increasingly, historians follow William Sewell Jr. in arguing that his-
tory offers theory (about social change, for instance) to other fields.^19
Yet others, although also interested in theory (of the literary or cul-
tural studies varieties), often identify themselves as humanists. The
turn toward quantification in the 1970s also pushed history toward
the social sciences.
By examining several disciplinary evaluative cultures individually,
we can see that academics in each discipline consider that much is at
stake in how their field is defined and understood, from within and
from without.
The “Problem Case” of Philosophy
Four of the panels I studied included a philosopher and considered
philosophy proposals. On two panels, philosophy emerged as a
“problem field,” seen as producing proposals around which conflicts
erupt. Accordingly, some program officers warned panelists of the
special difficulty of building consensus around such proposals and
encouraged them to stay “open-minded” toward them. Such cau-
tions and requests came as close to a plea for “affirmative action” to-
ward a discipline as I witnessed during my study of funding panels.
Several panelists expressed at least one of the following views:
(1) philosophers live in a world apart from other humanists, (2)
nonphilosophers have problems evaluating philosophical work, and
they are often perceived by philosophers as not qualified to do so,
(3) philosophers do not explain the significance of their work, and
(4) increasingly, what philosophers do is irrelevant, sterile, and self-
indulgent. These views—especially the second—are problematic be-
cause the smooth functioning of multidisciplinary panels depends
on all members’ willingness to engage with other disciplines and to
practice cognitive contextualization, thus assuring that each pro-
posal is evaluated using the criteria most valued in the proposal
64 / On Disciplinary Cultures