DISCIPLINOLOGY: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES

Abstract

Phylogenetic software and techniques from natural language processing can be applied to the analysis of the structure of academic disciplines. This is possible through a synchronic analysis based on comparisons of the conceptual apparatuses of disciplines, as they are represented in the terminological characteristics of representative discourses. This empirical approach enjoys a superior justificatory status to merely intuitive representations. Finally, this work helps place one of the oldest structuralist problems in the philosophy of science in the scientific context it deserves: ``How should we represent the relationship between disciplines?"