About the CogSci 98 Logo

Well known as a methodologist, the late Donald T. Campbell was also a scholar of interdisciplinarity. He held that a comprehensive multiscience must form a continuous texture of narrow specialties which overlap with one another. "Interdisciplinary programs have been misled by goals of breadth and multidisciplinary training" (p. 46). What must be recognized, he argued, is that interdisciplinarity is a collective product, not embodied within any one scholar. It is achieved through the fact that multiple narrow specialties overlap, and that through this overlap a collective communication, a collective competence, breadth, and "omniscience" is achieved.

Probably with tongue in cheek, Campbell named his theory "the fishscale model of omniscience." Our conference logo, designed by Stefan Baum and composed of overlapping interdisciplinary tiles, is inspired by Campbell's idea. Look for our CogSci98 tile when you visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Monona Terrace Convention Center, the site of our conference social.

Campbell, D. T. (1969). Ethnocentrism of disciplines and the fish-scale model of omniscience. In M. Sherif & C. W. Sherif (Eds.), Interdisciplinary relationships in the social sciences (pp. 328-348). Xenia, OH: Aldine Publishing.