Bridging Gaps Between Sciences
In Europe, the phenomenon of extreme specialization of science occurred in the 20th century. This phenomenon was very well portrayed by CP Snow,
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has appealed to campus authorities not to fence off students with too many study programs.
President Jokowi's appeal, which was conveyed when attending a state university’s celebration on Monday (17/1/2022), is in line with the government’s policy of Merdeka Belajar-Kampus Merdeka (freedom to learn, independent campus) as promoted by the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry (Kemendikbudristek).
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Jokowi's statement can be seen as a response to two things, first to the specialization of science that is too extreme and second to the contemporary situation, in which problems require not only multidisciplinary solutions, but also interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary solutions.
Two cultures
In Europe, the phenomenon of extreme specialization of science occurred in the 20th century. This phenomenon was very well portrayed by CP Snow, a scientist and writer from England. In his lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge, Snow (1959) described the intellectual life of Western society as divided between sciences and humanities. He referred to it as the phenomenon of "Two Cultures".
Snow experienced firsthand how wide the gulf between these two kinds of intellectual life was. As a scientist as well as humanist (writer), he had to go back and forth between the two as if he were wading across an ocean. He engaged with his colleagues from the scientific community during the day and met his fellow writers at night. Neither of Snow's two groups of friends knew each other.
In fact, Snow said in his speech, not only did they not know each other, but there was enmity and hatred “sometimes (especially those among young fellow scientists and humanists).” People from the science circle considered humanities people to be unscientific, political, pessimistic about scientific progress, and to have gloomy views while humanities people saw scientists as being overly optimistic and showing incredulity at the human condition.
Seeing the gulf between the two disciplines of science wide enough to create suspicion, stigma and even animosity, Snow tried to build a bridge that allowed people from the two fields to engage with each other, understand each other and have dialogue with each other.
What Snow did should also be done by educated people in Indonesia, given the fact that we still see the phenomenon of Two Cultures in the intellectual life of the educated Indonesians as happened in Europe a century ago. People with a background in physics or the exact sciences are incredulous about issues related to humanities. They do not want to know or read literature, at the least. Likewise, people from the humanities field are rarely willing to follow and be appreciative of what scientists are trying to do.
Finally, the two groups from these two science disciplines tend to be engrossed in their respective fields of sciences. The latest example that we can see firsthand is how they responded to the rain master's action for the Mandalika MotoGP event on Sunday (20/3/2022).
People from science backgrounds tended to have a negative attitude toward the action and considered it occult, mystical and unscientific. From their point of view, the action was indeed unscientific, so it is natural for scientists to be completely unsympathetic.
On the other hand, people from a humanities background tended to be more sympathetic and appreciative of the rain master and regarded their colleagues from science as having a positivistic view. From the humanists’ point of view, a rain-shunning ritual cannot be judged solely on scientific or unscientific matters. Apart from scientific/unscientific matters, rain mastering ritual carries anthropological and sociological issues that cannot be defied, for example, regarding the inheritance of local knowledge, respect for ancestors and livelihoods.
In the reverse, they are conditioned to only focus on their own scientific fields without feeling the need to care about humanities issues.
The tendency to speak in isolation from the point of view of their respective scientific fields seems to have developed since university. Social-humanities students are conditioned to only focus on their own fields without having to know or have a dialogue about the development of physics and exact sciences. In the reverse, they are conditioned to only focus on their own scientific fields without feeling the need to care about humanities issues.
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Such circumstances eventually create graduates who “wear horse blinkers” with a naivety and narrow mind. They tend to become people who are not accommodative to different points of view and prone to being polarized by differences. This is what President Jokowi and the education minister are trying to respond to.
Friend of sciences
President Jokowi's call for freedom to learn is the government's goodwill to moderate the extreme specialization of science. However, to achieve the goal, it is not enough with goodwill. We also need a good and right way.
Breaking down fences in the scientific field, apart from being able to neutralize extreme specialization, may also give birth to negative excesses in the form of what Tom Nichols (2017) referred to as the "death of expertise". Having attended an introductory macroeconomics course, for example, a nuclear engineering graduate might fall to over self-confidence to speak about the economic crisis during the pandemic.
Or a psychology graduate who, because during college he took a course in the biology study program, might feel he or she has the authority to comment on the transmission of the virus. Worse it might be, if the public just believe in such people.
How to avoid that negative excess? One—or perhaps the only—way is to involve a very old field, namely philosophy. However, this is not an offer of instants solutions. It requires efforts to reposition philosophy itself in relation to other scientific fields.
Probably being not as expert as they see themselves, they underestimate other fields of science they consider only derivatives of philosophy.
Among the aspirants of philosophy, there is a "dogma" that is always repeated with a boast that philosophy is the mother of all sciences. With this “dogma”, philosophy proponents often feel boastful considering the field they take up is at the top of the scientific pyramid. Such an attitude often keeps philosophy proponents busy with big claims. Probably being not as expert as they see themselves, they underestimate other fields of science they consider only derivatives of philosophy.
Therefore, in order to get rid of this priding attitude, we need to reposition philosophy. Philosophy should no longer be understood as "the mother of all sciences", but "a friend of the sciences".
As “a friend”, philosophy should not look down on other fields of science. It should be willing to listen to what its “friends” have discovered, studied and debated. And as the oldest among them, philosophy has a responsibility to serve as a “bridging mediator”.
If there is a conflict between two scientific fields, philosophy has a responsibility to listen to both and then try to create a dialogue in order to draw a common ground, as cited by Walter Veit and Milan Ney in their article titled “Metaphor in Arts and Science” (2021).
Scientists generally view scientific work only in terms of epistemic value (what is true?), while art humanists generally view artistic work as only in terms of aesthetic value (what is seen as being beautiful/gorgeous/elegant evokes an aesthetic experience). In some ways, aestheticism sometimes contradicts scientific truth so that it is difficult for art to get along with science. Veit and Ney, who are both philosophical academics, sought to bridge these two seemingly incompatible fields.
For them, the common ground for art and science is metaphor. In art, metaphor not only has aesthetic, but also epistemic functions. Likewise in science, metaphor not only has epistemic, but also aesthetic functions. That is the function of philosophy as “a friend” of sciences: listening and studying the problems of other sciences to open up the possibility of inter-scientific dialogue.
However, among people who are engaged in non-philosophy, especially exact sciences, philosophy looks like an old, outdated car. They think that philosophy is no longer needed to develop their scientific field.
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They see philosophy is insistent with its boastfulness. Therefore, in order to moderate the extreme specialization of science without the excess of “death of expertise”, it is necessary to have a new policy regarding the educational curriculum in higher education by seriously considering the role of philosophy. In every scientific field, it is necessary to teach philosophy about related sciences, for example, the philosophy of biology, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, and so forth.
These philosophies about certain fields of science will enable students and lecturers of related sciences to have dialogue and find common ground with other relevant sciences (e.g. biology and psychology). Why go through philosophy? Because only philosophy is methodologically potential embrace a wide range of disciplines. Through this philosophical repositioning, a bridging science will have been formed.
Siti Murtiningsih
Siti Murtiningsih, Dean of School of Philosophy, Gadjah Mada University
(This article was translated by Musthofid)
