Page 254 - Contribution To Phenomenology

ETHNIC STUDIES AS MULTI-DISCIPLINE 247

of view can understand the valuing and values, the willing and purposes,
etc., of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, an outside
perspective may be able more clearly to observe and describe how Ethnic
Studies works.
I think the central issues for a phenomenological philosophy of Ethnic
Studies would be, on the one hand, how the perspectives of the various
disciplines in the multi-discipline interrelate, have a common purpose,
develop and overcome conflicts among themselves, etc., and, on the other
hand, how the one huge subject matter, which can be called race and
ethnicity, can present itself in different but, hopefully, complementary
ways in the different perspectives. Thus, how does a relationship of ethnic
groups, again say the CathoUcs and Protestants in Northern Ireland,
present itself to an economist, to an historian, to a sociologist, to a
political scientist, and so on? Researchers are trained in disciplines like
these to observe and theorize in different ways. Like the three blind men
in India touching the elephant, who found a tree trunk, a snake, and a
rope, do they find different things or is it one thing with different parts
or aspects? My guess is also that members of each discipline are like
members of ethnic groups, i.e., conditioned each to consider her outlook
as the fundamentally correct one. This might be called "disciplinary
chauvinism." If so, why are they participating in a multi-discipline?
Ideological and careerist motivations aside, could it be that they have
gone on to suspect that they can learn from other disciplinary points of
view because their own is not as ultimately adequate as it pretends to be
after all?
These are central questions a philosopher of a multi-discipline would
ask. Another sort of question, which also pertains to Women's Studies
and Environmental Studies, has to do with the place of biological factors.
Could there be anything to Sociobiology? Do endocrine secretions affect
gendered behavior and relationships? In the last-mentioned multi-dis-
cipline, the problem seems one of getting naturalistic scientists and
engineers even to consider the cultural elements that, at least for the
cultural scientists who are not overwhelmed by naturalism, consider
central. Whether or not participants in multi-disciplines are concerned
with such questions, they proceed on the basis of answers to them, and
philosophers can raise such questions and probably do so best from
outside. One answer to the sociobiological issue has been given recently by
a historical sociologist, Kenneth Bock, who claims that sociobiology imposes
a "naturalistic'* imprimatur on questions better answered by a discerning