Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Philosophy

Abstract

Many philosophers would, in theory, agree that the methods and tools of philosophy ought to be supplemented by those of other academic disciplines. In practice, however, the sociological data suggest that most philosophers fail to engage or collaborate with other academics, and this article argues that this is problematic for philosophy as a discipline. In relation to the value of interdisciplinary collaboration, the article highlights how experimental philosophers can benefit the field, but only insofar as they draw from the distinctive methods of philosophy and overcome the charge of “amateur psychology” by more consistently collaborating with the scientists they seek to emulate. It concludes that philosophers ought to collaborate with other academics in order to gain an experience‐based understanding of the methods of other disciplines in addition to an understanding of the content of these disciplines.

Moral education today: Ascendancy and fragmentation

“…Notably, many psychologists who either resent or remain agnostic about psychology's role in normative debates about moral educational topics will be sympathetic to psychology's role in helping explore people's conceptual understandings of moral terms-and they may even be open to ecumenical collaborations with philosophers in this area. They will be wary, however, of philosophers assuming the role of 'amateur experimentalists'-imitating badly what psychologists can do well (Higgins & Dyschkant, 2014).…”

Epistemic Authority in Nursing Practice vs. Doctors’ Orders

“…It is emulation of medicine. When two disciplines interface, it is recommended that they collaborate not emulate (Higgins & Dyschkant, 2014).…”

Measuring the isolation of research topics in philosophy

“…They remark (p. 65) that "it's almost as if philosophers have forgotten how to speak to people not just outside their discipline, but also outside their niche". Many others echo the claim that the root of the problems discussed above lies in the isolation of philosophical specialisms (Frodeman 2013;Cherry 2017;Higgins and Dyschkant 2014;Kitcher 2011). 1 Ladyman (2017), for example, complains that much work in contemporary metaphysics on a subject like time completely disregards physicists' work on this topic.…”

“…Various academic philosophers have recently expressed worries about the value of some of the current work in their discipline (e.g. Chalmers 2015;Higgins and Dyschkant 2014;Kitcher 2011). One major source of these worries is the seeming lack of progress philosophy has made.…”