BEYOND SOFT (AND HARD) SCIENCES TOWARDS COMPLEMENTARITY IN THE WAYS OF KNOWING: A COMMENTARY ON THE CENTRALITY OF CRITICAL QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN THE FIELD OF HEALTH

Abstract

In the present comment on Gastaldo and Eakin’s proposal for practising Soft Sciences in the field of Health, I have argued that the label Soft might not work in non-English language academic field to stress the importance of Human and Social Sciences. I agree with their emphasis on the importance of teaching about critical thinking in postgraduate programmes, but I suggest a more radical enterprise to review all postgraduate programmes towards a more encompassing view articulating science, philosophy and arts. Finally, I argued for the importance of the complementarity principle as a starting point to articulate knowledge not only from different sciences, Natural and Social, but also encompassing many ways of knowing, including ancient wisdom.

Keywords
Health Sciences; Postgraduate Studies; Complementarity Principle