saying, but what they’re not saying. In philosophy that is consid-
ered completely useless, whatever. In art history, some want to be
on the cutting edge of every last French philosophical movement
and be able to bring Lacan, Deleuze, Baudrillard, and Bourdieu
into their discussion of the arts.The differences in epistemological styles that this philosopher
lampoons frequently fuel the divisive debates that occur across (and
in some cases within) academic disciplines. By “epistemological styles”
I mean preferences for particular ways of understanding how to
build knowledge, as well as beliefs in the very possibility of proving
those theories.^3
In their quest for a monopoly on truth or science, social scientists
and humanists often succumb to polarizing stances, arguing that
there is only one correct approach to both theory and method.^4 In
terms of theory, disciplinary preferences range from the view that
authors should acknowledge how the formulation of their theoreti-
cal orientation is shaped by their own social location, identity, and
political orientation, to the view that theories emerge from the ob-
servation of new evidence in light of existing explanations, without
being affected by who the researcher is or how she apprehends her
object.^5 The range with regard to methodological preferences is no
less wide. Some disciplines emphasize hypothesis testing and privi-
lege the role of formal models for proving theories; others vehe-
mently reject such approaches in favor of a contextual or narrative
method.^6
This chapter identifies some widely accepted views that academics
hold about the evaluative and epistemic culture of their own field
and those of other fields. Such sets of conventions influence how dis-
ciplines define quality and recognize it. They include “inquiry be-
liefs” and “theoretical attachments” regarding, for instance, the prox-
imity of fields to the natural sciences, the usefulness of reductionist
54 / On Disciplinary Cultures