[Fis] Interdisciplinary consilience?

Dear FIS colleagues,

Briefly expanding on interdiscipl. (trans-multi-pluri...) & cons., I would
like to point out some differences with the Wilsonian approach. Recognizing
its overall value as an articulated global vision of the sciences, it does
not address but in a very classical way the relationship between
disciplines --mostly he adopts 'reduction'. Perhaps when economist & social
scientist Wallerstein was recently questioning, What is a "discipline"?, he
was making an initial reflection that has to prelude the debates on
interdisciplinarity. But when the historical origins of science and of its
inner division of work, and its apparent 'unity', are at stake... one
cannot go very far, as already Plato and Aristotle had responded quite
opposite things. The tension between unity and differentiation has always
accompanied science, seemingly.

The fact is that practising scientists in most 'domains' (I prefer this
neutral term to the current metaphor of "fields", territories, etc., or to
its alternative of tradition, culture, etc.) have to live and navigate
within the interdisciplinary mixing. An illustrative example may be
"Tribology" (the study of adhesion, friction, lubrication, and wear of
surfaces in relative motion). Its economic and technological importance is
quite remarkable; as is the inner complexity of these studies..."arising in
the fields of physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and engineering" (from
Urbahk et al., 2004), involving e.g., from car engines or mechanical parts,
to lubricant industries, skeletal joints, continental tectonics.... in
these studies "recent experiments coupled to theoretical modelling have
made great advances in unifying apparently diverse phenomena..."

The point (in my opinion, quite explicit in several contents of the above
paper ---and Xerman would particularly enjoy the authors reference to the
centrality in Tribology of the "making and breaking of bonds") is that the
mixing of two disciplinary domains is a highly dynamic event. It takes
place sucessfully only after a series of highly interactive questions and
responses on both sides (or more sides), going in both directions within
one of those checkpoints I was mentioning last week. Thus this interection
may creates a relevant new piece of knowledge. And in the extent to which a
further unifying exchange occurs in several themes or loci in a plurality
of checkpoints between those domains, a new scientific itinerary of
explanation will be possible: an interdisciplinary domain will be born.
Tribology, for instance.

In what extent do the interactive events in these interdiciplinary nascent
'checkpoints' appear as a matter of strict (Whewelian) consilience?
Assuming that it is a well posed question (big assumption!) we could
advance towards explaining interdisiplinarity ---one of the most intriguing
aspects of our system of knowledge.

best regards

Pedro

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Received on Fri Oct 1 11:49:40 2004