Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity: Jan Cornelius Schmidt's Critical-reflexive Problem-oriented Interdisciplinarity

Abstract

Philosophers were reluctant to address interdisciplinarity during the 20th century. But things have changed in the 21st century, since a two-level relationship between philosophy and interdisciplinarity has been established: philosophy of interdisciplinarity and philosophy as interdisciplinarity. Thus far scholars have shown more interest in exploring the first level of that relationship. The aim of this article is to closely examine the developmental path of a philosophy of interdisciplinarity envisioned and constructed by Jan Cornelius Schmidt in the past two decades. In our opinion, it has reached two milestones. The first (2008) being the one in which he clarified the vague notion of interdisciplinarity and classified its four types with the help of philosophy of science, and the second (2011) being the one in which he opted for problem-oriented interdisciplinarity. Schmidt’s philosophy of interdisciplinarity has reached its (current) peak (2022), resulting in a philosophical framework which promotes problemorientation and critical-reflexivity in interdisciplinary endeavors. Thereby Schmidt has created prerequisites for the construction of philosophy as interdisciplinarity.

Keywords

• philosophy of interdisciplinarity
• problem-oriented interdisciplinarity
• critical-reflexive interdisciplinarity
• jan cornelius schmidt