On the Relationship between the Natural Sciences and the Humanities: Brockman's Concept of the "Third Culture" and its Criticism

The subject of this paper is an analysis of a recently proposed solution to the so-called two cultures problem, which was formulated in 1959 by Charles Percy Snow - the so-called third culture introduced by John Brockman in his eponymous book. My aim is to critically evaluate Brockman’s concept of the “third culture” and to propose arguments supporting the view that it does not really represent a true solution to the two cultures problem but on the contrary illustrates a prevalent existence and actuality of the problem. For this purpose the study makes use of the concept of trading zones, introduced by philosopher and historian Peter Galison to describe and explain possible ways of interaction and mutual understanding between scientists from incommensurable scientific disciplines. As I try to demonstrate, this concept can be successfully applied in a very similar way on the problem of communication between natural sciences and humanities as well.