Foundations of Interdisciplinarity: Historical, Conceptual, Methodological, and Political Notes

Abstract

The article analyzes the emergence and development of interdisciplinarity as a mode of organizing intellectual work from the early nineteenth century to the contemporary context of digital capitalism. The study begins with the consolidation of modern science and the establishment of the modern state university in order to understand how the relationships among the State, capital, and academia have shaped collaborative practices and reconfigured the production of knowledge. Throughout this historical trajectory, interdisciplinarity is examined not merely as an epistemological ideal but as a historical expression of the division and collectivization of scientific labor, characterized by tensions between autonomy and instrumentalization.

Since the nineteenth century, the intensification of industrialization policies and the emergence of the applied sciences fostered integrated forms of research subordinated to the demands of the State and capital. Scientific research increasingly came to be planned according to strategic and productive objectives, transforming it into a field of investment and control. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, several decisive turning points can be identified: state-sponsored research initiatives in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France; the development of industrial and financial capitalism; the Manhattan Project and its ethical and organizational implications; and, subsequently, the policies of UNESCO and the OECD, which institutionalized interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity as international guidelines for higher education and research. These milestones demonstrate how interdisciplinarity was appropriated as an instrument for the rationalization of scientific production, subjecting it to standards of efficiency, evaluation, and productivity.

In the second half of the twentieth century, academic productivism consolidated a logic of measurement and performance assessment in research, bringing it closer to corporate management practices and models of labor organization. This dynamic resulted in the standardization of scientific paradigms, the regulation of research time, and the reduction of researchers' autonomy. Interdisciplinarity, which originally sought to transcend disciplinary boundaries and promote cognitive integration, gradually became incorporated as a technique for innovation management, subordinated to performance metrics and funding policies.

The article also addresses the epistemological challenges involved in maintaining coherence and consistency among the disciplines engaged in interdisciplinary practices. The migration of concepts across different fields of knowledge, as well as the translation and adaptation of methods, generates theoretical conflicts and requires the continuous reassessment of the conceptual foundations of each discipline. Exchanges among the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts reveal both opportunities for intellectual advancement and tensions arising from the need to reconcile different models of knowledge.

The article concludes that interdisciplinarity, when grounded in ethical and dialogical principles, constitutes a necessary condition for addressing the cognitive and social complexity of the contemporary world. Nevertheless, its effectiveness depends upon the defense of university autonomy and academic freedom in the face of the expansion of the knowledge economy and the incorporation of the logics of exploitation and productive control into the very structure of the university. Resisting this process of subsumption is therefore essential to preserving the integrity of knowledge and the emancipatory role of science in society.