Planning as scientific discipline? Digging deep toward the bottom line of the debate

Abstract

One of the oldest questions of spatial planning is about the profession itself. Because of the direct fields of application on the urban or regional scale, or on sectorial fields like transport or environmental planning, scholars in planning sciences always quarreled with themselves whether their approaches can be seen as discipline itself. Regardless of the different answers and outcomes of this question, it becomes clear that the debate triggers more than just the acceptance as a discipline. One might think that the scientific nature of spatial planning and thus the raison d’être of planning sciences are under general suspicion. This requires a deeper discussion about the definition of sciences and the demarcation problem as discussed in classical (Popper, Kuhn) and more contemporary approaches (Hoyningen-Huene, Park) in the philosophy of science, and what this means for the discussion about spatial planning as a science as well as a discipline. Therefore, various conclusions to regard planning sciences not as one discipline but as multiple disciplines are possible. In this sense, let us dig deep toward the bottom line of the debate.