Over at Brainstorm, Michael Ruse wonders why there is so much hostility in academic circles to faculty who are engaged in scholarship that is interdisciplinary. Ruse, a philosopher by training, celebrates his collaboration with historians, biologists, and religious studies scholars.
He writes:
What I am trying to point out is that one can have a full and satisfying life while being – because of being – interdisciplinary. Which brings me to the question of why there is so much prejudice against it, and perhaps more specifically why I nevertheless fell naturally into being interdisciplinary.
I am sure that there are all sorts of reasons why being interdisciplinary is frowned upon. Some good, like the fact that it is too easy to be awful in many disciplines at once. Some bad, like the fact that most academics really are rather narrow, insulated folk. (I don’t want to get into a fight here, so let me qualify by saying that all sorts of reasons “have been offered.”)…
One of the things that Ruse does not mention here is that interdisciplinary studies requires disciplinary thinking as a starting point. Philosophy, history, biology, and religious studies are bedrock liberal arts disciplines because their practitioners offer different ways of thinking about the human experience. How can one engage in interdisciplinary dialogue without being grounded in a specific discipline–a filter through which one enters the conversation? When I think about interdisciplinary studies I think of encountering the methodology of other disciplines to see how they might make me a better historian.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not opposed to interdisciplinary studies. I am envious of the way that Ruse is able to cross-disciplines in the way that he does–a true intellectual. I just think that the disciplines should be the foundation of any kind of interdisciplinary pursuit.
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