Short paper prepared for FEAST, QUT, March 2008 (4k) A Cultural Science (Kulturewissenschaft) Manifesto Kurt Dopfer School of Economics, University of St Gallen, Switzerland. Jason Potts CCi, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. j.potts@qut.edu.au School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia. Abstract. We propose that a general analytic framework for cultural science can be constructed as a generalization of the generic micro meso macro framework proposed by Dopfer and Potts (2008). This paper outlines this argument along with some implications for the creative industries research agenda. 1 Introduction The domains of systematic inquiry into cultural phenomena that are addressed by cultural studies, media studies, and the arts and humanities broadly considered are widely appreciated as legitimate domains of intellectual inquiry that are of considerable philosophic interest and practical value. They constitute a core component of the knowledge base of society and are, collectively, one of the pillars of higher education. Yet they are equally understood as not science. The significance of this point is simply that over the past several hundred years, domains of study that are science have systematically come to displace and dominate those that are not science. The study of cultural phenomena is no exception to this general principle and evolutionary growth of knowledge trajectory. In the past few decades, physical and biological sciences have made increasing inroads into the study of cultural phenomena. This is good, because it is part of the growth of knowledge. But it is also troubling with respect to the potential loss of accumulated bodies of knowledge and fine-grained understanding that are being displaced due to methodological incommensurability and intransitivity. That is what is occurring now. The question is: what to do about this? The extreme options are: (1) to fight a rear- guard defensive war (as in the post-modernist approach); or (2) to surrender completely. Both of these approaches are common. Yet, a ‘third way’ is to seek a new kind of cultural science – a Novum Cultura Scientas or Kulturewissenschaft – that seeks to integrate the methods and models of science, which are its core aspect, with the methods and models of cultural studies, including its detailed empirical investigations and conceptions of individual motivations in the social context. This third way would thus seek to hybridize aspects of both domains into a new cultural science. This manifesto seeks to outline the basic principles of such a synthetic approach. 1