CEFISES Seminar: Kevin Kaiser, “On modelling interdisciplinary research: A empirical philosophy of science approach”

Livestream https://youtube.com/live/wnEIchHov10

Series: Digital Approaches

Speaker: Kevin Kaiser (UCLouvain)

Title: “On modelling interdisciplinary research : A empirical philosophy of science approach”

Abstract

Interdisciplinary research as an “alternative” approach in science is recently receiving increasing attention both from the scientific and the wider public. The list of discussed advantages over “monodisciplinary” approach is wide and uneven. It ranges from more traditional epistemic aims such has offering a more comprehensive understanding of complex phenomena to more instrumental one such as challenging some monopoly in science (natural science as the template of “good” science, English as the “lingua franca”, etc.). Multiple tools (theoretical and empirical) have been proposed the study interdisciplinarity (as well as other X-disciplinary approaches). However, those tend to fall either in the two following functional categories : conceptual tools (high theoretical content; low applicability) or measurement tools (low theoretical content; high applicability).

In this talk, we will explore how the ongoing debate on (dis)unity in science in philosophy of science can inform a proposition that conserve high theoretical potency without limiting operationalization though empirical tools. An example of such will be given in the linguistico-connectionist account of unity of science and an implementation coupling citations network and text similarity will be given.