Functions and consequences of artificial intelligence
in the science and higher education organization
Innovation analysis and transfer development
KIWIT SPECIAL
Dahrendorf Professor Rudolf Stichweh during a lecture on the history of the USA. Photo: Private.
TO THE LAUNCH OF KIWIT
The multifunctionality of interdisciplinarity
The social theorist and sociologist of science Rudolf Stichweh has devoted his entire academic career to the role of interdisciplinarity. He looks back on numerous international appointments and has participated in major research projects. In 1984, he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the emergence of physics as a discipline in Germany. In this contribution, Stichweh—scientific advisor to the KIWIT research group—explains central forms and functions of interdisciplinary work in science.
By Rudolf Stichweh
The emergence of interdisciplinarity presupposes a sufficiently large and sufficiently diverse system of scientific disciplines, within which the complexity of the relationships among these disciplines is designated by the term interdisciplinarity. This condition is met in the modern system of science around 1850 (Stichweh 1984), a period in which ever new disciplines emerge in the natural sciences and the humanities, while the social sciences exist only in rudimentary forms (mostly as state sciences), and at the same time the first indications of the emergence of a new type of engineering sciences can be observed.
Modern Knowledge: Lateral and Dynamic
In addition to the complexity of the system of scientific disciplines, its internal dynamics are of crucial importance. Unlike the situation in the premodern period, the modern order of knowledge is neither hierarchically structured nor organized in a way that separates bodies of knowledge from one another and thereby immobilizes them. Rather, it is lateral and dynamic. Bodies of knowledge are related to one another and enter into interactions in which they challenge and provoke one another, thereby being set into motion.
In this world, in which interdisciplinarity is another term for the internal (i.e., intra–scientific-system) environment constituted by other scientific disciplines for each individual discipline, ever new forms and functions of interdisciplinarity emerge. First among these are transfer and innovation: interdisciplinarity constitutes the defining form of knowledge transfer and the generation of innovation within the modern scientific system. Methods, theories, and other epistemic components are continuously transferred between disciplines and, within the disciplinary context of their reception, trigger innovations that are sometimes so far-reaching that they give rise to new disciplines (Ben-David & Collins 1966).
Stichweh, Rudolf (2013): Science, University, Professions: Sociological Analyses. Bielefeld.
In preparation of Rudolf Stichweh: Science, University, Professions. Sociological Analyses. Volume 2. Bielefeld.
Rudolf Stichweh has made a name for himself as a recognized expert on the scientific system of today's global society. Image: Private.
About the author
Professor Dr. Rudolf Stichweh , born in 1951 in Lemgo, Lippe, studied sociology and received his doctorate in 1984 with a dissertation on the emergence of physics as a scientific discipline . He subsequently completed his habilitation and assumed the Chair of Sociology at Bielefeld University as the direct successor to Niklas Luhmann, one of the most important representatives of systems theory. Today, Stichweh is a senior professor of sociology at the University of Bonn and a permanent visiting professor at the University of Lucerne, where he served as rector from 2006 to 2010. Since 2012, he has held the Dahrendorf Professorship for the Theory of Modern Society and has been the director of the Forum for International Science at the University of Bonn. His work focuses primarily on systems and social theory, the development and differentiation of modern societies, and the sociology of science and education. Stichweh has made significant contributions to the understanding of the functional differentiation of modern societies. His interdisciplinary approach allows him to transcend the boundaries of sociology – as FAZ publisher Jürgen Kaube acknowledged in an article on Stichweh's 70th birthday: "He can speak to biology and physics just as readily as to sports history and literature. Yet, he is a sociologist by training." He has received numerous honors and awards, including visiting professorships at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. He was elected to the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and the Leopoldina, and awarded the George Sarton Medal for the History of Science at Ghent University. Since 2020, he has been a member of the Lise Meitner Research Group "China in the Global System of Science" at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. And, starting in 2025, Rudolf Stichweh will – much to our delight – be a member of the scientific advisory board of the KIWIT research group. Visit Rudolf Stichweh's website .
A second form of interdisciplinarity, competition, does not rest on transfers but takes the form of the continuous observation of one or more other disciplines by researchers within a given discipline. One’s own developmental trajectory is chosen on the basis of observing the developmental trajectory of another discipline with which one is connected through relations of competition or conflict. This may include individual transfers, but the core lies in selecting one’s own trajectory on the basis of observing the trajectories of other disciplines.
Cooperation and excellence constitute a third manifestation. To the extent that scientific cooperation becomes the dominant mode of work in science, interdisciplinarity increasingly takes place within individual research projects and their associated publications. Researchers seek cooperation partners who contribute the capacities and perspectives of other disciplines, and they must do so also because the evaluation of submitted publications and projects calls for the consideration of complementary perspectives. Projects and publications that address complex societal problem situations today often tend to realize interdisciplinarity in the form of multidisciplinarity.
Broadening of horizons as a hallmark of academic education
A fourth form and function can be seen in epistemological self-reflection. It arises from the self-critical impulse to relativize the observations made in one’s own research through observations derived from the perspectives of other disciplines. From this perspective, the concern is with the epistemological clarification of the conditions of one’s own observation—that is, with self-reflection. It is at this functional point that interdisciplinarity is most clearly linked to higher education teaching, since academic instruction should also combine disciplinary training with interdisciplinary contextualization. In this sense, interdisciplinarity is also a crucial component of the broadening of horizons that genuinely scientific education demands (Stichweh 2017).
In many cases, interdisciplinarity has today—fifthly—also become a norm, especially within research funding institutions that require interdisciplinary components in projects. Justifications for this norm can easily be found in the forms and functions of interdisciplinarity discussed above. Yet the autonomous dynamics of interdisciplinarity within the scientific system are so striking that one may question whether this norm is additionally necessary.
An earlier version of this contribution appeared in the Dictionary of Adult and Continuing Education, edited by Rolf Arnold et al. (2023), Bad Heilbrunn, 3rd edition (pp. 221–222).
References
Ben-David, J., & Collins, R. (1966). Social factors in the origin of a new science: The case of psychology. American Sociological Review, 31(4), 451–465.
Frodeman, R. (Ed.). (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stichweh, R. (1984). On the emergence of the modern system of scientific disciplines: Physics in Germany, 1740–1890. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Stichweh, R. (2017). Interdisciplinarity and academic education. In H. Kauhaus & N. Krause (Eds.), Fundiert forschen: Wissenschaftliche Bildung für Promovierende und Postdocs (pp. 181–190). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
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As part of the Leopoldina symposium "The Authority of Science on Trial" on November 23 and 24, 2023 in Halle an der Saale, Rudolf Stichweh spoke about the authority and unity of science.
At the Bielefeld Centre for Theories in Historical Research (ZThF) with colloquium on historical cultures, Rudolf Stichweh spoke on May 4, 2022 about the science system of modernity.
