Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung

Philosophy can play a special role in interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly when the discipline with which it collaborates is itself the subject of its reflection. In an article that has just been published in “Humanities & Social Sciences Communications”, Professor Dr. Marie I. Kaiser, a philosopher from Bielefeld University and director of ZiF, reports on such a project: As part of the Joint Institute for Individualization in Changing Environments (JICE) at the Universities of Bielefeld and Münster, empirical biologists are collaborating with philosophers of biology to better understand individual differences in the animal kingdom, how they arise, and what their consequences are. The researchers describe this collaboration as a special form of interdisciplinarity which they call “reflective interdisciplinarity.” Interdisciplinarity is not merely a matter of synthesis but at time a mode of inquiry in its own right, the authors write. To do philosophy in this context means to be an active participant in interdisciplinary knowledge production. We asked Marie I. Kaiser about this form of interdisciplinarity, its advantages and challenges.

Publication: Kaiser, M.I., Killin, A., Caspers, B.A. et al. Reflective interdisciplinarity in practice: integrating biology and philosophy in studies of individualization. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 13, 1247 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-08458-4 

Philosopher Professor Marie I. Kaiser is a director at ZiF 

What is reflective interdisciplinarity?
Marie I. Kaiser: Reflective interdisciplinarity is a sort of interdisciplinary collaboration where one discipline (e.g., biology) collaborates with a discipline that reflects on it (e.g. philosophy of biology). Reflective interdisciplinarity can involve deep, joint inquiry, in which philosophers and biologists develop research questions, ideas, and knowledge together.

What challenges does the collaboration between philosophers and biologists present? 
Marie I. Kaiser: The main challenge is that the disciplines have different research questions, methods, standards, and ways of communicating. Philosophers tend to emphasize conceptual clarity, abstraction, formal definitions, and critical argumentation, whereas biologists tend to emphasize empirical evidence, concrete examples, and more moderate forms of argumentation. This can create tensions, for example when a philosopher’s strongly critical formulation is inappropriate for a biology audience. The collaborators therefore have to find common ground while preserving and valuing disciplinary differences.

What are the main insights from your case study? 
Marie I. Kaiser: The case study shows that interdisciplinary integration can be much more than combining already-existing disciplinary knowledge. In the paper we distinguish two forms of knowledge integration: (1) Extant-knowledge integration: bringing together existing philosophical and biological research questions, methods, and findings. (2) Inquiry-embedded integration: philosophers and biologists jointly investigate shared questions and develop new knowledge through intensive discussion and collaboration. In the latter case, the researchers effectively form an “interdisciplinary epistemic plural subject”: they work together as a unit, with shared goals and mutual responsibility, and their collaboration can transform how a phenomenon is conceptualized. A further insight is that communication is part of the research process itself. The intended audience, writing style, figures, and ways of presenting an argument can influence which knowledge interdisciplinary research ultimately produces.

What are the lessons learned for future interdisciplinary research? 
Marie I. Kaiser: In general, we argue that studying how interdisciplinarity works “in practice” can provide transferable guidance for designing and supporting future interdisciplinary research. The paper suggests four particularly important lessons: 
• Establish common ground: Develop shared questions, goals, assumptions, and a mutually comprehensible vocabulary. 
• Value disciplinary differences: Disciplinary differences are productive when they provide complementary expertise. 
• Cultivate openness, flexibility, and epistemic humility: Researchers should be willing to see problems from other disciplinary perspectives and recognize the limits of their own approach. 
• Invest in sustained collaboration: Productive interdisciplinarity requires intensive interaction and cannot always be achieved simply by combining finished disciplinary contributions.

On November 24, Marie I. Kaiser will give a talk in the lectures series "Interdisciplinarity in Scientific Research: Perspectives from Practice and Science Studies", organized by ISoS and ZiF.