Skip to main content

A Study of Integration: The Role of Sensus Communis in Integrating Disciplinary Knowledge

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Interdisciplinary Pedagogy for STEM
  • 739 Accesses

Abstract

Integration is an important notion for interdisciplinary studies. Achieving this shows that the interdisciplinary learner has successfully understood the commonalities among disciplines, as well as exercised crucial cognitive skills. This chapter attempts to elucidate how students integrated various disciplinary perspectives in the interdisciplinary course, Weird Science: Interpreting and Redefining Humanity. The study uses Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notion of the sensus communis to clarify how it was that students were processing and accomplishing the goal of integrating different disciplinary perspectives as evidenced in class observation, discussion, and especially student papers. The study demonstrates the ways in which common sense knowledge conditions and enables the integration process.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Andersen, Hanne, and Wagenknecht, Susann. 2013. “Epistemic Dependence in Interdisciplinary Groups.” Synthese 190 (11): 1881–1898.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bean, John C. 2001. Engaging Ideas. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dockhorn, Klaus. 1980. “Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ‘Truth and Method.” Translated by Marvin Brown. Philosophy & Rhetoric 13 (3): 160–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrara, Alessandro. 2008. “Does Kant Share Sancho’s Dream?: Judgment and Sensus Communis.Philosophy Social Criticism 34 (1–2): 65–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, Steve. 2013. “Deviant Interdisciplinarity as Philosophical Practice: Prolegomena to Deep Intellectual History.” Synthese 190 (11): 1899–1916.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1995. Truth and Method. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1980. Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato. Translated and edited by P. Christopher Smith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1976. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated and edited by David Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gueorguieva, Valentina. 2003. “Les deux faces du sens commun.” The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 40 (3): 249–256.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holbrook, J. Britt. 2013. “What is Interdisciplinary Communication? Reflections on the Very Idea of Disciplinary Integration.” Synthese 190: 1865–1879.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Julie Thompson. 1991. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. “Integrative Learning and Interdisciplinary Studies.” Journal of the AAC&U 7 (4): 8–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lattuca, Lisa R., Lois J. Voigt, and Kimberly Q. Fath. 2004. “Does Interdisciplinarity Promote Learning? Theoretical and Researchable Questions.” The Review of Higher Education 28 (1): 23–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newell, William. 2010. “Educating for a Complex World: Integrative Learning and Interdisciplinary Studies.” Liberal Education 96 (4): 6–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nikitina, Svetlana. 2006. “Three Strategies for Interdisciplinary Teaching: Contextualizing, Conceptualizing, and Problem-Centring.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 38 (3): 251–271.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Rourke, Michael, and Crowley, Stephen. 2013. “Philosophical Intervention and Cross-Disciplinary Science: The Story of the Toolbox Project.” Synthese 190: 1937–1954.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polet, Jeff. 1994. “Taking the Old Gods with Us: Gadamer and the Role of Verstehen in the Human Sciences.” The Social Science Journal 31 (2): 171–196.

    Google Scholar 

  • Repko, Allen F. 2008. Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schaeffer, John D. 1981. “Vico’s Rhetorical Model of the Mind: ‘Sensus Communis’ in the ‘De nostri temporis studiorum ratione”” Philosophy & Rhetoric 14 (3): 152–167.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slavich, George, and Zimbardo, Philip. 2012. “Basic Principles of Transformational Teaching” Educational Psychological Review 24 (4): 569–608.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laureen Park .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Park, L. (2016). A Study of Integration: The Role of Sensus Communis in Integrating Disciplinary Knowledge. In: Lansiquot, R. (eds) Interdisciplinary Pedagogy for STEM. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56745-1_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56745-1_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-56744-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56745-1

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics