Maria asked:

I have several questions: Is there really a philosophy behind the action of doing research? and if so
what kind of a philosophy would it be? Is research a solitary attitude, a need or a conviction? Can
research actually be shared with others, thus is interdisciplinary research really possible or is
meta-science only a myth?

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Certainly, there can be philosophy aboutthe action of doing research. Two books in particular come
to mind:

Feyerabend, in Against Method,attacks the notion of a 'scientific method' that can be stated in
general principles or rules, a method which if we follow it with care will lead us reliably to our goal.
Practical, real-life science throws rules and principles out the window. Habermas, in Knowledge and
Human Interestsargues against the 'disinterested' view of the researcher, which views human
knowledge in abstraction from its social context, and the uses to which knowledge is put. In both
cases, what is being radically questioned is Descartes' view of human knowledge as essentially the
achievement of a solitary subject, oblivious to everything except its own 'clear and distinct ideas'.

Philosophers in the analytic tradition — for example Michael Dummett in his seminal 1973 book
Frege: Philosophy of Language— have laid heavy stress on the way Wittgenstein's later work
displaced the theory of knowledge from the central place that it had occupied since Descartes. But it
is fair to say that the philosophy of science has been completely ignored in this over-simplified
picture. If I have to view myself as an agent in the world, rather than standing outside it, using
language, concepts which I share with others and which I could not have invented for myself, then
certain consequences for 'the activity of doing research' follow.

Philosophers of science still seem to be obsessed with the question of what is 'good' science or what
is 'bad' science, as if the scientific community were waiting for their pearls of advice, the stamp of
approval for their activities. More than anything, the philosophical injunction to 'know ourselves'
requires that we accept science and research as political and sociological phenomena. We play
games. Language games, certainly, but also the historical research game, the literary research game,
the chemistry research game. — The philosophy research game.

I had a teacher once at school who was working on his PhD thesis in Physical Chemistry. He was
trying to determine the melting point of a delicate crystalline substance, which required elaborate
vacuum apparatus and miles of glass tubing. It was his brick that he would one day lay, with great
ceremony, on the ever-rising edifice of science. It was also an exercise, to show that he knew how to
'do research'. Apart from occasional meetings with his thesis supervisor, however, he worked alone in
the odd hours in between classes. Was he doing research, as he thought? In a way, he wasn't.

Well, maybe you will disagree. If my teacher ever did succeed in determining the melting point of the
crystalline substance (I shall never know whether he did or not) then that was a potentially useful
result. But there was also something that he was not learning or practising: how to collaborate, how to
be part of a research team.

Potentially, all research is inter-disciplinary research. What I mean by that is that research, viewed as
a naturally collaborative enterprise, inevitably involves some form of division of labour. The various
members of the research team are not necessarily inter-changeable, they could not all do one
another's jobs. In that case, you will ask, how can they justify their actions in the face of criticisms
from their colleagues. How can I, the non-expert, pass judgements on you, the expert? — If you think
about it, the response to this is straight-forward. As a matter of fact, we do,all the time. That is what
you are doing now.

Geoffrey Klempner