Volume XXIV - Nr.2 - December 2009
Integrated Cosmetology
Present condition in scientific progress Interdisciplinary or Multidisciplinary approach
Too often, people believe that they are thinking according to the principles of an interdisciplinary approach because they compare skills that are within the individual disciplines.
On the contrary, when information is mutually shared among the individual specialists it may be defined as multidisciplinary activity. Therefore, the information is aligned, but not integrated. One may wind up thinking according to old-style encyclopedisms, but there is a slight difference due to a semblance of coordination of scientific languages.
The use of coordinating methodologies still does not fill the gap separating the many disciplines that preserve the inequality of their theorizations, which are sometimes simply descriptive, while other times they are systematic and explicative. The alleged junctions among disciplines, which are actually obtained through the use of instruments of analysis, give rise to a pseudo-interdisciplinary approach that, from a phenomenological point of view, must be distinguished from other types of interdisciplinary approaches.
The following types can be found:
- the auxiliary interdisciplinary approach or rather, the use of methods taken from other disciplines, for example, pedagogy which uses methods of psychology, and becomes psychological pedagogy;
- the composite interdisciplinary approach, which can be found when individual disciplines are made available for shared projects; for example, in teamwork which is organized on the basis of up-coming space flights;
- the complementary interdisciplinary approach, which is established in areas bordering various distinct disciplines, thus encountering neutral or frontier ground in which coordinating these disciplines takes on the character of a new discipline or of a sub-discipline: for example, psychology or psychobiology.
These types of interdisciplines may belong to what is actually the real scientific level of the interdisciplinary approach. These differ from multidisciplinary approaches insofar that interaction and mutual enrichment of the individual sectors of science has been achieved.
However, the general concept that emerges from these data is even more important: merely ascertaining the nature and existence of interdisciplines does not suffice. It is the very process of science that is seen in a characteristic way when interdisciplinary research is "performed".
Nowadays, the sciences are going through post-positivist awareness: they are not simply limited to observing the observable. On the contrary, they penetrate into things, understanding their structures and relations, and thus shifting from the fragment to the whole.
The concept of reality changes, since what is real is not what is within itself - to use old-fashioned philosophical language - but reality is what comes to light through the equipment used by the scientist.
Therefore, the main problem regarding science involves controlling its own procedures. This is an epistemological problem! As it progresses, each discipline investigates the legitimacy of the relationships among its own models and the reality that is observed. Therefore, the epistemological need becomes unavoidable and inevitably forces scholars to compare it with other disciplines. This is what justifies the statement according to which an interdisciplinary approach, far from being rhetoric, is about to become the very condition of scientific progress.
What we mean by integration must not be confused with either an interdisciplinary approach or with a multidisciplinary approach.
Integrated Cosmetology represents Cosmetology in the XXI Century.