ACTIVITIES FOR SHIFTING PARADIGMS HOW TO

Outside the philosophy of science, the need for interdisciplinary research for real-world problem solving -and associated changes in the structure of universities and higher education systems- has been stressed for decades already (e.g., Jantsch 1972 Apostel et al. Real-world problems usually are complex, and philosophers of science emphasize that this requires interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary research (e.g., Schmidt 2008, 2011 Frodeman 2010 Krohn 2010 Alvargonzález 2011 Thorén and Persson 2013 Thorén 2015 Maki 2016 O'Rourke et al. Most current scientific research in the natural, medical and engineering sciences is expected to be useful for specific ‘real-world’ problems, such as in agriculture and food-industry, (bio)medical technology and pharmacy, ICT and transport, civil engineering and sustainability, weather-forecasting and climate issues, safety and forensics, energy-technology and high-tech (nano-)materials. In interdisciplinary research, metacognitive scaffolds assist interdisciplinary communication aiming to analyze and articulate how the discipline constructs knowledge. In an engineering paradigm of science, these metacognitive scaffolds can also be interpreted as epistemic tools, but in this case as tools that guide, enable and constrain analyzing and articulating how knowledge is produced (i.e., explaining epistemological aspects of doing research). Accordingly, scientific researchers need so-called metacognitive scaffolds to assist in analyzing and reconstructing how ‘knowledge’ is constructed and how different disciplines do this differently. This implies that knowledge and the epistemic uses of knowledge cannot be understood without at least some understanding of how the knowledge is constructed. Additionally, the way in which scientific disciplines (or fields) construct knowledge is guided by the specificities of the discipline, which can be analyzed in terms of disciplinary perspectives. The engineering paradigm of science involves that knowledge is indelibly shaped by how it is constructed. This alternative philosophical paradigm assume the production of knowledge for epistemic functions as the aim of science, and interprets ‘knowledge’ (such as theories, models, laws, and concepts) as epistemic tools that must allow for conducting epistemic tasks by epistemic agents, rather than interpreting knowledge as representations that objectively represent aspects of the world independent of the way in which it was constructed. The proposed alternative philosophical paradigm (called an engineering paradigm of science) entails alternative philosophical presuppositions regarding aspects such as the aim of science, the character of knowledge, the epistemic and pragmatic criteria for accepting knowledge, and the role of technological instruments. It is conjectured that the lack of philosophical interest in the epistemology of IDR is due to a philosophical paradigm of science (called a physics paradigm of science), which prevents recognizing severe epistemological challenges of IDR, both in the philosophy of science as well as in science education and research.

ACTIVITIES FOR SHIFTING PARADIGMS HOW TO

Based on a study of educational literature it is concluded that higher-education is missing clear ideas on the epistemology of IDR, and as a consequence, on how to teach it. Focus is on the question why researchers experience cognitive and epistemic difficulties in conducting IDR. This article aims at an epistemology for interdisciplinary research (IDR), in particular, IDR for solving ‘real-world’ problems. Yet the epistemological processes that lead to effective interdisciplinary research are poorly understood. For example, policy makers invest in funding programs such as Horizon 2020 that aim to stimulate interdisciplinary research. In science policy, it is generally acknowledged that science-based problem-solving requires interdisciplinary research.

Activities for shifting paradigms