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This article uses the philosophy of critical realism to overcome the problem that most contemporary guidelines forinterdisciplinaryresearch fail to provide would-be researchers with adequate advice. It arrives at five important steps in theinterdisciplinaryresearch process: an initial planning phase; a disciplinary phase; a teamwork phase characterized by cross-disciplinary understanding; and a transdisciplinary, creative phase that involves epistemic emergence, and that results in the integration of knowledge. The fifth phase is the result of the (...) integrative fourth phase; it provides a holisticinterdisciplinary understanding of the involved structures and mechanisms of the issue at hand. To make interventions derived frominterdisciplinaryresearch useful, they must be disseminated in such way as to include a return to reality, that is, there must be a movement from epistemology to ontology. (shrink)

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Under the influence of a narrowly understood scientific legal positivism, jurisprudence has neglectedinterdisciplinaryresearch for a long time. However, today there are strong practical and scholarly reasons for aninterdisciplinary analysis of law triggered, e.g., by bioethics, life sciences, economics and ecology. And yet the very subject matter of law shimmering between normativity and descriptivity seems to resist all attempts to be taken in by common enterprises across disciplines: How then is the necessaryinterdisciplinary (...) class='Hi'>research in jurisprudence possible without abandoning its core, legal dogmatics? This question was discussed at a special working group during the IVR-World Congress in Cracow. The papers have been polished and updated for publication. The volume falls into two parts: One is directed at the basic conceptual and institutional questions ofinterdisciplinaryresearch in jurisprudence; the other one concentrates on one fruitful and highly important field ofinterdisciplinaryresearch, constitutionalism. The volume brings together a truly international and in itselfinterdisciplinary group of experts in the field, from Finland to Brazil and from Spain to Greece. (shrink)

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Interdisciplinaryresearch 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 acrossresearch disciplines. This article reports the results of a systematic review of the academic literature on strategies for promoting newinterdisciplinaryresearch 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 ofresearch 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 theresearch agenda oninterdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

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Interdisciplinaryresearch is frequently viewed as an important component of theresearch landscape through its innovative ability to integrate knowledge from different areas. However, support forinterdisciplinaryresearch is often strategic rhetoric, with policy-makers and universities frequently adopting practices that favour disciplinary performance. We argue that disciplinary andinterdisciplinaryresearch are complementary, and we develop a simple framework that demonstrates this for a semi-permanentinterdisciplinaryresearch field. We argue that the presence (...) of communicating infrastructures fosters communication and integration between disciplines and theinterdisciplinaryresearch field to generate innovative knowledge. We apply this to the experience of economic history in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century to demonstrate the life cycle of a semi-permanentinterdisciplinaryresearch field. (shrink)

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The objective of analysis is new opportunities in the study of self-awareness, which became possible through the use of aninterdisciplinary approach. This approach allows to solve number of conceptual and methodological problems in psychology and psychiatry. The general development of psychiatry in the 20th and early 21st centuries was to improve diagnosis and therapy based on objectively measured indicators. There is a very superficial development of the phenomenology of self-awareness disorders as a result. Theinterdisciplinary point of (...) view may be the beginning of new theoretical studies of self-awareness in philosophy, as well as provoke pragmatic conclusions for psychological and psychiatric science. Authors claim that the delimitation of the methodological tools of various sciences in the study of self-awareness is unnecessary in principle.interdisciplinary view should be formed by philosophers. The phenomenology of Karl Jaspers and his concept of self-awareness in this sense are heuristically attractive. The authors propose a working model of self-awareness, based on the phenomenological approach of Jaspers, on the ideas of his followers, and also abandoning the disciplinary view of the subject. In this model self-awareness is described through its specific functions. That may be pragmatically useful for mental health professionals: psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists and it may be interesting to philosophers using phenomenological analysis. (shrink)

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In science policy, it is generally acknowledged that science-based problem-solving requiresinterdisciplinaryresearch. For example, policy makers invest in funding programs such as Horizon 2020 that aim to stimulateinterdisciplinaryresearch. Yet the epistemological processes that lead to effectiveinterdisciplinaryresearch are poorly understood. This article aims at an epistemology forinterdisciplinaryresearch, in particular, IDR for solving ‘real-world’ problems. Focus is on the question why researchers experience cognitive and epistemic difficulties in (...) conducting IDR. Based on a study of educational literature it is concluded that higher-education is missing clear ideas on the epistemology of IDR, and as a consequence, on how to teach it. It is conjectured that the lack of philosophical interest in the epistemology of IDR is due to a philosophical paradigm of science, which prevents recognizing severe epistemological challenges of IDR, both in the philosophy of science as well as in science education andresearch. The proposed alternative philosophical paradigm entails alternative philosophical presuppositions regarding aspects such as the aim of science, the character of knowledge, the epistemic and pragmatic criteria for accepting knowledge, and the role of technological instruments. This alternative philosophical paradigm assume the production of knowledge for epistemic functions as the aim of science, and interprets ‘knowledge’ as epistemic tools that must allow for conducting epistemic tasks by epistemic agents, rather than interpreting knowledge as representations that objectively represent aspects of the world independent of the way in which it was constructed. The engineering paradigm of science involves that knowledge is indelibly shaped by how it is constructed. Additionally, the way in which scientific disciplines construct knowledge is guided by the specificities of the discipline, which can be analyzed in terms of disciplinary perspectives. This implies that knowledge and the epistemic uses of knowledge cannot be understood without at least some understanding of how the knowledge is constructed. Accordingly, scientific researchers need so-called metacognitive scaffolds to assist in analyzing and reconstructing how ‘knowledge’ is constructed and how different disciplines do this differently. In an engineering paradigm of science, these metacognitive scaffolds can also be interpreted as epistemic tools, but in this case as tools that guide, enable and constrain analyzing and articulating how knowledge is produced. Ininterdisciplinaryresearch, metacognitive scaffolds assistinterdisciplinary communication aiming to analyze and articulate how the discipline constructs knowledge. (shrink)

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The concept of imagination is notoriously ambiguous. Thus one must be cautious not to use ‘imagination’ as a placeholder for diverse phenomena and processes that perhaps have not much more in common than that they are difficult to assign to some other, better defined domain, such as perception, conceptual thought, or artistic production. However, this challenge also comes with great opportunities: the fecundity and openness of ‘imagination’ appeal to researchers from different disciplines with different approaches and questions, and it draws (...) together fields of enquiry that are initially considered far apart. Hence, arguably, the field of imagination is particularly poised forinterdisciplinary enquiry. In the section on Imagination inInterdisciplinaryResearch, I will talk about some of the issues that have already entered that field ofinterdisciplinary inquiry. (shrink)

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Whyinterdisciplinaryresearch in AI is so important, according to Jurassic Park. -/- “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” -/- I think this quote resonates with us now more than ever, especially in the world of technological development. The writers of Jurassic Park were years ahead of their time with this powerful quote. -/- As we build new technology, and we push on to see what (...) can actually be achieved there is an undertone of sales to whatever we build. The end product must be sold somewhere and to someone. This can derail any good intentions, just as building a resort full of dinosaurs was sold as a fun attraction, we see later in the film that it became a resort of terror. -/- In the field of AI we are certainly late to the party with ethics and regulation. Indeed, even existing modelling protocols have been, in many cases, circumvented or potentially ignored. This has led to a widening of the gap in theinterdisciplinary field of AI. This is compounded by pop culture representations of AI and the Ethicist’s potential lack of knowledge surrounding technical progression in the field of AI. There are now seemingly two separate branches that ought to be in sync. The first branch is a group of Philosophers led by the Author of Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom, who believe that there is a singularity where AI takes over the world and starts to kill off humans. The second branch is the Technical Cohort who are led by companies such as Google and Deepmind. The remit of these developers is to see what can be developed and produced. Ultimately a separate sales team will determine what products can be sold. -/- We have seen multiple failures of AI due to lack ofinterdisciplinary discourse. Some cases include misallocated or cut off financial support and healthcare. This indicates the prevalence of issues that can grow and become ever more complex. -/- So, we have to ask ourselves two questions: One, do the Philosophers have a point? Two, does that point refer to humans programming AI in such a way that the destruction of the human race is its optimal aim in order to create a better future world? -/- Is the development of AI that different to an island of genetically engineered Dinosaurs? -/- The only solution, in my view, isinterdisciplinary discourse. (shrink)

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In this short paper, I highlight two potential hurdles for teams of researchers conductinginterdisciplinaryresearch: “the translation problem” and the “academic isolation” problem. Along the way, I’ll note some ways those hurdles were overcome within the context of the “Science of Intellectual Humility” project.

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One way to articulate the promise ofinterdisciplinaryresearch is in terms of the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Disciplinaryresearch yields deep knowledge of a circumscribed range of issues, but remains ignorant of those issues that stretch outside its purview. Because complex problems such as climate change do not respect disciplinary boundaries, disciplinaryresearch responses to such problems are limited and partial.Interdisciplinaryresearch responses, by contrast, integrate disciplinary perspectives by combining knowledge about (...) different issues and as a result reduce ignorance about more aspects of the problem. In this paper, we develop this idea and argue that whileinterdisciplinaryresearch can help remediate damaging ignorance about complex problems, it also creates conditions in which other damaging forms of ignorance can arise. We illustrate this point in detail with three case studies before discussing three implications of our analysis for identifying and managing deleterio... (shrink)

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A SECOND COMPLETELY REVISED EDITION OF THIS TEXTBOOK ONINTERDISCIPLINARYRESEARCH WAS PUBLISHED WITH AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS IN 2022. Check out that version here and a PDF of its ToC and Introduction, as this first edition (AUP 2016) is no longer available. [This book (128 pp.) serves as an introduction and manual to guide students through theinterdisciplinaryresearch process. We are becoming increasingly aware that, as a result of technological developments and globalisation, problems are becoming (...) so complex that they can only be solved through cooperation between multiple disciplines. Healthcare, climate change, food security, energy, financial markets and quality of life are just a few examples of issues that require scientists and academics to work in a crossdisciplinary way. As a result of these developments, aninterdisciplinary approach is becoming increasingly popular in higher education and must be considered an absolute necessity. Young academics are being called on to step beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines in order to contribute to addressing fundamental problems and solving challenges facing society. There is a need for people who are not afraid to ask critical questions, who can work together well and can look beyond the boundaries of their own field. This means students need to learn more about how they can integrate and apply knowledge, methods and skills from different fields.Interdisciplinaryresearch projects and practical training courses offer students more than one perspective on the same subject. Comparing and contrasting, connecting, adding and adapting concepts, theories and methodologies from different disciplines ultimately results in new insights and better answers to complex problems.]. (shrink)

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Interdisciplinarity has seemingly become a paradigm for modern and meaningfulresearch. Clearly, theinterdisciplinary modus of deliberation enables to unfold relevant but quite different disciplinary perspectives to the reflection of broader scientific questions or societal problems. However, whether the comprehensive results ofinterdisciplinary reflection prove to be valid or to be acceptable in trans-disciplinary terms depends upon certain preconditions, which have to be fulfilled for securing scientific quality and social trust in advisory contexts. The present book is (...) written by experts and practitioners ofinterdisciplinaryresearch and policy advice. It analyses topical and methodological approaches towards interdisciplinarity, starting with the current role of scientificresearch in society. The volume continues with contributions to the issues of knowledge and acting and to trans-disciplinary deliberation. The final conclusions address the scientific system as substantial actor itself as well as the relevantresearch and education politics. (shrink)

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The star-nosed mole is aptly named. Its distinctive snout consists of 22 tendrils ringing a pair of nostrils and, from some angles, the entire setup resembles a misshapen star. The tendrils are fleshy and look a bit like fingers, and, like fingers, they have a certain dexterity. But why? Why does the mole have such a singular appendage as opposed to something more ordinary? What is the function or purpose of this bizarre structure? From the dedicated work of Ken Catania, (...) of Vanderbilt University, and colleagues, it appears that the appendage facilitates rapid handling of small prey items, making it advantageous for an organism whose diet consists of tiny invertebrates. We might therefore hazard that this feature arose evolutionarily because it conferred this benefit. But the matter is difficult to resolve, because current utility does not permit a straightforward inference of a reason for existence. -/- A correction has been published: BioScience, Volume 72, Issue 7, July 2022, Page 708. (shrink)

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In science policy, it is generally acknowledged that science-based problem-solving requiresinterdisciplinaryresearch. For example, policy makers invest in funding programs such as Horizon 2020 that aim to stimulateinterdisciplinaryresearch. Yet the epistemological processes that lead to effectiveinterdisciplinaryresearch are poorly understood. This article aims at an epistemology forinterdisciplinaryresearch, in particular, IDR for solving ‘real-world’ problems. Focus is on the question why researchers experience cognitive and epistemic difficulties in (...) conducting IDR. Based on a study of educational literature it is concluded that higher-education is missing clear ideas on the epistemology of IDR, and as a consequence, on how to teach it. It is conjectured that the lack of philosophical interest in the epistemology of IDR is due to a philosophical paradigm of science, which prevents recognizing severe epistemological challenges of IDR, both in the philosophy of science as well as in science education andresearch. The proposed alternative philosophical paradigm entails alternative philosophical presuppositions regarding aspects such as the aim of science, the character of knowledge, the epistemic and pragmatic criteria for accepting knowledge, and the role of technological instruments. This alternative philosophical paradigm assume the production of knowledge for epistemic functions as the aim of science, and interprets ‘knowledge’ as epistemic tools that must allow for conducting epistemic tasks by epistemic agents, rather than interpreting knowledge as representations that objectively represent aspects of the world independent of the way in which it was constructed. The engineering paradigm of science involves that knowledge is indelibly shaped by how it is constructed. Additionally, the way in which scientific disciplines construct knowledge is guided by the specificities of the discipline, which can be analyzed in terms of disciplinary perspectives. This implies that knowledge and the epistemic uses of knowledge cannot be understood without at least some understanding of how the knowledge is constructed. Accordingly, scientific researchers need so-called metacognitive scaffolds to assist in analyzing and reconstructing how ‘knowledge’ is constructed and how different disciplines do this differently. In an engineering paradigm of science, these metacognitive scaffolds can also be interpreted as epistemic tools, but in this case as tools that guide, enable and constrain analyzing and articulating how knowledge is produced. Ininterdisciplinaryresearch, metacognitive scaffolds assistinterdisciplinary communication aiming to analyze and articulate how the discipline constructs knowledge. (shrink)

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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 ininterdisciplinaryresearch. 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 aninterdisciplinary 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 ininterdisciplinary inquiry. All these virtues are key constituents of the intellectual character ofinterdisciplinary researchers. (shrink)

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With the advancement of scientific collaboration in the 20th century, researchers started collaborating in manyresearch areas. Researchers and scientists no longer remain solitary individuals; instead, they collaborate to advance fundamental understandings ofresearch topics. Various bibliometric methods are used to quantify the scientific collaboration among researchers and scientific communities. Among these different bibliometric methods, the co-authorship method is one of the most verifiable methods to quantify or analyze scientific collaboration. In thisresearch, the initial study has (...) been conducted to analyzeinterdisciplinaryresearch activities in the computer science domain. The ACM has classified the computer science fields. We selected the Journal of Universal Computer Science for experimentation purposes. The J.UCS is the first Journal of Computer Science that addresses a complete ACM topic. Using J.UCS data, the co-authorship network of the researcher up to the 2nd level was developed. Then the co-authorship network was analyzed to findinterdisciplinary among scientific communities. Additionally, the results are also visualized to comprehend theinterdisciplinary among the ACM categories. A whole working web-based system has been developed, and a forced directed graph technique has been implemented to understand IDR trends in ACM categories. Finally, the IDR values between the categories are computed to quantify the collaboration trends among the ACM categories. It was found that “Artificial Intelligence” and “Information Storage and Retrieval”, “Natural Language Processing and Information Storage and Retrieval”, and “Human-Computer Interface” and “Database Applications” were found the most overlapping areas by acquiring an IDR score of 0.879, 0.711, and 0.663, respectively. (shrink)

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The article addresses the necessity of increasing the role of mathematics in the psychological intervention in problem gambling, including cognitive therapies. It also calls forinterdisciplinaryresearch with the direct contribution of mathematics. The current contributions and limitations of the role of mathematics are analysed with an eye toward the professional profiles of the researchers. An enhanced collaboration between these two disciplines is suggested and predicted.

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In this paper, we argue that to reverse the excess of specialization and to create room forinterdisciplinary cross-fertilization, it seems necessary to move the existing epistemic plurality towards a collaborative process of social cognition. In order to achieve this, we propose to extend the psychological notion of joint attention towards what we call joint intellectual attention. This special kind of joint attention involves a shared awareness of sharing the cognitive process of knowledge. We claim that if an (...) class='Hi'>interdisciplinaryresearch team aspires to work collaboratively, it is essential for the researchers to jointly focus their attention towards a common object and establish a second-person relatedness among them. We consider some of the intellectual dispositions or virtues fostered by joint intellectual attention that facilitateinterdisciplinary exchange, and explore some of the practical consequences of this cognitive approach to interdisciplinarity for education andresearch. (shrink)

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Context: The problems that are most in need ofinterdisciplinary collaboration are “wicked problems,” such as food crises, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development, with many relevant aspects, disagreement on what the problem is, and contradicting solutions. Such complex problems both require and challenge interdisciplinarity. Problem: The conventional methods ofinterdisciplinaryresearch fall short in the case of wicked problems because they remain first-order science. Our aim is to present workable methods andresearch designs for doing (...) second-order science in domains where there are many different scientific knowledges on any complex problem. Method: We synthesize and elaborate a framework for second-order science ininterdisciplinaryresearch based on a number of earlier publications, experiences from largeinterdisciplinaryresearch projects, and a perspectivist theory of science. Results: The second-order polyocular framework forinterdisciplinaryresearch is characterized by five principles. Second-order science ofinterdisciplinaryresearch must: 1. draw on the observations of first-order perspectives, 2. address a shared dynamical object, 3. establish a shared problem, 4. rely on first-order perspectives to see themselves as perspectives, and 5. be based on other rules than first-orderresearch. Implications: The perspectivist insights of second-order science provide a new way of understandinginterdisciplinaryresearch that leads to new polyocular methods andresearch designs. It also points to more reflexive ways of dealing with scientific expertise in democratic processes. The main challenge is that this is a paradigmatic shift, which demands that the involved disciplines, at least to some degree, subscribe to a perspectivist view. Constructivist content: Our perspectivist approach to science is based on the second-order cybernetics and systems theories of von Foerster, Maruyama, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, coupled with embodied theories of cognition and semiotics as a general theory of meaning from von Uexküll and Peirce. (shrink)

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This article identifies the benefits of adopting a critical realist ontology to researching esports in the social sciences. The article outlines some of the challenges in researching esports, paying particular attention to the emerging specialisms and sub-disciplines. The article suggests that different schools of thought have different ontological and epistemological commitments, resulting in a complex and somewhat fragmented or contested set of definitions andresearch directives. The article considers how the philosophy of science can enable researchers to gain a (...) more complete understanding and appreciation of esports. More specifically, the article outlines some of the central philosophical commitments of critical realism and considers their benefits for researching the multi-layered and multifaceted nature of esports. What results is a stratified ontology of esports, in which various biological, psychological and sociological factors interact to produce emergent outcomes at micro, meso and macro levels of causality. Such aninterdisciplinary approach resists previous attempts to reduce esportsresearch to singular (and competing) epistemological claims. Instead, this article invites sports researchers to investigate the complex ways natural and social factors interact to generate and change esports structures, institutions and agential behaviours. (shrink)

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Enhancing Communication & Collaboration inInterdisciplinaryResearch, edited by Michael O'Rourke, Stephen Crowley, Sanford D. Eigenbrode, and J. D. Wulfhorst, is a volume of previously unpublished, state-of-the-art chapters oninterdisciplinary communication and collaboration written by leading figures and promising junior scholars in the world ofinterdisciplinaryresearch, education, and administration. Designed to inform both teaching andresearch, this innovative book covers the spectrum ofinterdisciplinary activity, offering a timely emphasis on collaborativeinterdisciplinary (...) work. The book’s four main parts focus on theoretical perspectives, case studies, communication tools, and institutional perspectives, while a final chapter ties together the various strands that emerge in the book and defines trend-lines and futureresearch questions for those conducting work oninterdisciplinary communication. (shrink)

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While interdisciplinarity is not a new concept, the political and discursive mobilisation of interdisciplinarity is. Since the 1990s, this movement has intensified, and this has affected central funding bodies so that interdisciplinarity is now a de facto requirement in successful grant application. As a result, the literature is ripe with definitions, taxonomies, discussions and other attempts to grasp and define the concept of interdisciplinarity. In this paper, we explore how strategic demands for interdisciplinarity meet, interact with and change local (...) class='Hi'>research practices and results of higher education andresearch. Our aim is to question and trace the consequences of applying the slippery and difficult term interdisciplinarity inresearch. The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Danishinterdisciplinaryresearch programme, where we observed and analysed practices of writing, publishing, collaboration and educational development in five differentresearch projects. We show how the call for interdisciplinarity was mobilised in a way that rendered the incentives and motives behind the programme unclear. Furthermore, we argue that the absence of clear definitions and assessment criteria produced a dominant, all-inclusive, but vague, configuration of interdisciplinarity that affected theresearch outcome, and ultimately, promoted and reproduced the existing monodisciplinaryresearch and power structures. (shrink)

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[This book replaces the - discontinued - first edition of 'Introduction toInterdisciplinaryResearch' (2016, by Menken & Keestra)] We are increasingly realizing that, as a result of technological developments and globalization, problems are becoming so complex that they can only be solved through cooperation between scientists from different disciplines. Healthcare, climate change, food security, globalization, and quality of life are just a few examples of issues that require scientists to work across disciplines. In many cases, extra-academic stakeholders (...) must be involved in order to arrive at robust solutions. Young academics are being called on to step beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines to contribute to addressing fundamental, often societal problems. As a result of these developments, aninterdisciplinary approach is becoming increasingly necessary and popular in higher education. Students need to learn more about how to integrate and apply knowledge, methods, and skills from different fields. The crucial step of integration withininterdisciplinaryresearch is treated extensively in this textbook, which contains a comprehensive ‘interdisciplinary integration toolbox’. In addition, students must learn to collaborate in teams. An Introduction toInterdisciplinaryResearch serves as a systematic manual to guide students through thisinterdisciplinaryresearch process. (shrink)

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It is widely acknowledged that interdisciplinarity (ID) is very diverse. Our contribution is a demonstration that considerable diversity exists also on the level of understandings of ID that researchers working in the same ID field express. Specifically, we analyse qualitatively, building on the method of culture contrast, six interviews with researchers working in computational linguistics and language technology in Estonia. We identify six understandings of ID expressed by the interviewees: centred on an ID method; a disciplinary method in an ID (...) field; an ID way of seeing and thinking; ID education; ID interests; one’s field as naturally ID. We show how understandings of ID are significant for analysingresearch practice, since they are involved in how researchers form a positive picture of themselves and their colleagues. We also show how an awareness of different understandings of ID is useful for discussing the significance of integration in ID. (shrink)

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This is a “bottom-up” paper in the sense that it draws lessons in defining disciplinary categories under study from a series of empirical studies of interdisciplinarity. In particular, we are in the process of studying the interchange ofresearch-based knowledge between Cognitive Science and EducationalResearch. This has posed a set of design decisions that we believe warrant consideration as others study cross-disciplinaryresearch processes.

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In our response, we review and address the comments on our target article made in the 25 commentaries. First, we review and discuss the commentaries that recognized the value of our approach, accepted the main premises and conclusions of our target article, and suggested further avenues forresearch on attractiveness-related biases. We then respond to commentators who either misinterpreted some parts of our target article or made statements with which we disagree. These commentaries provided us with an opportunity to (...) clarify some aspects of our target article, for example, the fact that we address both the functional significance of attractiveness-related biases and their underlying mechanisms. We provide a rebuttal to two commentaries, in which we are accused of poor scholarship. We conclude our response by addressing two commentaries that discussed the societal implications of the occurrence of attractiveness-related biases in the labor market by briefly discussing the relationship between scientificresearch and social policy. (shrink)

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Affective science conductsinterdisciplinaryresearch into the emotions and other affective phenomena. Currently, suchresearch is hampered by the lack of common definitions of terms used to describe, categorise and report both individual emotional experiences and the results of scientific investigations of such experiences. High quality ontologies provide formal definitions for types of entities in reality and for the relationships between such entities, definitions which can be used to disambiguate and unify data across different disciplines. Heretofore, there (...) has been little effort directed towards such formal representation for affective phenomena, in part because of widespread debates within the affective science community on matters of definition and categorization. To address this requirement, we are developing an Emotion Ontology (EMO). (shrink)

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This article identifies the benefits of adopting a critical realist ontology to researching esports in the social sciences. The article outlines some of the challenges in researching esports, paying particular attention to the emerging specialisms and sub-disciplines. The article suggests that different schools of thought have different ontological and epistemological commitments, resulting in a complex and somewhat fragmented or contested set of definitions andresearch directives. The article considers how the philosophy of science can enable researchers to gain a (...) more complete understanding and appreciation of esports. More specifically, the article outlines some of the central philosophical commitments of critical realism and considers their benefits for researching the multi-layered and multifaceted nature of esports. What results is a stratified ontology of esports, in which various biological, psychological and sociological factors interact to produce emergent outcomes at micro, meso and macro levels of causality. Such aninterdisciplinary approach resists previous attempts to reduce esportsresearch to singular (and competing) epistemological claims. Instead, this article invites sports researchers to investigate the complex ways natural and social factors interact to generate and change esports structures, institutions and agential behaviours. (shrink)

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Through a qualitative approach, this study identified a specific subgroup of intellectual virtues necessary for developinginterdisciplinaryresearch. Cognitive science was initially conceived as a new discipline emerging from various fields, including philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and anthropology. Thus, a frequent debate among cognitive scientists is whether the initial multidisciplinary program successfully developed into a matureinterdisciplinary field or evolved into a set of independent sciences of cognition. For several years, interdisciplinarity has been an aspiration for (...) the academy, although the difficulties limiting the success ofinterdisciplinary collaborations have begun to erode that initial optimism. Our analysis suggests that the problems hindering the success of interdisciplinarity can be overcome by fostering certain intellectual character strengths in scholars. The Consensual QualitativeResearch method was used to analyze nine semi-structured interviews involving researchers with a long personal trajectory ofinterdisciplinaryresearch between the sciences and the humanities. Three virtue domains emerged from the interviews’ analysis: (i) intellectual virtues, (ii) social virtues, and (iii) interpersonal intellectual virtues. The virtues of the third domain intersect with intellectual and social ones. They are intellectual because they pursue epistemic goods. But, unlike other intellectual virtues, they only develop in interpersonal settings, so they can also be considered to have a social component. Interpersonal intellectual virtues can be thus defined as intellectual character traits that facilitate the acquisition of knowledge (intellectual motivation) with and through other people in a reciprocal way (social environment). These virtues are essential for developing any successful collective epistemic enterprise,interdisciplinaryresearch being a privileged context where these qualities manifest themselves in a relevant way. (shrink)

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Academicresearch is increasingly centering oninterdisciplinary work. Stronginterdisciplinaryresearch (SIR), involving researchers from very different fields, such as scientists and humanists, is often encouraged, if not required, by funding agencies. I argue that two intellectual virtues, open-mindedness and intellectual humility, are crucial for overcoming obstacles to SIR and achieving success. In part I, I provide a primer on intellectual virtue and the two virtues in question. In part II, I distinguish SIR from weak (...) class='Hi'>interdisciplinaryresearch (WIR), which involvesresearch teams from neighboring fields, such as physics and chemistry, and from disciplinaryresearch (DR), which involves researchers from the same discipline. I also outline what counts as success in SIR, and explain why it’s more challenging to attain than in WIR and DR. In part III, I explain how both intellectual virtues are essential for achieving success in SIR and for overcoming obstacles that can arise in its pursuit. (shrink)

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Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 119-138, April 2022. This article examines the development, impact and integration ofinterdisciplinary approaches in British Higher Education Institutions. It evaluates how the concept of interdisciplinarity has become popularised over time and embraced by disciplines such as archaeology. It then explores the extent to whichinterdisciplinary approaches have impactedresearch agendas, first, by evaluating theinterdisciplinaryresearch calls from 2019 for seven UK-basedresearch (...) councils and then, at a discipline level, using archaeology as an exemplar. Overall,interdisciplinaryresearch calls only accounted for, at best, 11.9% of a council’s budget. Interrogation of the funding requirements of four of the largest archaeological-research funders demonstrated that successful archaeology-themed grant applications are reliant on interdisciplinarity. The influence of interdisciplinarity on British University’sresearch and education agendas was examined through analysing the strategic plans of eight universities, followed by an analysis of the availability and potential benefits ofinterdisciplinary undergraduate andresearch programmes. This indicated thatinterdisciplinary approaches are interwoven into university’sresearch aspirations but displayed variation in relation to their educational goals, with only 20% of institutions offering specificinterdisciplinary degree programmes. Despite this, the skillset andresearch outputs produced as a result ofinterdisciplinary collaboration were found to be highly valued, thereby suggesting that interdisciplinarity will increasingly feature in theresearch and education strategies of British universities. (shrink)

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Emotionresearch that attends to the cultural dynamics of affective life remains underdeveloped. I outline an agenda for an understudied phenomenon that can orient emotion researchers to the situated, cultural practices of affective life: Neo-emotions. Neo-emotions, when situated within macro-level processes and cultural events, illustrate the constrained yet creative practices that social actors use to address the disconnect between one's emotional vocabulary and dynamic environment. As such, neo-emotions are analytically rich cultural practices that can be empirically explored through sociological, (...) anthropological, historical, and psychological inquiry. I discuss a range of neo-emotions, including doomscrolling, eco-grief, and Black joy, their social antecedents (digitalization, disasters/crises, and social movements) and methodological implications for aninterdisciplinary agenda. (shrink)

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The Laboratory forResearch on the Structure of Matter, University of Pennsylvania, was built in 1965 as part of the AdvancedResearch Projects Agency'sInterdisciplinary Laboratories program intended to fosterinterdisciplinaryresearch and training in materials science. The process that led to the construction of the four-story structure served as the focus of intense debates over the meaning and process ofinterdisciplinaryresearch in universities. The location of the building, its size, internal design, (...) and functionalities were all subject to heated negotiations among patrons, scientists, and university administrators, to find the proper place ofinterdisciplinary materials science on the University of Pennsylvania's campus. Building on the recent work on laboratory architecture, this paper argues that the negotiations and controversies over the LRSM building were concrete representations of the broader struggle over the appropriate place ofinterdisciplinaryresearch and training within a university. (shrink)

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Strong evidence shows that exposure and engagement with the natural world not only improve human wellbeing but can also help promote environmentally friendly behaviors. Human-nature relationships are at the heart of global agendas promoted by international organizations including the World Health Organization’s “One Health” and the United Nations “Ocean Decade.” These agendas demand collaborative multisectorinterdisciplinary efforts at local, national, and global levels. However, while global agendas highlight global goals for a sustainable world, developing science that directly addresses these (...) agendas from design through to delivery and outputs does not come without its challenges. In this article, we present the outcomes of international meetings between researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. We propose a model forinterdisciplinary work under such global agendas, particularly the interface between One Health and the UN Ocean Decade and identify three priorityresearch areas closely linked to each other: human-nature connection, conservation-human behavior, and implementation strategies. We also discuss a number of recommendations for moving forward. (shrink)

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In his analysis of “the essential tension between tradition and innovation” Thomas S. Kuhn focused on the apparent paradox that, on the one hand, normalresearch is a highly convergent activity based upon a settled consensus, but, on the other hand, the ultimate effect of this tradition-bound work has invariably been to change the tradition. Kuhn argued that, on the one hand, without the possibility of divergent thought, fundamental innovation would be precluded. On the other hand, without a strong (...) emphasis on convergent thought, science would become a mess created by continuous theory changes and scientific progress would again be precluded. On Kuhn’s view, both convergent and divergent thought are therefore equally necessary for the progress of science. In this paper, I shall argue that a similar fundamental tension exists between the demands we see for novel insights of aninterdisciplinary nature and the need for established intellectual doctrines founded in the classical disciplines. First, I shall revisit Kuhn’s analysis of the essential tension between tradition and innovation. Next, I shall argue that the tension inherent ininterdisciplinaryresearch between, on the one hand, intellectual independence and critical scrutiny and, on the other hand, epistemic dependence and trust is a complement to Kuhn’s essential tension within mono-disciplinary science between convergent and divergent thought. (shrink)

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As systems based on opaque Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to flourish in diverse real-world applications, understanding these black box models has become paramount. In response, Explainable AI (XAI) has emerged as a field ofresearch with practical and ethical benefits across various domains. This paper not only highlights the advancements in XAI and its application in real-world scenarios but also addresses the ongoing challenges within XAI, emphasizing the need for broader perspectives and collaborative efforts. We bring together experts from (...) diverse fields to identify open problems, striving to synchronizeresearch agendas and accelerate XAI in practical applications. By fostering collaborative discussion andinterdisciplinary cooperation, we aim to propel XAI forward, contributing to its continued success. Our goal is to put forward a comprehensive proposal for advancing XAI. To achieve this goal, we present a manifesto of 27 open problems categorized into nine categories. These challenges encapsulate the complexities and nuances of XAI and offer a road map for futureresearch. For each problem, we provide promisingresearch directions in the hope of harnessing the collective intelligence of interested stakeholders. (shrink)

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It is only recently, with the increasing interest in origami and folding in natural sciences and the humanities, that the fold as a new conception in a whole range of disciplines has begun to be conceived in a broader way. Folding as a material and structural process offers a new methodology to think about the close relationship of matter, form and code. It henceforth crosses out old dichotomies, such as the organic and the inorganic or nature and technology, and blurs (...) the boundaries between experimental, conceptual and historical approaches. This anthology aims to unfold this newinterdisciplinary field and its disciplinary impact, ranging from materials science, biology, architecture, and mathematics to literature and philosophy. (shrink)

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This paper provides resources from the philosophy of science to identify differences between explanatory norms across disciplines and to examine their impact oninterdisciplinary work. While the body of literature on explanatory norms is expanding rapidly, a consensus on a theoretical framework for systematically identifying norms across disciplines has yet to be reached. The aims of this paper are twofold: (i) to provide such a framework and use it to identify and compare explanatory norms across different domains; and (ii) (...) to derive indications aboutinterdisciplinary practice accordingly. By pursuing these goals, this work aims to be both theoretically significant and practically relevant. It contributes to the ongoing work on explanatory norms; and offers recommendations for the analysis ofinterdisciplinary science. (shrink)

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