ABSTRACT
The status of any area of research is directly linked on the one hand to its recognition as an independent discipline within the system of transferring knowledge as it exists in higher education, and on the other, to the acknowledgement and recognition of such an area of research as an independent domain of knowledge production within modern academia’s overall division of labour. The metaphor of the division of labour, borrowed by science studies from economics, is based on several premises, among which are ideas about the cumulative nature of knowledge, about the fundamental unity of reality and about the uniqueness of the remit and methods of a particular area of research laying claim to relative autonomy and independence that is shaped by these underlying principles.
