“NATURAL KINDS” AND COMMUNICATIVE DIMENSIONS OF DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENTIATION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5840/eps20256212Keywords:
natural kinds, taxonomies, scientific classifications, science as a communicative system, scientific disciplinesAbstract
The article raises the problem of disciplinary differentiation of modern sciences and the question of whether their taxonomic and structural diversity corresponds to the actual differentiation of levels and kinds of nature that exist objectively in their autonomy? Or do the disciplines themselves constitute their own domains in the continuous and integral body of nature? In search of a solution to this dilemma, it is proposed to consider science as a communicative system, where each statement (publication) is defined in subject, social and temporal dimensions. These communicative dimensions are proposed to be considered as principles of differentiation of scientific disciplines with the function of “breaker of natural continuity”. Accordingly, I distinguish (1) fundamental sciences oriented subject-wise; (2) disciplines oriented to external (social) requests from communicative systems adjacent to science, as well as disciplines crystallizing in response to epochal challenges of the time. It is substantiated that this kind of cognitive isolation of scientific domains is accompanied by an opposite – integrative – tendency. The latter is associated, firstly, with the socio-structural and socio-normative requirements of the scientific and educational functions of science, enshrined in the social structures of faculties and departments. Secondly, it is derived from the continuous, holistic and hierarchically organized external world of nature, which does not allow for sharp breaks and interruptions.
References
Касавин И.Т. Эпистемология добродетелей: к сорокалетию поворота в аналитической философии // Эпистемология и философия науки. 2019. Т. 56. № 3. С. 6–19.
Шиповалова Л.В. Объективность как научная ценность и добродетель: условия возможности // Альманах «Дискурсы этики». 2014–2015. Т. 4 (9) 2014 / 1 (10) 2015. С. 95–110.
Campbell, D.T. “Ethnocentrism of Disciplines and the Fishscale Model of Omniscience”, in: M. Sherif & C.W. Sherif (eds.) Interdisciplinary Relationships in the Social Sciences, Chicago: Aldine, 1969, pp. 328–348.
Clark, A., Chalmers, D.J. “The Extended Mind”, Analysis, 1998, no. 58 (1), pp. 7–19.
Dolby, R.G.A. “The Transmission of Two New Scientific Disciplines from Europe to North America in the late Nineteenth Century”, Annals of Science, 1977, vol. 34, pp. 287–310.
Dupré, J. “Natural Kinds”, in: Newton-Smith, W. (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, pp. 311–319.
Epstein, B.A. “Framework of Social Ontology”, Philosophy of Social Sciences, 2016, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 147–167.
Giere, R.N. Scientific Perspectivism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Harris, R. The Semantics of Science. London, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2005.
Kasavin, I.T. “Epistemologiya dobrodetelej: k sorokaletiyu povorota v analiticheskoj filosofii” [Epistemology of Virtues: On the Fortieth Anniversary of the Turn in Analytical Philosophy], Epistemology & Philosophy of Science, 2019, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 6–19. (In Russian)
Knorr, K.D. “The Nature of Scientific Consensus and the Case of the Social Sciences”, International Journal of Sociology, 1978, vol. 8, no. 1/2, pp. 113–145.
Ruphy, S. “Are Stellar Kinds Natural Kinds? A Challenging Newcomer in the Monism/Pluralism and Realism/Antirealism Debates”, Philosophy of Science, 2010, vol. 77 (5), pp. 1109–1120.
Shipovalova, L.V. “Ob”ektivnost’ kak nauchnaya cennost’ i dobrodetel’: usloviya vozmozhnosti” [Objectivity as a Scientific Value and Virtue: Conditions of Possibility], Diskursy etiki, 2014, no. 4 (9), 2015, no. 1 (10), pp. 95–110. (In Russian)
Stichweh, R. Wissenschaftler. Der Mensch des 20. Jahrhunderts. Essen: Magnus Verlag, 2004, pp. 163–196.
Stichweh, R. „Disziplinarität, Interdisziplinarität, Transdisziplinarität. Strukturwandel des Wissenschaftssystems (1750–2020)“, in: Schmohl, T., Philipp, Th., Schabert, J. Handbuch Transdisziplinäre Didaktik. Bielefeld, 2021, S. 433–448.
