The Concept of Interdisciplinarity - Essay Example

Concept of Interdisciplinarity Interdisciplinarity is the process that involves the combining of two or more academic disciplines into one activity. It is the combination of multiple disciplines in the examination of a certain topic. Cross disciplinary is the knowledge that which explains aspects of discipline in terms ofone another. Examples of cross-disciplinary approaches are studies of politics and music .Inthis case the research dwells on the combination of disciplines. The research follows the theory of john Rawls political theory which states that people have different views and they still come together to work as one and form national laws in a politically liberal society (Klein 67) The most important disciplines used in interdisciplinary are biological philosophical and educational based. Biological disciplines are natural science fields that deal with various aspects of the observable fact of life and vital processes.The concept of biological discipline includes biochemistry and biophysics anatomy and physiology, and the biology of plants, animals and microorganisms. The Higher Education Academy however, indicates that biological discipline has the following sub divisions; Microbiology, Genetics, Biology, Biochemistry, Zoology, Agricultural sciences, Molecular Biology, Botany, Food and Beverage, Biophysics, Forestry and other biological sciences. It is clear that there are different subdivisions and even more can still be obtained. A field like biomedical science will be under biological science. The variety of sub divisions explains the ease of integration into other fields. Philosophy is defined as the serious examination of important principles and concepts. The essential principles and concepts are those that organize people’s experiences, language and its grammar, and themes, facts, or everything that people know or think of. It is a discipline that is concerned with questions about justice, truth, reality, goodness, and meaning. The questions are endless and cannot be solved by scientific or realistic data. Philosophy also attempts to simplify, revise, and make clear these important principles and concepts to clear them of ambiguities and uncertainties. Some of the philosophy exercises free the principles and concepts from conflicts with other essential concepts and principles, and from inner conflicts, to enable consistent application of the principles and concepts. Philosophy contains other disciplines which include; logic, epistemology, metaphysics, political philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. Within these disciplines there are disciplines such as the philosophy of the mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of law, and many more. Education is the process of giving information through systematic instructions. Education can be obtained from schools, conferences, organizations, and communities. Other disciplines are connected to education in that they can be used to study education, and education can be used to study them as well. There is philosophy of education, psychology of education, sociology of education, politics of education, and the history of education. Several other disciplines can be understood through education. In this case, people would be taught various subjects, courses or skills (Klein 234). John Rawls theory explains how a democratic society manages its economy to run smoothly. The people in a society have got different beliefs and because of these differencespeople will have different devotions making it not easy to follow the law. The law has to be stabilized and to be made common in order to govern everybody. The law explains that public reasoning helps in making decisions and this will let them to follow the common law. The theory helps the citizens to recognize the importance of a stable society. The theory states that such laws cannot be enforced unless the political powers behind the laws are made legitimate.Indisciplinary as we said means many disciplines brought together for a certain purpose. These disciplines demonstrate a good of relating the achievement of a common goal of the Rawls’ political theory. It states also that people have different reasons for following the laws. Interdisciplinarity in general is based on the deep affinity of all branches of knowledge, an affinity which is best expressed in philosophical thought. Art and philosophy have a common purpose which is to change the inner human being, but they go about this purpose differently. Philosophy addresses the inner person in us directly, through conceptual thinking and the art transforms the external reality everything from landscape to the human body itself in order to transform the human persons inner world. The various art forms are brought together by this common task and way of doing things and therefore they are best understood in their mutual combination. The idea forms the basis for the concurrent study of several art forms as well as philosophy along with the arts (Klein 176). The relationship between interdisciplinary studies and complexity is a subject that was well discussed and the nature of the complex systems provides a comprehensive rationale for interdisciplinary study. Most of the problems the professionals face are not simple, they are unique and complex. They come from the environments and are characterized by turbulence and uncertainty. They are ambiguous, multidimensional and also unstable. Cross-disciplinary analysis introduces an investigative element into the analysis of decision issues. This encourages the development of response options. Environmental problems demonstrate a relationship of interdisciplinary and complexity. They comprise of several sub problems that fall into different disciplines and social sectors introducing a higher level of complexity.in this level there are wide variations in the preferences and the values of stakeholders and the decision makers over qualitative and quantitative attributes of alternatives in decision making (Klein 194). In interdisciplinary feminist scholarship, intersectionality has been a primary outline for thinking about multiple identities and the interconnectedness of various systems of oppression in women’s lives. To understand this multiplicity more effectively, feminist social work scholars need to develop and use a range of different theories of intersectionality, with various epistemological bases that can be strategically applied, depending on the goals of a particular project or practice context. To clear the experience of diverse groups of women throughout the world, these models must go beyond the usual trio of class and gender to include migration, colonization, sexuality, ability, and other processes of oppression and identity. Drawing on postcolonial, queer, and transnational radical perspectives, the article offers queer diaspora scholarship as an example of an interdisciplinary approach for conceptualizing the multiplicity of queer South Asian women’s experiences (Klein 134 ). With its many benefits of improved health and increased affluence, modern technological culture also generates complex social problems. First among these are challenges of globalization, environmental sustainability and the quality of life in technological cultures. In facing these problems, society can benefit from the knowledge produced by the humanities, because they are fundamentally issues of human values of living rightly and well on a finite planet. But the problems do not obey disciplinary borders and by nature require interdisciplinary collaboration. Humanities scholars and philosophers in particular, need to question their received disciplinary training and learn how to communicate, research, and teach across and beyond the ivory towers of the academy. In this task, humanities scholars face epistemological, methodological, institutional, and pedagogical challenges. Thissocial problems project brings together an international group of institutions in philosophy and humanities for a series of workshops on the challenges of interdisciplinary in dealing with complex social problems in which science and technology have a major role. Philosophy and humanities scholars more generally, cannot contribute significantly to the solution of complex social problems of this kind unless they collaborate with scholars in other fields, such as science and technology studies, policy studies and science and engineering. Philosophers bring strengths in ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, amongst others, but this has to be combined with the strengths of other disciplines to face the practical and usual challenges of complex social problems (Klein 206). When one is conducting research it is termed as interdisciplinary. This is because different disciplines are used in very many different ways. Research is meant to improve education and discipline. The research used in in the community inquiry method has three dimensions namely, teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence.Cognitive presence means the ability of the participant to use sustained communication to construct meaning. This can be explained by biochemistry. All the three disciplines we have gone through have been integrated in one study. It is also understood that philosophy links the other two disciplines. Philosophers develop the ideas from the culture of the society. This can be compared to the ‘political conception of justice’ as required by the society to have a politically substantialsociety. So in this case, taking an example of philosophy of education, education will replace the substantial society. Philosophy can use sub disciplines and other smaller divisions of education to explain why they belong to the discipline. We can say that Rawls political theory can be applied in different situations depending on a philosopher’s urgings. In this case, the theory has been related to interdisciplinary subjects; biological, educational and philosophical disciplines. The relationship between these disciplines is linked to the connection that people have in the society been able to live together even though they have different worldviews. Various sub-disciplines and smaller divisions within the disciplines have been used to represent this worldviews. It is therefore, possible to have all these different disciplines integrated together in achieving specified goals, because they all have a specific role to play in achieving such goals. This is just like all the citizens have overlapping consensus which enables them, through public reason, to agree to one national law. This has brought the sense that people can be united despite the much indifference in the society (Klein 77). From our understanding of philosophy and ethics of science and engineering, and bringing in colleagues from other relevant fields, such as science and technological studies, policy studies, and science and engineering, we try to explore the challenges of interdisciplinarity in studying and developing solutions for complex social problems involving science and technology. We plan to develop a number of solutions to these challenges and to study how we can implement such solutions in teaching and how we can communicate them effectively to other people. We focus on three complex social issues: environmental change, the problems of globalization, and the quality of life in a technological culture. From environmental degradation to global conflict, social problems created by our technological culture do not obey disciplinary boundaries. Providing relevant knowledge to help brighten and lessen such problems, then, requires interdisciplinary collaboration. Though societal problems often have technological facets, they are not in essence technical problems. The humanities are of utmost relevance to many contemporary social problems, particularly those of the environment and globalization stemming from our high-tech, materials and energy intensive lifestyles. Yet many humanities have adopted the insular, disciplinary model of knowledge production, which has disadvantaged attempts to connect to society. Though it is hardly surprising that complex social problems require an interdisciplinary approach, little attention has been paid to the methodological and epistemological issues involved in this type of research (Klein 146) Work Cited Julie.T, Klein. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. New York: Wayne State University Press. Copyright, 2009. Print Read More