Rick Szostak

Classification, interdisciplinarity, and the study of science

Purpose – This paper aims to respond to the 2005 paper by Hjorland and Nissen Pedersen by suggesting that an exhaustive and universal classification of the phenomena that scholars study, and the methods and theories they apply, is feasible. It seeks to argue that such a classification is critical for interdisciplinary scholarship.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a literature‐based conceptual analysis, taking Hjorland and Nissen Pedersen as its starting point. Hjorland and Nissen Pedersen had identified several difficulties that would be encountered in developing such a classification; the paper suggests how each of these can be overcome. It also urges a deductive approach as complementary to the inductive approach recommended by Hjorland and Nissen Pedersen.Findings – The paper finds that an exhaustive and universal classification of scholarly documents in terms of (at least) the phenomena that scholars study, and the theories and methods they apply, appears to be both possible and desirab...

HOW AND WHY TO TEACH INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PRACTICE

This article addresses the interrelated questions of why it is important to teach students about the nature of interdisciplinarity and how this material might be best communicated to students. It is important to define for students what is meant by disciplines and interdisciplinarity. Having distinguished interdisciplinarity from the disciplinary approach, the advantages and disadvantages of each can be discussed. It is useful to discuss the history of both disciplines and interdisciplinarity. It is also useful to discuss the complex relationship between interdisciplinarity and other intellectual currents: postmodernism, unity of science, complexity analysis, feminism, and others. Critically, students should be guided as to how interdisciplinary research might be best performed. Some potential objections to teaching interdisciplinary research practice are addressed.

How to Do Interdisciplinarity: Integrating the Debate

This paper develops a twelve-step process for interdisciplinary research. While indi- vidual researchers cannot be expected to follow all of these steps in every research project, the process alerts them to the dangers of omitting steps. Moreover, communities of interdisciplinary researchers should ensure that all steps are followed. The process draws upon earlier efforts by William (Bill) Newell and Julie Thompson Klein. It also draws inductively upon the debate concerning Newells theory of interdisciplinarity in the last issue of this journal; all of the con- cerns raised during that debate find a place in this process. Finally, the paper illustrates how several classifications developed by the author facilitate interdisciplinary research.

Complex concepts into basic concepts

Interdisciplinary communication, and thus the rate of progress in scholarly understanding, would be greatly enhanced if scholars had access to a universal classification of documents or ideas not grounded in particular disciplines or cultures. Such a classification is feasible if complex concepts can be understood as some combination of more basic concepts. There appear to be five main types of concept theory in the philosophical literature. Each provides some support for the idea of breaking complex into basic concepts that can be understood across disciplines or cultures, but each has detractors. None of these criticisms represents a substantive obstacle to breaking complex concepts into basic concepts within information science. Can we take the subject entries in existing universal but discipline-based classifications, and break these into a set of more basic concepts that can be applied across disciplinary classes? The author performs this sort of analysis for Dewey classes 300 to 339.9. This analysis will serve to identify the sort of ‘basic concepts’ that would lie at the heart of a truly universal classification. There are two key types of basic concept: the things we study (individuals, rocks, trees), and the relationships among these (talking, moving, paying).

The Causes of Economic Growth

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The organization of work: The emergence of the factory revisited

price are net prices, subject to local VAT. Prices indicated with * include VAT for books; the €(D) includes 7% for Germany, the €(A) includes 10% for Austria. Prices indicated with ** include VAT for electronic products; 19% for Germany, 20% for Austria. All prices exclusive of carriage charges. Prices and other details are subject to change without notice. All errors and omissions excepted. R. Szostak The Causes of Economic Growth

Toward a Unified Human Science

Abstract O.E. Williamson has claimed that, given identical technologies, the factory was more efficient than the putting-out system. S.R.H. Jones has argued that the emergence of factories in the Industrial Revolution was a response to the requirements of new technology. This paper challenges both views. Most of the earliest factories utilized the same technology employed in cottages. Factories had not always been more efficient but only became so in the mid-eighteenth century as a result of various earlier improvements to the English transport system.

The origins of railway enterprise : the Stockton and Darlington Railway, 1821-1863

Abstract: An organizing schema for human science is constructed, which consists of a hierarchicallist of the phenomena of interest to human scientists, and the causal links (influences) amongthese phenomena. Such a schema has been suggested by previous scholars but never constructed.The schema can be justified in terms of both realist philosophy and (much) postmodern thought.It serves the task of interdisciplinarity much better than grand theory. The schema can encouragea broader world view among scholars and a more balanced scholarly effort, improve publicpolicy advice, aid both integration and skill acquisition by students, provide answers to manymodern critiques of liberal arts education, and facilitate curricular change. I. Introduction MAGINE THE DIFFICULTY of teaching a course in North Americangeography without recourse to maps. A lecture or two could be devoted toeach of the major regions of the continent and the students told where eachwas located with reference to a couple of other regions (e.g., the Great Lakeslie to the northwest of the Appalachians and south of the Canadian Shield).On the final exam, you ask the students to describe how to get from Chicagoto the ocean and are disappointed when some of them wind up in Canada. Ifonly they had a map from the outset, they would have found it so much easierto see how each topic in the course related to the others. Interdisciplinary scholars have done much in recent decades to break downbarriers among the disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences andhumanities (hereafter human science). It is now widely recognized that noone discipline has all the answers to pressing public policy problems. Yet, inour efforts, both to research cross-disciplinary interactions and to teach ourstudents about interdisciplinary linkages, we lack a cognitive map, whichdescribes how the subject matter of human science fits together. Like the

Evaluating the historiography of the Great Depression: explanation or single-theory driven?

List of illustrations List of maps and plans List of tables Acknowledgements 1. The Stockton and Darlington Railway in economic and business history 2. The prelude to railways 3. The foundation of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, 1818-1825 4. Hopes fulfilled, 1825-1833 5. Growth and competition, 1834-1847 6. Crisis, 1847-1850 7. The mature company, 1850-1863 Epilogue Appendices Notes Bibliography Index.

A Pluralistic Approach to the Philosophy of Classification

Following James Rule and Colin Clark, a single‐theory‐driven approach to scientific inquiry which focuses on testing particular theories can be distinguished from an explanation‐driven approach which is open to all observations and whose results do not cease to have value with the passing of a particular theory. Several ‘decision points’ in the historiography of the Great Depression are examined and it is shown that the decisions made at each point reflect a single‐theory‐driven orientation. It is argued that the single‐theory‐driven approach likely characterizes other fields of Economics, and also that this papers method of applying a ‘test’ to various decision points in the evolution of economic thought is of widespread utility. The likely cost of a single‐theory‐driven bias in terms of our collective understanding is discussed.