Epistemology and Metaphysics in Interdisciplinary Communication: Insights from Ian Barbour and Bernard Lonergan, SJ

Abstract

Interdisciplinary communication is a significant area of concern for researchers who engage in scholarship across academic fields as well as practitioners whose work is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Two twentieth century scholars, Ian Barbour and Bernard Lonergan, SJ, develop novel approaches to promoting interdisciplinary communication (and in some cases interdisciplinary "integration") by specifying a common metaphysical and epistemological framework for two very different fields. In this article, we concisely explicate their fundamental approaches and also critically engage particular aspects of their work. These philosophical approaches to interdisciplinary communication may be beneficial for both first-order cybernetics, with its emphasis on communication and control in biological and engineering systems, as well as second-order cybernetics, given its emphasis on epistemology, ethics, self-referentiality, and self-organization of socio-technical systems.

Keywords

• interdisciplinary communication
• theology and science
• bernard lonergan
• ian barbour
• metaphysics
• realism
• epistemology