ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

Panel 4 – Languages / Philosophy
the research of the Institute that they have successors at a comparable
level of full professor who are internationally eminent researchers appointed
in open competition. Accordingly we recommend that funding
be reserved already at this stage to ensure that such appointments will be
financially possible.
The interaction between Cognitive Science and the rest of the Institute has
been beneficial; this is no surprise given that the Chair-holder has a strong
research background in Belief Revision Theory, Group Decision Theory
and Intensional Logic that is highly relevant to research in theoretical and
practical philosophy as currently done at Lund. However, in the light of
the ever-increasing importance of empirical work in Cognitive Science,
tension between the aims and methods of cognitive science and those of
philosophy seems to be a risk which the Institute should be aware of.
The Institute finds the current faculty structure to be a hindrance to its
cross-disciplinary efforts and ambitions; today, in Lund as well as internationally,
Philosophy is by no means confined only to partners within
the Humanities. Psychology, Medicine, Medical Ethics, Physics, Biology,
Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Science, Political Science,
Gender Studies, etc., can all be readily envisaged as more likely partners
in research than the traditional humanities disciplines. We have been
given to understand, though, by colleagues from Philosophy and other
disciplines, that crossing Faculty borders is impossible owing to practically
insuperable financial and administrative obstacles; if more than
mere lip-service is going to be paid to the ideal of cross-disciplinarity,
some action is obviously called for at this point. It is worth noting that,
from 1965 until 1999, Philosophy in Dutch Universities had the status of
a ‘Central Interfaculty’ precisely in order to facilitate cross-fertilization
of research across the whole of the university and not only within the humanities.
Given the existence of a 10 th section at Lund perhaps a similar
arrangement would constitute a definite improvement.
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