6 - On Collaboration between the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Discussion of the Terms of Intra and Interdisciplinary Dialogue through the Lenses of Sociology

6 - On Collaboration between the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Discussion of the Terms of Intra and Interdisciplinary Dialogue through the Lenses of Sociology Abdoulaye Niang

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6 - On Collaboration between the Humanities and the Social Sciences: Discussion of the Terms of Intra and Interdisciplinary Dialogue through the Lenses of Sociology 2021 CODESRIA Bulletin 10.57054/cb03-042016290 niang2021-6-on-collaboration-between-the-hum niang2021-6-on-collaboration-between-the-hum.txt, the project's staged copy e704f224b9383443ec9e986f79bf9c5526b57457 open-access sociology

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0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them critique Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. disciplinary boundaries between the social sciences and the humanities Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. review review Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms a new discipline seeking recognition models itself on the already-legitimate hard sciences and simultaneously demarcates itself from the humanities, so the split is produced by the pursuit of institutional legitimacy rather than by the objects studied Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms internal specialisation that is not accompanied by maintained exchange and dialogue turns into disjunction and research seal-off, which defeats the deeper knowledge of humans and society that the specialisation was meant to serve Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The author limits the scope of the argument: it does not claim to abolish all disciplinary distinctions, only their essentialisation. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The boundary the paper is about is explained by a bid for institutional standing rather than by any difference in what the two groups of disciplines study. what this limits: the distinction between the social sciences and the humanities as used here: the paper states the social sciences struggled to maintain it in order to gain institutional and social recognition, which is a claim about standing rather than about subject matter Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The proposed remedy is illustrated from the author's own department and teaching rather than from evidence gathered for the purpose. what this limits: the recommendation for interdisciplinary teaching made here: the support offered is the author's own experience of putting teachers of different profile in the same class within their own university department Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The claim that scientific definitions are arbitrary reaches the reader through a textbook rather than from the source it is attributed to. what this limits: the attribution of the arbitrariness of definitions to Poincare: the paper reports it as recalled by Grawitz, a secondary source, with a page reference to that work rather than to the original Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the metaphor of a net of a given mesh laid over a stained surface is taken over and developed into the paper's own model of how each discipline's theoretical production captures reality partially and differently Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. methodenstreit methodenstreit Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. methodology dispute methodology dispute Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. inter-disciplinarity inter-disciplinarity Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. intra-disciplinary intra-disciplinary Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. hyper-specialisation hyper-specialisation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. disciplinary frontiers disciplinary frontiers Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the humanities / social-sciences distinction - AS AN INSTITUTIONAL WALL: the paper's own word for the boundary is a wall, called illusory and pauperising, erected in the course of seeking recognition and not derived from a difference in object Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. methodenstreit - THE METHODOLOGY DISPUTE UNDER ITS GERMAN NAME: the paper glosses the two in one parenthesis and then traces the same dispute across a century, from Germany in the 1870s to Chicago and Columbia between the wars, saying it never ceased completely Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. interdisciplinarity - AT TWO SCOPES THE PAPER KEEPS APART: intra-disciplinary connections first within the social sciences, and inter-disciplinary connections between them and the humanities, so a single word for both would lose the distinction the argument turns on Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. qualifies → Simon (2008) on methodological naturalism differs in: WHY THE DISCIPLINE NEEDED A METHOD AT ALL. The founding requirement is described as institutional rather than epistemic: the French School 'Quotation withheld', which is a condition of BEING a science rather than a finding about its subject. The paper then defends the resulting methodological naturalism as 'TOO OFTEN CRITICISED ... and frankly too hastily too', so it disputes the criticism while accepting the account of the motive Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → Tschannen (2004), Simon (2008) differs in: WHETHER THE DISTINCTION IS IN THE OBJECT OR IN THE STANCE. 'Quotation withheld trying HOWEVER to appear as “a special viewpoint”' - the territory is conceded and the distinctiveness is relocated to a way of looking. A boundary that cannot be drawn around the subject matter is drawn around the perspective instead Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → Morin (1994) on hyper-complexity, Boudon (1984) differs in: WHAT FOLLOWS FROM THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE. 'HYPER-COMPLEXITY' and 'this frailty of human knowledge' are cited as grounds for 'more humility and openness especially toward the humanities, an attitude running contrary to the “facesaving pride” ... THAT HAS PREVAILED in most recognised sociology and social sciences'. The same premise that usually licenses methodological retrenchment is used here to argue for opening the boundary Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. methodology dispute —same-as→ methodenstreit methodology dispute methodenstreit strength of the relation: 1 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. intra-disciplinary —distinct-from→ inter-disciplinarity intra-disciplinary inter-disciplinarity strength of the relation: 1 Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span names intra- and inter-disciplinary connections side by side; distinct-from is loose, endpoint variant. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. From the nineteenth century the social sciences struggled to maintain the distinction to gain institutional and social recognition. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The scientist and pragmatist impulse gave the social sciences a solid epistemological, theoretical and methodological base but simultaneously essentialised the concept of science and narrowed it. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Nineteenth-century sociography - social surveys and statistical handbooks - supplied nascent sociology with its data-collection instruments: the questionnaire, the monograph and observation. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Contemporary sociology is strongly marked by internal division into multiple specialisations. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Qualitative method was dominant in early German sociology and the Chicago School until the 1930s and then disappeared, pushed out precisely as the social sciences reasserted their claim to be scientific. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The qualitative approach returned forcefully from the 1980s and now offers considerable prospects for enriching research. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The German romantic-hermeneutic tradition reversed the demarcation, bringing the social sciences (as sciences of the mind) closer to the humanities rather than to the hard sciences. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. In the American tradition, the Chicago School's promotion of qualitative method served to humanise the social sciences. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The study of art exposes the symmetric limits of both camps: the social scientist's external gaze is too detached from the work of art, while the humanist's internal gaze does not distance itself enough from it. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Disciplinary dissociation did earn the separate sciences recognition, but its cost was an illusory and impoverishing wall between the social sciences and the humanities. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The paper's own position is that inter-disciplinary differences of theme, theory and method remain meaningful and even productive so long as they are not treated as essential. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. STEM STEM Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. policy sciences policy sciences Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.

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