This book is about interdisciplinary research on a broader scale. The introduction traces a history of disciplines and follows up by a “defence of interdisciplinarity.” It’s a great read at about 18 pages.
Here’s the pdf of the introduction: joe_moran

Here are my notes in reading this introduction:

11/17/11
Joe Moran, Interdisciplinarity, Routlege….

• Two meanings of discipline: body of knowledge, and obedience/order (2)
• hierarchical in nature, from latin disciplina,  meaning taking orders from an elder
• the term “discipline” is “caught up in questions about the relationship between knowledge and power.” (2)
• funny Roberta Frank on “fields” as cows and mud, versus “discipline” as enshrined, clean… (3)
• Classical division —Aristotle’s order: theology/mathematics/physics, then ethics/politics, and finally the arts/engineering/poetics (4); assigning of value — more and less esteemed disciplines
• Modern era: universities and states
• Late Middle Age — universities of Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge replace medieval schools; discipline starts to mean profession, such as medicine, law and theology (5)
• However until 18 C. there was a core curriculum of liberal arts
• trivium (logic, grammar, rhetoric)
• quadrivium  (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music)
• University from latin universitias, meaning “universal” or “whole”
• The Enlightenment (17, 18 c) pushed disciplines — reason-driven, all about instituting methodologies; this agreed with the overlapping scientific revolution (16, 17c) Copernicus, Newton, Gallileo, etc
• Parallel tendencies to be holistic and  yet subdivide into disciplines — through encyclopedias (7)
• Giambattista VIco (18 c) early promoter of interdisciplinary (7)
• Kant (18 c) privileges reason through philosphy
• Early duality between specialized and liberal arts education (10)
• Comte argues for applying scientific method to other areas of knowledge (11)
• Neitzsche critical (and lamenting) of the scientific man as superior to the philosopher (19 c) (12)
• Industrialized and technologized society demanded specializations (13)
• Our question: Where and since when do Ph. D. programs in design exist?
• Clark argues disciplines are discursive in that they promote certain languages and modes of thought, and exclude others (14)
• Epistemology — the study of knowledge
• Interdisciplinarity is about addressing problems that cannot be answered within existing disciplines (15)
• Interdisciplinarity is ” any form of dialogue or interaction between two or more disciplines;  the level, type, purpose and effect of this interaction remain to be examined” (16)
• Roland Barthes (1977: 155) “it begins effectively when the solidarity of the old disciplines breaks down…in the interests of a new object and a new language neither of which has  a place in the field of sciences that were to be brought peacefully together”….mutation
• politics of teaching (17)
• intellectually promiscuous (17)