title: [The extent of imposture].
abstract: This paper comments on Sokal and Bricmont's stance towards interdisciplinary approaches between the human and natural sciences, as stated in their controversial book Impostures Intellectuelles (Fashionable Nonsense) (1999). It happens that interdisciplinary is a subject of major importance to "new paradigms" in Public Health. First, the paper identifies different types of interaction between these "two cultures", such as transdisciplinary trends and the "Science Wars", and emphasizes their unproductive aspects. Second, it proposes a re-evaluation of pragmatism as a suitable way of including philosophical considerations in interdisciplinary Public Health research, exemplified by a correlation between the ideas of Henri Atlan (1991) and notions of risk theory (or model).
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ciências Sociais, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 21041-210, Brasil. analeks@unisys.com.br
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aleksandrowicz
mesh_terms: D001690:Biological Science Disciplines; D006801:Humans; D010684:Philosophy; D011634:Public Health; D012942:Social Sciences