Henrik Thorén

Why resilience is unappealing to social science : Theoretical and empirical investigations of the scientific use of resilience

Pluralism drawing on core social scientific concepts would facilitate integrated sustainability research. Resilience is often promoted as a boundary concept to integrate the social and natural dimensions of sustainability. However, it is a troubled dialogue from which social scientists may feel detached. To explain this, we first scrutinize the meanings, attributes, and uses of resilience in ecology and elsewhere to construct a typology of definitions. Second, we analyze core concepts and principles in resilience theory that cause disciplinary tensions between the social and natural sciences (system ontology, system boundary, equilibria and thresholds, feedback mechanisms, self-organization, and function). Third, we provide empirical evidence of the asymmetry in the use of resilience theory in ecology and environmental sciences compared to five relevant social science disciplines. Fourth, we contrast the unification ambition in resilience theory with methodological pluralism. Throughout, we develop the argument that incommensurability and unification constrain the interdisciplinary dialogue, whereas pluralism drawing on core social scientific concepts would better facilitate integrated sustainability research.

Resilience as a Unifying Concept

In sustainability research and elsewhere, the notion of resilience is attracting growing interest and causing heated debate. Those focusing on resilience often emphasize its potential to bridge, integrate, and unify disciplines. This article attempts to evaluate these claims. Resilience is investigated as it appears in several fields, including materials science, psychology, ecology, and sustainability science. It is argued that two different concepts of resilience are in play: one local, the other global. The former refers to the ability to return to some reference state after a disturbance, the latter the maintenance of some property during a disturbance. An implication of this analysis is that the various uses of the resilience concept are more closely related than has been previously been suggested. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a preference towards using highly abstract versions of the concept. This explains the apparent context insensitivity of the concept, but presents a problem for those hoping to establish a research programme based on it.

A philosophical view on concepts in psychiatry

This essay first outlines a philosophical theory of concepts and then applies it to two areas of relevance to psychiatrists, especially forensic psychiatrists. In the philosophical theory, the respective roles of verbal and non-verbal definitions are illuminated, and the importance of the phenomenon of division of semantic labour is stressed. It is pointed out that vagueness and ambiguity of a term often result when the term is used for several practical purposes at the same time. Such multi-purpose uses of terms may explain both the current problems associated with the Swedish forensic-psychiatric concept of a severe mental disorder and some of the shortcomings of DSM-IV.

Is resilience a normative concept

Abstract In this paper, we engage with the question of the normative content of the resilience concept. The issues are approached in two consecutive steps. First, we proceed from a narrow construal of the resilience concept – as the ability of a system to absorb a disturbance – and show that under an analysis of normative concepts as evaluative concepts resilience comes out as descriptive. In the second part of the paper, we argue that (1) for systems of interest (primarily social systems or system with a social component) we seem to have options with respect to how they are described and (2) that this matters for what is to be taken as a sign of resilience as opposed to a sign of the lack of resilience for such systems. We discuss the implications of this for how the concept should be applied in practice and suggest that users of the resilience concept face a choice between versions of the concept that are either ontologically or normatively charged.

The interdisciplinary decision problem : Popperian optimism and Kuhnian pessimism in forestry

Interdisciplinary research in the fields of forestry and sustainability studies often encounters seemingly incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The perceived incompatibilities might emerge from the epistemological and ontological claims of the theories or models directly employed in the interdisciplinary collaboration, or they might be created by other epistemological and ontological assumptions that these interdisciplinary researchers find no reason to question. In this paper we discuss the benefits and risks of two possible approaches, Popperian optimism and Kuhnian pessimism, to interdisciplinary knowledge integration where epistemological and ontological differences between the sciences involved can be expected.

Resilience: Some Philosophical Remarks on Defining Ostensively and Stipulatively

Abstract The notion of resilience has become widely diffused in sustainability research over the past two decades. This process has not unfolded without contention and critique of the concept has often focused on its content. In this article, we discuss how concepts, including resilience, come to be defined in scientific terms. We distinguish between ostensively defined concepts that point to some phenomena and stipulatively defined concepts where the content is given in the definition itself. We argue that although definitions are remarkably similar across many disciplines where resilience is used—most notably psychology and ecology—they may nonetheless differ in whether they are to be taken as stipulative or ostensive. This situation has interesting consequences for the ways in which different disciplines can be connected and integrated. It is notable that integration on the basis of ostensive definition turns on sharing the extension (the phenomena itself) of the concept, but not necessarily the intension (the definition), whereas integration on the basis of stipulatively defined concepts works in the opposite way.

History and Philosophy of Science as an Interdisciplinary Field of Problem Transfers

The extensive discussions of the relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of science in the mid-20th century provide a long history of grappling with the relevance of empirical research on the practices of science to the philosophical analysis of science. Further, those discussions also touched upon the issue of importing empirical methods into the philosophy of science through the creation of an interdisciplinary field, namely, the history and philosophy of science. In this paper we return to Giere (1973) and his claim that history of science as a discipline cannot contribute to philosophy of science by providing, partial or whole, solutions to philosophical problems. Does this imply that there can be no genuine interdisciplinarity between the two disciplines? In answering this question it is first suggested that connections between disciplines can be formed around the transfer and sharing of problems (as well as solutions); and that this is a viable alternative for how to understand the relationship between history and philosophy of science. Next we argue that this alternative is sufficient for establishing a genuine form of interdisciplinarity between them. An example is presented—Darden’s (1991) book on theory change—that shows how philosophy of science can rely on history of science in this way.