It was a sumptuous intellectual dinner on 19th June, evening in ICS (IISc), Bangalore. Anoop Dhar (CSCS) proposed some models by which different disciplines could engage in academics, the thrust being the integration of natural sciences with social science and humanities.
The idea was radically challenged by Rajan Gurukkal, the VC of Calicut University for want of an epistemological position and a definite stand point in the critical approach.
The pivotal points in question were
1. Why do you need an integrated approach
2. Is it possible to have such an approach
3. How can we do it
To my mind an integrated understanding of realities is a dream of everyone. How wonderful it will be to be a poet to look at the moon with its silver blanket on the sleeping beauty, while being a geography specialist to forecast the time of the tides and an astrophysicist to know the contours and compositions of the same moon.
But looking at the structure of higher education that I am familiar with, it is a process of specialisation. Specialisation is the process of knowing more and more about less and less things. So the way a biochemist looks at a beauty lotion, a beautician cannot. They have different understandings of the lotion. One knows only little, about the aroma and its physical effects while the other knows only a little of its chemical composition. But in the little that they know they are experts. This is what specialisation is about. Is anything wrong in this partial knowledge?
Well, the debate was all about falsifying the idea of specialisation although no one put in these unambiguous terms. But is it possible for the same person to be expert in the same way from all perspectives? The point I am making is, in academics we have a broad spectrum of subjects until the undergraduate level. At the level of post graduation and research you start specializing to go deeper into a subject matter. If eclectic approaches are continued in Masters Level you turn out to be jack of all trades and masters of none. Remember you wanted to do Masters and you turn out not as master but a novice in many things. What this master is then expected to contribute to the society or in the institution one is expected to work?
We need people who specialise and farther the limits of knowledge in the field that they are concentrating in. It is not necessary that everyone should be aware of everything in the world. That a natural scientist should know humanities is so childish an argument. That they be aware of other perspectives in the research is an additional achievement not a basic one.
Did I divert from Inter-disciplinarity debate? Oh I think so. So did I think of the debate in ICS (IISc). In the interdisciplinarity approach everyone in research is not engaged in approaching the subject matter from all perspectives. It is a collective approach in which different aspects are researched by people from humanities social sciences and natural sciences. But this essential debate of collective research was hijacked by the discussion on natural science and social science hierarchy and positioning in the priority list.
People who switch over from one discipline to another should not be proposed as paradigms for eclectic approaches to specialisation. My point is, does anyone still practice the old trade after he or she has switched over to the new terra of knowledge? I believe not. If s/he does not then it is not an eclectic approach but still a singular approach.
My argument comes from the practical point of view that we actually do not have people who practice natural sciences and social sciences with the same passion in spite of the rhetoric that it is possible. And making structures to enforce such medley approaches will dissipate the investigative rigour and incision.
My second argument comes from the futility of this extreme individualism. What prevents the one who is seeking an eclectic understanding of issues studying literature on the same topic from different disciplines? I find no problem in gathering information from different disciplines on the same topic. Why is then this insistence that even academic engagement on a topic should be eclectic? I fail to find the reason.
It is one thing to have researches done from different perspectives and discipline areas. They may contribute to the growth of these disciplines. Only a few can in fact deal with such trans-disciplinary mode of research. Let the specialisation go on, lest we wet-blanket further growth in the fields producing only sterile knowledge. Let those who are into trans-disciplinary researches do that. Why make norms of exceptions?
The idea was radically challenged by Rajan Gurukkal, the VC of Calicut University for want of an epistemological position and a definite stand point in the critical approach.
The pivotal points in question were
1. Why do you need an integrated approach
2. Is it possible to have such an approach
3. How can we do it
To my mind an integrated understanding of realities is a dream of everyone. How wonderful it will be to be a poet to look at the moon with its silver blanket on the sleeping beauty, while being a geography specialist to forecast the time of the tides and an astrophysicist to know the contours and compositions of the same moon.
But looking at the structure of higher education that I am familiar with, it is a process of specialisation. Specialisation is the process of knowing more and more about less and less things. So the way a biochemist looks at a beauty lotion, a beautician cannot. They have different understandings of the lotion. One knows only little, about the aroma and its physical effects while the other knows only a little of its chemical composition. But in the little that they know they are experts. This is what specialisation is about. Is anything wrong in this partial knowledge?
Well, the debate was all about falsifying the idea of specialisation although no one put in these unambiguous terms. But is it possible for the same person to be expert in the same way from all perspectives? The point I am making is, in academics we have a broad spectrum of subjects until the undergraduate level. At the level of post graduation and research you start specializing to go deeper into a subject matter. If eclectic approaches are continued in Masters Level you turn out to be jack of all trades and masters of none. Remember you wanted to do Masters and you turn out not as master but a novice in many things. What this master is then expected to contribute to the society or in the institution one is expected to work?
We need people who specialise and farther the limits of knowledge in the field that they are concentrating in. It is not necessary that everyone should be aware of everything in the world. That a natural scientist should know humanities is so childish an argument. That they be aware of other perspectives in the research is an additional achievement not a basic one.
Did I divert from Inter-disciplinarity debate? Oh I think so. So did I think of the debate in ICS (IISc). In the interdisciplinarity approach everyone in research is not engaged in approaching the subject matter from all perspectives. It is a collective approach in which different aspects are researched by people from humanities social sciences and natural sciences. But this essential debate of collective research was hijacked by the discussion on natural science and social science hierarchy and positioning in the priority list.
People who switch over from one discipline to another should not be proposed as paradigms for eclectic approaches to specialisation. My point is, does anyone still practice the old trade after he or she has switched over to the new terra of knowledge? I believe not. If s/he does not then it is not an eclectic approach but still a singular approach.
My argument comes from the practical point of view that we actually do not have people who practice natural sciences and social sciences with the same passion in spite of the rhetoric that it is possible. And making structures to enforce such medley approaches will dissipate the investigative rigour and incision.
My second argument comes from the futility of this extreme individualism. What prevents the one who is seeking an eclectic understanding of issues studying literature on the same topic from different disciplines? I find no problem in gathering information from different disciplines on the same topic. Why is then this insistence that even academic engagement on a topic should be eclectic? I fail to find the reason.
It is one thing to have researches done from different perspectives and discipline areas. They may contribute to the growth of these disciplines. Only a few can in fact deal with such trans-disciplinary mode of research. Let the specialisation go on, lest we wet-blanket further growth in the fields producing only sterile knowledge. Let those who are into trans-disciplinary researches do that. Why make norms of exceptions?
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thanks
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