TOWARDS A PLURALIST EPISTEMOLOGICAL APPROACH IN STUDIES ON COMMUNICATION AND CHANGE: HUMANISM, SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTALISM

This article proposes a pluralistic epistemological approach to the investigation of the relationships between communication and social change. To this end, it draws on the proposal of epistemological merger posed by Johan Galtung for Peace Studies and takes into account the specifics of the communication phenomenon. According to Galtung, the combination of Cartesianism, the verum-factum (Vico) and Taoism would counter the risks of epistemological monism and overcome its limitations. In this sense, the article proposes to extend each of these epistemologies in a more general and encompassing level (science, humanities, holistic-dialectical environmentalism) and describes its historical trajectory to identify the possibilities of complementarity and its value for the study of communication and change.