Learning from case studies

Abstract

The question of how transdisciplinary research contributes to scientific knowledge cannot be answered without calling into question a broadly accepted view of the nature of scientific knowledge. Transdisciplinary projects are mixtures of idiosyncratic and nomothetic knowledge structures and the strategies combine research, development, and implementation. The classification into four types of learning offers an analytical view without forcing the projects into epistemic boxes. Distinguishing different perspectives and models of collective learning lowers the burden of legitimising the 'scientific value' of case studies. This attempt to understand transdisciplinary research from an epistemological point of view employs categories developed in the 19th century for defining the differences between the humanities and the natural sciences. Transdisciplinary projects are equally committed to the disciplinary knowledge bases of the natural sciences and technologies and to the value-laden themes of the humanities, but also to procedural methods of the social sciences. © 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.