Dyscyplina naukowa i tożsamość naukowca
The Scientific Discipline and the Scientist’s Identity

Author(s): Zbyszko Melosik
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Education, Higher Education
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: scientist; academic discipline; university; identity; humanities
Summary/Abstract: The book The Scientific Discipline and the Scientist’s Identity represents another outcome of the author's research interests at the university. The author focuses his attention on disciplines and disciplinarity, in very broad contexts. The book consists of two parts. Part One is devoted to the following issues: the role of disciplines in the structure of science and the university, essentialist and constructivist approaches to disciplines, dimensions of disciplinary territoriality, disciplinary identifications and socialization into disciplines, the status of the scientist within disciplines and its sources, the division and hierarchization of disciplines, interdisciplinarity, the humanities vs. exact and natural sciences, the book in the humanities and social sciences, the consequences of the digitisation of scientific books, English as the language of global science, the confrontation of paradigms in contemporary science, footnotes and the practice of science. Part Two of the book discusses discipline-related case studies: the glory and decline of astrology and alchemy, the pseudoscience of Lysenkoism, the status and aesthetics of mathematics, the controversy over the disciplinary status of pedagogy and criminology, economic imperialism, and masculinity and femininity in physics. The author's analysis and interpretations allow us to conclude that the thesis of a crisis or decline in the importance of disciplines is not justified; they still play a decisive role in the organisation of modern science, the university and the academic community. They also constitute an extremely important source for shaping the identity of scientists.

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