Post-disciplinary realism

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I elaborate a realist post-disciplinary methodology. Its starting point are disciplines. Some features of disciplines are well understood. But the implications of their irreducibility to mechanical procedure is rarely acknowledged. Building on this observation this paper proceeds through investigating transdisciplinary methodologies. First science as usual in which disciplines are the building blocks of interdisciplinary science, additive in producing new approaches to the investigation of increasingly complex and broader issues. And then a pragmatic methodology in which knowledge is revised at the interface between the scientific community and a multitude of social actors with their competing demands and criteria of assessment. This investigation offers contrast that allows for the distinctive features of a post-disciplinary realist methodology to be identified; a narrative arc of inference to be described; and a call for a far more expansive and coherent post-disciplinary science.

KEYWORDS:

• Realism
• post-disciplinary
• transdisciplinary

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.