FRAGMENTATION OF THE SOCIAL-SCIENCES AND RECOMBINATION OF SPECIALITIES AROUND SOCIOLOGY

Progress in the social sciences is by way of growing specialization. which entails the fragmentation of formal disciplines. Specialities are recombined with the result that new hybrid fields come into being. Since it is not entire disciplines that are being crossed with each other. the concept of interdisciplinarity seems misleading. Scientific innovations generally occur at the intersections between specialities and hence the concept of paradigm, which is valid for the natural sciences, does not seem appropriate for the social sciences. This process is described for five traditional disciplines: history, geography, political science, sociology and economics. The social sciences produce hybrids. A varied and complex network of new mixed fields is thus established, with the result that the old world map of the formal sciences is becoming barely recognizable.