WHAT CAN POSSIBLY INTEGRATE US?

Abstract

Both the profession of political science and our professional community remain highly fragmented despite all the recent advances. The article reviews and suggests ways to overcome this situation and achieve greater cohesion. A clearer distinction between politics and its environment as well as a more consistent use of advanced research methods may help. Specific methods modelled for the subject of study are relatively developed in political science. In addition to them, the paper considers the usage of transdisciplinary methods in political studies. They are the metretic (quantitative) methods, which developed from the basic biological ability to rate sensations and to measure respective information into methods of data generation and calculus, the morphetic (configurational) methods, which developed from the basic cognitive ability to recognize patterns and to single out types of phenomena into morphological and comparative methods, and the semiotic methods, which developed from the basic human ability to assign meanings into elaborate methods of analysis and interpretation. An appropriate interface for the subject matter and the methodological techniques appears to be found in social semiotics. It integrates various aspects of life as modes of human interaction through providing a multimodal approach. It also uses semiotics for combining transdisciplinary and specific methods. The author's conclusions are based on the assumption that many generations of people distinguish politics as a particular aspect of their lives, while implying definite, yet often different meanings. Synthesizing these different meanings, the author and colleagues at the Center for Advanced Methodologies of Social and Humanitarian Research, the Institute of Scientific Information in Social Science, RAS, propose new epistemological procedures and scientific methods for the implementation of the task of finding a consensus around the main themes and categories of politics. The main conclusion should be recognized to be the call to unite researchers who share the fundamental principles discussed in the current paper, which are technically based on a common set of methodologies, techniques, and instrumental approaches, while cognitively being based on the need of organizing and reorganizing the consciousness and the paradigm of the thinking.

Keywords:

political science, subject matter and method, transdisciplinary methods, metretics, morphetics, semiotics, social semiotics, multimodal approach