Specialisation, Interdisciplinarity, and Incommensurability

ABSTRACT

Incommensurability may be regarded as driving specialisation, on the one hand, and as posing some problems to interdisciplinarity, on the other hand. It may be argued, however, that incommensurability plays no role in either specialisation or interdisciplinarity. Scientific specialties could be defined as simply ‘different’ (that is, about different things), rather than ‘incommensurable’ (that is, competing for the explanation of the same phenomena). Interdisciplinarity could be viewed as the co-ordinated effort of scientists possessing complementary and interlocking skills, and not as the overcoming of some sort of incommensurable divide. This article provides a comprehensive evaluative examination of the relations between specialisation, interdisciplinarity, and incommensurability. Its aim is to defend the relevance of incommensurability to both specialisation and interdisciplinarity. At the same time, it aims at correcting the tendency, common among many philosophers, to regard incommensurability in a restrictive manner—such as, for example, as an almost purely semantic issue.

Acknowledgements

This paper was written during a period of postdoctoral research on the project ‘Inter-field Scientific Change’ at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas of UNAM (Mexico), under the supervision of Prof. Atocha Aliseda. I also thank two anonymous reviewers of this journal for critical comments that improved the earlier version of this text.