Document Type : .
Authors
Associate Professor,Philisophy of Science and Technology Department,History and Philisophy of Science Faculty,Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies
Abstract
The evaluation of research in the humanities is a controversial topic. In Iran, this debate is often framed in terms of the International Scientific Index (ISI) and paper production. Two main groups can be identified in this debate. One group believes that the emphasis on articles and the ISI leads to the quantification of humanities research, which ultimately damages the quality of the research. The other group believes that common scientometric methods are a reliable and precise standard for all fields, and that the humanities should adapt to these methods. The debate has been characterized by polemical and rhetorical arguments, and its theoretical and epistemological frameworks have been imprecise and chaotic.
The aim of this article is to formulate this polemical debate into an epistemological problem in the philosophy of science, so that it can be properly formulated and understood.
The article is divided into three parts. First, we show that scientometrics has its roots in the work of philosophers of science. However, over time, this connection has been broken, and the positivist view of science has come to dominate. This has led to the current crisis in scientometrics.
In the second part, we argue that the understanding of this crisis depends on a return to the non-positivist approach in the philosophy of science. This approach sees science as based on the research practices of a research community, rather than as a set of true propositions. By uncovering the differences between the natural sciences and the humanities, we conclude that the contemporary scientometric criteria cannot be applied to the humanities.
In the third part, we argue that criticizing common scientometric methods and highlighting their crisis does not mean that the evaluation of humanities research is impossible or unattainable. However, before defining a new set of criteria, we need to conduct philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and historical studies of research communities in the humanities.
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