Síntomas e implicaciones de la necesidad de legitimación científica en las ciencias sociales: Hiperespecialización e incremento de los espacios «NO MAN’S LAND»
- Autores: Irene Parrilla Vallespín
- Localización: Empiria: Revista de metodología de ciencias sociales, ISSN 1139-5737, Nº 54, 2022, págs. 169-196
- Idioma: español
- Enlaces
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Resumen
- español
Desde mediados del siglo XX el campo científico de las ciencias sociales viene experimentando transformaciones en la trayectoria de su institucionalización, ya que la tendencia a la reducción del número de categorías disciplinarias que desde 1850 se venía identificando, fue invertida tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial mediante un constante incremento de nombres. Empero, dicha multiplicación no parece haber estado desarrollándose de manera proporcional a la necesaria comunicación que debiera haber entre ellas, sugiriendo tal fenómeno una propensión de las ciencias sociales modernas a la hiperespecialización de sus materias y, por ende, al incremento y expansión de los vacíos entre sus campos afines (también llamados aquí «espacios No man’s land»). Por ello, en razón de que dicha circunstancia parece estar constituyendo un bloqueo en la capacidad explicativa del campo y de que su estudio puede coadyuvar a su desobstrucción, se ha centrado la presente investigación en aportar una mirada micro y macro de la disciplina a través del abordaje de las distintas fases mediante las cuales esta se desarrolla, por un lado; y a partir de la identificación de los condicionamientos socioculturales a los que esta está expuesta, por otro. Del análisis de estas cuestiones se han obtenido dos aspectos que parecen caracterizar la producción del conocimiento en las ciencias sociales modernas, los cuales son: a) la existencia de un mayor riesgo de obstrucción en la construcción disciplinaria tras la fase de especialización —en razón de que es en dicho momento cuando la actividad investigativa tiende a ser más proclive a quedar atrapada en la hiperespecialización—, y b) la tendencia a una mayor valoración, por su aplicabilidad a los intereses sociales, de los atributos nomotéticos frente a los idiográficos —cuya reproducción en el conocimiento se produce a través de mecanismos de legitimación—; pudiendo extraerse de dichos resultados lo que parece ser una relación causal entre la tendencia nomotética de la actual hiperespecialización, el incremento de los vacíos idiográficos entre campos afines y la necesidad de legitimación de las teorías en el universo simbólico contemporáneo.
Since the mid-twentieth century, the scientific field of social sciences has been transforming the trajectory of its institutionalization. This is because the trend towards reducing the number of disciplinary categories that had been identified since 1850 was reversed after the Second World War through a steady increase in names. However, such multiplication does not seem to have been developed proportionally to the necessary communication that should exist between them; suggesting a propensity of modern social sciences to hyper-specialize its subjects and therefore, to increase and extend the gaps between their related fields (also called here “No man’s land” spaces). This circumstance seems to be constituting a blockage in the field’s explanatory capacity, and studying it can contribute to unblocking it. Thus, the present research has focused on providing a micro and macro view of the discipline, on the one hand describing different phases through which it is developed and, on the other hand, by identifying the sociocultural conditioning to which it is exposed. From the analysis of these questions, two aspects have been obtained that seem to characterize the production of knowledge in modern social sciences, which are: a.) the existence of a higher risk of obstruction in the disciplinary construction after the specialization phase- because it is when research activity tends to be more likely to be trapped in hyperspecialization-, and b.) the tendency towards a greater appreciation due to its applicability to social interests of nomothetic attributes as opposed to idiographic ones-whose reproduction in knowledge is produced through mechanisms of legitimization. From these results, we can extract what seems to be a causal relationship between the nomothetic tendency of the current hyperspecialization, the increase of idiographic gaps between related fields, and the need for the legitimization of the theories in the contemporary symbolic universe.
- English
Since the mid-twentieth century, the scientific field of social sciences has been transforming the trajectory of its institutionalization. This is because the trend towards reducing the number of disciplinary categories that had been identified since 1850 was reversed after the Second World War through a steady increase in names. However, such multiplication does not seem to have been developed proportionally to the necessary communication that should exist between them; suggesting a propensity of modern social sciences to hyper-specialize its subjects and therefore, to increase and extend the gaps between their related fields (also called here “No man’s land” spaces). This circumstance seems to be constituting a blockage in the field’s explanatory capacity, and studying it can contribute to unblocking it. Thus, the present research has focused on providing a micro and macro view of the discipline, on the one hand describing different phases through which it is developed and, on the other hand, by identifying the sociocultural conditioning to which it is exposed. From the analysis of these questions, two aspects have been obtained that seem to characterize the production of knowledge in modern social sciences, which are: a.) the existence of a higher risk of obstruction in the disciplinary construction after the specialization phase- because it is when research activity tends to be more likely to be trapped in hyperspecialization-, and b.) the tendency towards a greater appreciation due to its applicability to social interests of nomothetic attributes as opposed to idiographic ones-whose reproduction in knowledge is produced through mechanisms of legitimization. From these results, we can extract what seems to be a causal relationship between the nomothetic tendency of the current hyperspecialization, the increase of idiographic gaps between related fields, and the need for the legitimization of the theories in the contemporary symbolic universe.
- español
