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Содержание Elena Trubina (Russia). In response to Tom Rockmore’s paper «Scientific Realism, Idealist Constructivism, and History» И.Т. Касавин. Эпистемология и идея междисциплинарности Ilya Kasavin (Russia). Еpistemology and idea of interdisciplinarity 1. Interdisciplinarity as a problem 2. Interdisciplinarity and empirical basis for philosophical study 3. Interdisciplinarity as a danger for philosophy?

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Елена Трубина (Россия). Комментарий к докладу Тома Рокмора

Elena Trubina (Russia). In response to Tom Rockmore’s paper «Scientific Realism, Idealist Constructivism, and History»


In Tom Rockmore’s paper, two main features of scientific realism (SR) are outlined: the strong connection of realism with modern science and the belief that “scientific theory correctly approximates to the way world is” (p.2). In this view, characteristic of natural science and forming the background to much social science, there is a real world and a sound methodology is available for discovering more and more of it. The world is more or less what science tells us it is, and if there still are those areas that are not sufficiently described and explained, it is only a matter of future advancements in science to receive full knowledge of them. Thus SR holds the concept of the growth of approximate scientific knowledge. Rockmore goes on to show the inadequacy of SR by evoking the lines of thought of German idealism, Kant in particular. Underlying his argument is the idea that while understanding science as a collection of irrefutable, neutral ‘facts’ that provide the most truthful picture of the world as it is certainly was influenced by Western metaphysics, in this same metaphysics (exemplified by Kant) there are important sources of resistance to SR. He gives an eloquent account of Kant’s constructivism according to which there is no way to equate the scientific world-view with a reality that supposedly exists independently of mind because “knowledge consists in grasping a mind-dependent object we construct as a condition of knowing it” (p.6). Having emphasized that in some respects it was Hegel who went further than Kant in developing the constructivist approach, he concludes that there is hardly anything more important for 21st century epistemology than the development of an “historical conception of constructivism” (p.7).


In this regard, I would raise a several questions.

How effectively can Kant’s constructivist approach be used against SR if, according to it, knowledge of reality is restricted to phenomena? What things are in or by themselves (as Ding an sich) we cannot know. If knowledge does not determine the ontological limits of reality, reality remains ontologically independent. Hence the main argument that the canonical view holds, namely, that objects exist independently from mind, is preserved by Kant (who claims that they are epistemologically beyond our reach). How then can the constructions of one’s mind get access to such an ontologically independent reality. This is a serious question. The jurisdiction of knowledge is constructed but constrained: the constructions, representations, significations, and ideas seem to leave, so to speak, an ontological surplus.

Given the influence of the Kantian idea of a dichotomy between a construable realm (phenomena) and an unconstruable realm (things-in-themselves), between what can be known and what is beyond knowledge’s reach, it seems difficult to juxtapose radically his a priori categories and the “reality” that scientific method is capable of discovering. Thus the Kantian approach and the SR approach prove closer that one would want. What I mean is that for both approaches the rational foundations of what can be known is of importance. Both approaches are concerned with defining limits to how and what can be known. They undoubtedly differ in what they take to be foundations of knowledge. If for SR these foundations are ultimately constituted by reality itself, for Kant they are the a priori categories of anything that can be thought, within which any scientific theory must fit. The similarity between these approaches rests in proposing a substantial rational foundation for the experienced world and qualifying as erratic anything that differs from it.

Underlying the constructivist approach is a belief that what is thought to be “natural” has its historical dimension, predominantly, by having originated from a subject’s mind, by having gone through certain stages of cognitive development. The constructivist perspective presupposes that any cognitive product is not inevitable and shows how it came into being through historical processes (sometimes, the contingency of certain scientific results and their historical foundations become strikingly obvious). In what sense then should one talk about the historical conception of constructivism? Simply put, can there be an a-historical constructivism? If it is implied that, within the constructivist paradigm, one can question dawning of concepts without necessarily examining how and whether the concepts refer directly to things that really exist, there still remains the task of demonstrating how these concepts developed and what comprised their emergence, etc.

Would it be right to extend the historical conception of constructivism towards consideration of the history of this very paradigm, given the popularity it has enjoyed for almost forty years? If yes, what can be said regarding the obvious overuse of the notion, especially when “construction” becomes combined with “social”? What are the reasons for this popularity except the obvious general influence of postmodernism?


И.Т. Касавин. Эпистемология и идея междисциплинарности


Идея «смерти эпистемологии» в рамках «натурализированных» программ или постмодернистских дискуссий побуждает задуматься о тех формах, в которых эпистемологические исследования остаются, тем не менее, возможны как область философской рефлексии. Философия познания поколеблена на своем троне, который она занимала в течение длительного времени как теоретическое ядро философии, и, видимо, даже смещена с него. Следствием этого является частичная утрата ориентиров теми, кто профессионально связан с данной сферой, и не только ими. Некоторые условия, формы и следствия данной дезориентации, а также возможность обретения новых перспектив мы и попытаемся рассмотреть в контексте проблемы междициплинарности.

Понятие междисциплинарности применительно к разным наукам, в том числе и к философии, приобретает существенно разные смыслы, однако это часто не принимается во внимание. Следствием данного недоразумения является представление о дисциплинарной структуре наук как о естественной норме и о междисциплинарности как отклонении от нормы, как переходном состоянии науки на пути к новому типу дисциплинарности. Нам представляется, что, напротив, именно междисциплинарное (не предполагающее при этом жестких границ каждой вовлеченной дисциплины) взаимодействие есть естественное состояние науки, предельным случаем которого являются относительно строгие дисциплинарные структуры, границы которых задаются не столько системами знания, сколько институциональными формами. Эта точка зрения позволяет дать более точную картину процессов, происходивших в XX веке в эпистемологии и философии науки.

Кроме того, междисциплинарное взаимодействие, значимое для эпистемологии и философии науки, не является, как правило, простым заимствованием сформировавшихся дисциплинарных результатов более развитых наук в отличие от того, что мы встречаем в истории естествознания. Напротив, философия ассимилирует с большей готовностью именно то, что проблематизирует положение дел в философии и науке одновременно и в дальнейшем не обязательно приводит к устойчивым дисциплинарным структурам. Это относится, среди прочего, к научным результатам, образующим эмпирический базис эпистемологических исследований.

Сегодня эпистемология взыскует нового социального консенсуса, нового общественного договора, который бы отвел ей легальное и достойное место в современной культуре. В этих условиях междисциплинарность приобретает форму двух разных, но равно угрожающих философии вызовов: «натуралистической идеологии», требующей подмены эпистемологии специальными науками; и «нового эклектизма», позволяющего в равной мере апеллировать к рациональности и к Дао, к истине и к пиару, к научному методу и к оргазму. Принципиально расширяя сферу и границы эпистемологии, междисциплинарные подходы одновременно акцентируют внимание на этих границах: они плывут перед нашими глазами и уходят за всякий мыслимый горизонт.

Феномен междисциплинарности, тем самым, являет собой один из современных вызовов эпистемологии, чреватый как ее очередным кризисом, так и новым взлетом. Последний возможен, как нам представляется, лишь при сохранении тех целей и ценностей, которые формулирует и на которые ориентируется эпистемология. Именно они предполагают разработку теоретического ядра философского мировоззрения как рефлексивного, критического, рационального, творческого дискурса – дискурса и специализированного, и пограничного, и одновременно преодолевающего всякие границы.


Ilya Kasavin (Russia). Еpistemology and idea of interdisciplinarity


An idea of the “death of epistemology” in terms of the “naturalized programmes” or the post-modernist discussions makes us to think about the form, in which epistemological studies in a broad sense of the word are still possible as a sphere of philosophical analysis. Philosophy of knowledge is nowadays shaken on its throne, which it has occupied for a long time as a theoretical core of philosophy, and perhaps even dismissed from it. The partial loss of orientation by those who are professionally involved in this sphere is the consequence of this state of affairs. Some conditions, forms and prospects of the situation in question will be traced in my paper in the context of the interdisciplinarity problem. Besides all, the interdisciplinarity itself can be seen as a manifestation of inner sociality of knowledge. In particular it appears a form of interaction taking place between the institutional structure, on one hand, and multiplicity of cognitive and cultural resources of science, on the other.


1. Interdisciplinarity as a problem

The concept of interdisciplinarity in terms of sciences, on one hand, and in terms of philosophy, on the other, differs essentially. Edward Mirsky, a Russian specialist in the social study of science, pointed it out indirectly. He wrote that the subject of scientific interdisciplinary study should be formulated so that it could be investigated, modified, transmitted and the research results could be practically applied by all participated disciplines. It presupposes that the subject fields and methodological sets of interacting disciplines have to be defined in a clear form. Further “the genuine scientific results” of interdisciplinary study, according to Mirsky, should be given for an expertise to the system of disciplinary knowledge.

I think that this point of view might be correct in terms of some natural and mathematical sciences but looks like a very strong idealization for the most of social and human sciences, which disciplinary status represents a serious problem. At the same time interdisciplinary dialogue looses its expertise function in case of basic research in general. The participants of interdisciplinary studies may produce alleged results, but they cannot judge about their scientific significance as it is identified with their disciplinary significance. And although Mirsky speaks then on the formation of interdisciplinary construction, which is functionally similar to the construction of a discipline, it seems hardly applicable to social and human sciences.

All these misunderstandings are based on the selection of the major object of methodological analysis. This object is explicitly understood as physics and mathematics – the sciences, which have already forgotten the process of their historical origin. As it concerns most sciences (chemistry, biology, geography, history, economics, law – the list is still open) they keep in themselves their various historical roots and represent a form of interdisciplinary interaction much more than strictly disciplinary knowledge. Theoretical foundation of this interaction, of its language and laboratory equipment is provided by one or another science, whose level of disciplinary development is relatively higher. There is also a special case of such sciences as psychology, sociology, archaeology, ethnography, linguistics – all of them were formed nearly at the same time through the synthesis of several knowledge fields, whereby some of them had been situated far from any scientific status at all.

A tacit presupposition of those misunderstandings is an idea of disciplinary structure of science as a natural norm whereas interdisciplinarity is treated as a deviation from norm, as a transitory status of science on the way to a new type of disciplinarity. It can be denoted as a classical view on interdisciplinarity. I would insist on the opposite, non-classical view, which better fits the modern situation in science and beyond. It is just the interdisciplinary interaction that represents a natural state of science. Even more, this interaction demands no strong boundaries for each involved discipline. There are extreme cases, which result in the relatively strict disciplinary structures. Still their boundaries are determined not so much by the knowledge systems as by their institutional forms. Besides all, this non-classical view allows a more realistic picture of the history of epistemology and philosophy of science in the 20^th century.

The 20^th century is marked by the rise of different interdisciplinary approaches in philosophy. Informational approach, system approach, activity approach, evolutionary approach, synergetic approach to consciousness and knowledge – all these methodological strategies led to a number of essential novelties already in the dialectical materialism, not mentioning another philosophical trends. Interdisciplinary interaction of physics, biology, computer sciences, psychology and philosophy now produce different methodological approaches and programmes on the edge of the emerging disciplines. This gives epistemology and philosophy of science new impulses, opens new prospects. Sometimes it causes global shifts, so called turns: anthropological, linguistic, cognitive, sociological turns in epistemology. These turns have been inspired by the new special scientific movements, which study the cognitive processes outside philosophy and then contribute their results to philosophy. Nevertheless it is too early to speak about correspondent separate disciplines or even theories – either in philosophy or outside it. This situation is also hardly possible to be presented as a solution of epistemological problems by means of the special sciences.

And now I would like to emphasise the main point of the paper. Interdisciplinary interaction relevant for epistemology and philosophy of science is not as a rule a simple philosophical borrowing of some well-established disciplinary results from the more developed sciences though it is a normal case in the history of natural sciences. Quite on the contrary, philosophy eagerly assimilates some marginal results, such ideas and methods, which problematize the status quo in science and philosophy and further hardly lead to the stable disciplinary structures. It concerns above all the scientific results and other cultural resources building the empirical basis of epistemological studies.


2. Interdisciplinarity and empirical basis for philosophical study

The contemporary philosophy identifies itself as a discipline and activity, which has no intention to investigate the reality by empirical means but uses the results of concrete empirical sciences. More than that, the philosophers fight against the misbalance in favour of the natural sciences and try to assimilate the whole variety of the social and human sciences as well. At the same time philosophers acquire more critical position towards any empirical results. Now they always have a right to state a question: why these or those sciences, theories or problems should be involved into philosophical discourse? Actually why and what for should philosophy be limited by science at all, if we deal with epistemological discourse and not with the scientific one?

We know that every concrete science regards a complex phenomenon (earthquake, genome, political system, speech act, computer programme or religious cult) in a one-dimensional way, according to one’s own aims and methodological means. Philosophy focusing on some phenomenon implements on the contrary a kind of interdisciplinary and cultural synthesis. It cannot do without epistemological analysis, which draws the difference between various sciences, articulates an integral cognitive interest, and creates a picture of holistic cognitive process, putting every analyzed phenomenon into a broader social and cultural context.

Thus, trying to grasp the phenomenon of paradigm change, a methodologist addresses himself to logical means and describes this process as a procedure of deductive generalization, inclusion or unsolvable contradiction. In order to select one of these models he appeals then to the semantic analysis of scientific language, to the meaning of scientific terms whereby the pure logical methods are insufficient due to the historical alteration of the whole system of scientific concepts. Now the history of science can contribute to the solution of this problem. However it will be soon cleared up that the historical reconstruction of the transition, say, from mechanicism to evolutionism, should be completed by the socio-psychological analysis of the correspondent scientific communities. Nevertheless it provides no understanding of the emergence of new knowledge. Therefore the shift to the psychology of creativity is needed, and even further – to the biographical study of creative laboratory of a particular scientist. Now the whole scope of the cognitive disciplines is involved, whereby the inevitable gaps in the reconstruction are filled with the help of artistic fantasy taking into account wider and wider range of ideas and influences outside science.

What happens then with the initial problem of the paradigm shift? It is tacitly substituted by the set of particular tasks, which solution non-philosophical theories and facts contribute to. The problem is settled down into the context of interdisciplinary interaction and grows to the general panorama of particular situation. This panorama does not reproduce the mechanism of the paradigm change but rather demonstrate a picture of various significant and fancifully interlaced factors. It thereby induces the knowing agent to the creative thinking for self-orientation and identification in the given situation. According to this opinion an empirical basic of epistemology is composed less from the scientific theories and data relevant for the understanding of definite problems. Much more it is a kind of virtual critical discussion between different cognitive disciplines – logic, history, psychology and sociology of science, psychology of creativity, biographical analysis – all this initiated by epistemologist. The data building the foundation of epistemology are not identical with the simple borrowings of facts and concepts from the concrete sciences. It is rather a communicative space of interchange and competition of the different knowledge types which particular example the interdisciplinary interaction is. A measure to which an epistemologist is engaged in the dialogue between different knowledge types and scientific disciplines, his abilities to organize such a dialogue represents a measure of empirical justifiability of his philosophy.


3. Interdisciplinarity as a danger for philosophy?

The above approach to interdisciplinary study as form of philosophical communication is essential to the non-classical epistemology, which tries to find a meaningful alternative to the negating and neglecting of epistemology today. At the same time it represents a position in the controversy concerning the scientific status of epistemology. Interaction of epistemology with the sciences does not produce automatically a scientific epistemology. More often the opposite result takes place – a number of scientistic metaphors being imposed upon philosophy provoke a strong drive back. It leads to the withdrawal of science from the philosophical Weltanschauung, which instead tends to be occupied by the chaotic variety of cultural and social images. Thus extrascientific resources begin to dominate over criticism, truth and rationality, and philosophy is gradually reduced to an intellectual game, to such concepts as narrative, discourse and text.

So epistemology is now in search for a new social consensus, new social contract that should give it a legal and worthy place in the contemporary culture. Under these conditions the interdisciplinary tendency acquires a form of two different though equally dangerous challenges. The first is a naturalistic ideology demanding that epistemology should be substituted by the particular sciences; the second is a new eclecticism that equally appeals to rationality and religion, to truth and image making, to scientific method and sexual satisfaction. Interdisciplinary approaches widen the sphere and limits of epistemology so that any boundaries flow and disappear beyond any thinkable horizon.

I would like to underline that philosophy can play a meaningful role in interdisciplinary interaction if and only if it keeps its own peculiarity. Neither philosophers nor scientists are interested in epistemology, which puts on a mask of science or any other of the so-called cognitive practices. It is worth remembering how various and rich the intellectual resources of philosophy are – they are much richer than any scientific discipline can provide. It manifests itself particularly in the inner interaction between philosophy and the history of philosophy, which is absolutely unique and atypical for the sciences. And outside philosophy as well, in the context of interdisciplinary interaction, in the interrelation between science and non-science, philosophy still remains if not the only one than at least the most suitable form of intellectual communication.

Philosophical analysis essentially consists in contextualizing the problems and problematizing the contexts. Thereby it represents a unique method of understanding of knowledge and consciousness. Nobody except philosophers has been interested already since ancient times in the complex, dynamic, human-dimensional phenomena, which only recently have been discovered by the sciences. Nobody except philosophers does cultivate in an explicit way a tendency towards universal synthesis, even if it appears sometimes in inadequate forms. It is only philosopher who so vividly, with fear and admiration, experiences the infinite starlit sky over the head or the moral law inside the heart, the actual limitation and potential infinity of human knowledge.

So the case of interdisciplinarity can be seen as one of the modern challengers for epistemology and philosophy in general that can lead either to its next crisis or to its new rise. To my opinion the progress is only possible through elaboration of basic aims and virtues peculiar to philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to Husserl and Wittgenstein. They build the core of philosophical Weltanschauung as a reflexive, critical, rational and creative thinking – a peculiar, controversive, boundary discourse that transcends any boundaries.