Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinarity, psychology, neuroscience and philosophy

Interdisciplinarity is crucial for psychology, neurosciences, and philosophy, yet it is too often overlooked. Psychology, and also neuroscience when it deals with cognitions and affects, unlike physics or biology, often deals with everyday words that have been shaped in the crucible of our human conditions, while sciences like physics refer to atoms, protons, or quasars, concepts forged or coopted to refer to precise and well-defined objects. Psychology, and some part of neuroscience, on the other hand, tackles phenomena such as consciousness, memory, happiness, or emotions. These concepts derive their meaning from our daily life and refer directly to lived experiences, and oftentimes carry existential weights. For example, Ned Block famously argued that consciousness is a “mongrel concept,” because there are several very different types of “consciousness,” lumped in a single concept, which had caused the field of consciousness to be confusing. What exactly characterizes a mongrel concept, according to Block, is that its elements have no scientific unity and that they promote conflation.

And it is typically one of the problems we often face in psychology, and also in neuroscience, is that concepts are frequently approached naively, with significant bias or presuppositions about what they actually refer to, and without a clear idea that they are actually mongrel concepts.

I have often witnessed neuroscientists or psychologists debating a particular scientific point during conferences, for example on pleasure or happiness, without realizing that they were actually talking about very different things.

The concept of happiness or well-being illustrates this phenomenon well, as the sheer number of theories and measurement tools can make it difficult to navigate the field.

It is true we need more statisticians and experts in methodology to ensure that empirical studies in psychology and neuroscience follow best practices, helping to prevent future replication crises, such as those that have already occurred and still occur in social psychology, cancer biology, and sport sciences, as many replicability projects are demonstrating.

But it is also true we need philosophers, or at the very least conceptual experts, to ensure that fields of science dealing with these complex realities do not become overwhelmed with confusion and ad nauseam multiplication of instruments and tools.

— Joffrey Fuhrer