Addressing Cognitive Hurdles to Interdisciplinarity in Natural and Engineering Science : Joining Forces of Philosophical Reflection and Semantic Networks

This thesis deals with cognitive hurdles to interdisciplinarity in the natural and engineering sciences. Due to the high degree of specialisation, interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists is very difficult. Specifically, scientists striving for interdisciplinarity face intellectual and technical cognitive, conceptual and methodological hurdles jointly referred to as ‘cognitive hurdles’. The main research question is how philosophical reflection and semantic networks, also known as knowledge graphs, can aid natural and engineering scientists in overcoming cognitive hurdles to interdisciplinary research which arise due to their disciplinary perspective. The major conclusion from this philosophical thesis is that semantic networks – if combined with philosophical reflection – can contribute substantially to overcoming cognitive hurdles to interdisciplinarity. Specifically, three out of four cognitive hurdles identified in the literature, namely opacity of domain-specific practices to outsiders, conceptual and methodological divides, and conflicts over epistemic values. Unfortunately, problem-solving environments will always remain a bit unstructured because novel methodologies and approaches are being tested. Therefore, this fourth hurdle will not be overcome with philosophical reflection and semantic networks.