and social support (...) for people suffering from mental disorders. Misdiagnosis has not only negative medical but also social consequences, leading to stigmatization and avoidance of people suffering from mental disorders. M e t h o d s. The research uses an integrated approach to the analysis of psychiatric diagnostic systems, including historical, comparative and interdisciplinary methods. The application of the historical method contributed to a detailed study of the evolution of psychiatric diagnostic systems and changes in approaches to the classification of mental disorders. A comparative analysis of the main diagnostic systems was carried out, considering their structure, diagnostic criteria and interaction. The interdisciplinary method involves the integration of knowledge from psychiatry, philosophy, medical history, cultural studies, and psychology, providing a deep understanding of the medical, philosophical, social, and cultural aspects of mental disorders. R e s u l t s. The article analyzes the historical development of ideas and methodology for the classification of mental disorders from ancient Greece to the present. From Hippocrates and Plato to Sydenham, Kabanis, Pinel, and Eskierol, the authors trace the evolution of understanding of mental disorders, emphasizing the shift in emphasis from etiological theories to more descriptive and categorical models. The authors describe the current state of the DSM and ICD classification systems, which play a dominant role in psychiatric science and subsequent social support and welfare for people suffering from mental disorders. Changes that have occurred in these systems and their impact on psychiatric practice and research are discussed. Considerable emphasis is placed on the history of the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which becomes a symbolic indicator of the complexities and challenges associated with the modern classification of mental illness. The authors consider the phenomenological method as a tool for a deeper understanding of PTSD, especially in the context of the constant psychotraumatic factors of war, the consequences of which generate new challenges for Ukrainian psychiatric practice. The authors present a case study using the phenomenological approach to diagnose PTSD, which demonstrates the need for a detailed analysis of patients' internal experience for accurate diagnosis and effective treatment. C o n c l u s i o n s. The conclusions emphasize the importance of integrating philosophical methods into the diagnosis and analysis of mental illness in clinical practice. The authors call for the development of interdisciplinary research involving both philosophers and mental health professionals to develop more detailed and person-centered approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. (shrink)

Even though mathematics and physics have been related for centuries and this relation appears to be unproblematic, there are many questions still open: Is mathematics really necessary for physics, or could physics exist without mathematics? Should we think physically and then add the mathematics apt to formalise our physical intuition, or should we think mathematically and then interpret physically the obtained results? Do we get mathematical objects by abstraction from real objects, or vice versa? Why is mathematics effective into physics? (...) These are all relevant questions, whose answers are necessary to fully understand the status of physics, particularly of contemporary physics. The aim of this book is to offer plausible answers to such questions through both historical analyses of relevant cases, and philosophical analyses of the relations between mathematics and physics. (shrink)

The complexity of these terms and their relationship with truth and truthfulness are put on display by the contributors to this volume.

For those with advanced life-limiting illness, the optimization of quality of life and avoidance of nonbeneficial treatments at the end of life are key ethical concerns. This article evaluates the efficacy of an Interdisciplinary Ethics Panel (IEP) approach to decision making at the end of life for unbefriended nursing home residents who lack decisional capacity and have advanced life-limiting illness, through the use of a ninestep algorithm developed for this purpose. We reviewed the outcomes of three quality-of-care phased initiatives (...) conducted in our facility, a large public nursing home in New York City, between June 2016 and February 2020, which indicated that this IEP approach promoted advance-care planning, as palliative measures were endorsed to optimize quality of life for this vulnerable population at the end of life. We also examined another quality-of-care initiative when this IEP approach was applied to end-of-life decision making for nursing home residents who had a surrogate during the COVID-19 pandemic. This application appeared to be beneficial in adding more residents to our Palliative Care Program while it improved rates of advance-care planning. When all of the above findings are considered, we believe this novel IEP approach and algorithm have the potential to be applied elsewhere after appropriate assessment. (shrink)

This book offers an interdisciplinary introduction to value theory. It reviews how researchers in four academic disciplines – psychology, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy – understand value and value change. It offers an introduction for researchers in these disciplines about how other disciplines define, theorize, and investigate value(s) to foster interdisciplinary communication. The book identifies and summarizes similarities and differences of value theory between the academic disciplines and highlights promising areas where each discipline can learn from the others.

This monograph introduces a meta-framework for conducting interdisciplinary research in the science of emotion, as well as a framework for a particular kind of theory of emotion. It can also be understood as a “cross-over” book that introduces neophytes to some of the current discourse and major challenges for an interdisciplinary approach to the science of emotion, especially from a philosophical perspective. It also engages experts from across the disciplines who are interested in conducting an interdisciplinary approach (...) to research and theorizing in the science of emotion, and introduces to them some of the contemporary debates in the philosophy of emotion. It does so by providing a taxonomy of theories of emotion which allows one to understand the contemporary interdisciplinary discourse in the science of emotion as a debate between four fundamental types of theories of emotion—realism, instrumentalism, eliminative-realism, and eliminativism—and which can be found or potentially found across the disciplines, and by arguing for foundational principles which can unify, without consilience, these four kinds of approaches as perspectives about the same object of inquiry. It also covers a wide range of concerns, including the problem of skepticism in the science of emotion, the problem of the underdetermination of a theory by the evidence, the question of the place of ordinary intuitions and ordinary language for a science of emotion, the mind-body problem, the hard problem of consciousness, the meta-hard problem of consciousness, the problem of intentionality, questions about the rationality of emotions and whether emotions can be a vehicle for knowledge, and the debate between cognitive and noncognitive theories in the philosophy of emotion. (shrink)

The social sciences, and particularly economics, play an important role in business. This article reviews the account of the interdisciplinary conversation between Catholic Social Teaching and the social sciences (especially economics) over the last century, and describes Benedict XVI’s development of this account in Caritas in Veritate . Over time the popes recognized that the technical approach of economics was a barrier to fruitful collaboration between economics and Catholic Social Teaching, both because the economic approach is reductionist, and because (...) modern social science is skeptical of comprehensive accounts of human nature. Through an appeal to charity in truth, one can deduce from Caritas in Veritate that economists, along with business and management theorists, need to take seriously the project of reflecting on and promoting true human goods in society. To love the person one must reflect on what is truly good for the person; to discover the true good of the person, one must love the person. (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)

Interdisciplinary research has been a topic of interest for many decades – perhaps longer. And yet, even now, there is still much we do not understand about how to stimulate collaboration across research disciplines. This article reports the results of a systematic review of the academic literature on strategies for promoting new interdisciplinary research collaborations, which returned only a very small number of empirical studies. A broader review of the scholarship in this area reveals a literature that is (...) highly theorized, but not adequately operationalized for empirical investigation of how to enable new collaborations. A shift toward a better formulation of research questions, with a view toward generating more empirical data on practical strategies for connecting researchers and encouraging them to work together across disciplinary boundaries, will be required to further the research agenda on interdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

It is suggested that if Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) is to fulfil its potential as an approach to cultural and historical science in general, then an interdisciplinary concept of activity is needed. Such a concept of activity would provide a common foundation for all the human sciences, underpinning concepts of, for example, state and social movement equally as, for example, learning and personality. For this is needed a clear conception of the ‘unit of analysis’ of activity, i.e., of what (...) constitutes ‘ an activity’, and a clear distinction between the unit of analysis and the substance , i.e., ultimate reality underlying all the human sciences: artifact-mediated joint activity. It is claimed that the concept of ‘project collaboration’ – the interaction between two or more persons in pursuit of a common objective – forms such a unit of activity, the single ‘molecule’ in terms of which both sociological and psychological phenomena can be theorised. It is suggested that such a clarification of the notion of activity allows us to see how individual actions and societal activities mutually constitute one another and are each construed in the light of the other. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary understanding requires integration of insights from different perspectives, yet it appears questionable whether disciplinary experts are well prepared for this. Indeed, psychological and cognitive scientific studies suggest that expertise can be disadvantageous because experts are often more biased than non-experts, for example, or fixed on certain approaches, and less flexible in novel situations or situations outside their domain of expertise. An explanation is that experts’ conscious and unconscious cognition and behavior depend upon their learning and acquisition of a (...) set of mental representations or knowledge structures. Compared to beginners in a field, experts have assembled a much larger set of representations that are also more complex, facilitating fast and adequate perception in responding to relevant situations. This article argues how metacognition should be employed in order to mitigate such disadvantages of expertise: By metacognitively monitoring and regulating their own cognitive processes and representations, experts can prepare themselves for interdisciplinary understanding. Interdisciplinary collaboration is further facilitated by team metacognition about the team, tasks, process, goals, and representations developed in the team. Drawing attention to the need for metacognition, the article explains how philosophical reflection on the assumptions involved in different disciplinary perspectives must also be considered in a process complementary to metacognition and not completely overlapping with it. (Disciplinary assumptions are here understood as determining and constraining how the complex mental representations of experts are chunked and structured.) The article concludes with a brief reflection on how the process of Reflective Equilibrium should be added to the processes of metacognition and philosophical reflection in order for experts involved in interdisciplinary collaboration to reach a justifiable and coherent form of interdisciplinary integration. An Appendix of “Prompts or Questions for Metacognition” that can elicit metacognitive knowledge, monitoring, or regulation in individuals or teams is included at the end of the article. (shrink)

We discuss how a novel can illuminate the moral dimensions of science and healthcare. The critical distance afforded by the novel pro.