3/On Disciplinary

Cultures

T

he “gulf of mutual incomprehension” that Sir Charles Percy
Snow famously posited as separating “scientists” from “literary
intellectuals” also separates many social scientists from human-
ists, as well as many interpretative from more positivist researchers.^1
Long before they come to sit on funding panels, scholars absorb a
variety of beliefs and perceptions about disciplinary cultures, espe-
cially each field’s approach to producing and evaluating knowledge.^2
They become familiar with these differences through intellectual
activity—graduate training, mentoring, reading within and outside
their fields, and so on—as well as through the formal and informal
activities of everyday life at colleges and universities. One panelist I
interviewed, an analytical philosopher, playfully sums up some pre-
vailing stereotypes this way:

Philosophers are known to be rigorous more than anything else,

right? People in English seem to value a kind of ability to look at

the underside of literary texts and see not so much what they are

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