Interdisciplinary synthesis

One of the most significant features of scientific advance has been the gradual concrescence of previously distinct theories, methods, disciplines and cognitive modes. Proponents of the conception that the policy sciences should comprise a rationally structured supradiscipline rightly emphasize the desirability of accelerating this slow process of intellectual unification. However, this enterprise continues to be obstructed by failure to realize that interdisciplinary principles sufficient to generate a legitimate unification of scientific and humane concerns of the policy sciences can issue only from philosophical reconstruction. A normative (value-sensitive) mode of general systems analysis adequate to the demands of adaptive social-institutional systems must constitute an epochal modification of the conventional perspective of scientific inquiry.Under the assumption that the magnitude of the task will not dissuade us from the aim of establishing interdisciplinary principles, attention is concentrated here on a factorization of the specific metatheoretic projects that are thought to be entailed: (1) selection of primitive concepts and commitments of a system-theoretic mode of rational inquiry, and (2) institution of an attending set of rational canons for normative systems analysis.This article is based on material to be published in a forthcoming volume,Toward Revitalization of the Contemporary University: Essays Utilizing General Systems and Cybernetic Concepts to Reorient Universities for Greater Social and Human Relevance in the Modern World, edited by R. F. Ericson, Director, Interdisciplinary Systems and Cybernetics Project, Program of Policy Studies in Science and Technology, George Washington University (Gordon and Breach: New York, 1972). Material for this article derives from one element of a program of methodological research for management science conducted with support of The Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-70-C-0328, at Research Analysis Corporation, McLean, Virginia. The conclusions expressed, however, are those of the authors alone. They should not be interpreted as representing the official views of any supporting organization.