Transdisciplinarity in world-system analysis

Abstract

This paper examines the relation of world-system analysis to the social sciences. The world-systems analysis is skeptical about the current state of the social sciences. In his view, disciplines as such have no place in the future. This is due to the crisis in the modern prevailing liberal ideology and the division of social sciences into an infinite number of new disciplines. In these circumstances, the world-systemists, as a way of survival, propose to combine the social sciences and create a single "historical social science". The work consists of two parts and a conclusion: the first part describes the history of the emergence of social sciences from the point of view of world-system analysis, and the second part examines three fundamental pillars of the transdisciplinary nature of world-system social science. The world-system analysis challenges the idiographic and nomotetic sciences, arguing that the concept of time is often interpreted incorrectly by them. The world-systemists abandon the principles of determinism and indeterminism, and rely on a probabilistic model. Also, within the framework of this approach, the principle of reversibility of time is denied and the "arrow of time" is promoted. An unconventional approach to time in world-system analysis is the basis for the formation of the need for transdisciplinary research. World-system analysis pays special attention to the concept of longue durée, which emphasizes patterns and structures, and is not limited to events. Accordingly, there is a need to study history on the principle of integrity, which in the terminology of the school of "Annals" is designated as total history. A holistic approach leads to the application of a variety of methods from different disciplines. In conclusion, the main critics of the current state of the social sciences are listed and the "historical social science" of world-system analysis is evaluated as an alternative to the "closed" disciplines of the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.