The Problem of the Unity of Science

The following sections are included:

• INTRODUCTION

• CONTENTS

The following sections are included:

• Historical Preliminaries

• Modern Science

• Correct Ways in which the Sciences might be Unified

The following sections are included:

• Introduction

• Observation of Facts

• Interpretations

• Explanations

• The Unity of Methods

• References

The following sections are included:

• Introduction: Is Science Rational?

• A Developmental Justification of the Rationality of Science

• Implications

The unity of science is a dream of reason, whilst the unity of sciences represents a dual task for philosophy. Such is the position put forward in this paper. Firstly, we shall trace back, from Descartes to Putnam, the history of the dream of a unified science - a dream that is finally renounced. Then we shall demonstrate that the unity of sciences may be achieved at two levels: on a methodological and epistemological level, requiring a classification of sciences, without systematic recourse to reductionism; secondly, on a metaphysical and ontological level, whereby we can distinguish mathematical structures, physical systems, living individuals and human beings, as the successive manifestations - first abstract, then concrete - of a series of ever more complex entities which are called into existence. In the absence of any certainties - impossible in this domain - contemporary cosmology, itself a daughter of both science and philosophy, sheds some light onto this ontology of Evolution.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction

• La révision du logicien (XX^e siècle)

• Références

The following sections are included:

• Theoretical integration in microeconomics

• Theoretical integration in psychology

• "The hermeneutics of suspicion": Émile Durkheim

• Acknowledgement

• References

There is a problem of the unity of an entity if its existence as a unitary entity is desirable but difficult to maintain or never quite achieved. All problems of unity are problems concerning boundaries, but in two rather different ways. On the one hand external boundaries may cease to function as boundaries or lose their significance, on the other internal boundaries may gain too much significance and become more important than external boundaries. An entity may lose its unity by dissolving, evaporating or being swallowed up by something bigger. A piece of ice may melt and diffuse in a glass of water, a leaf may become one with the compost heap. A nation may be conquered by a stronger neighbor and no longer be recognized as a political unit in its own right. But an entity may loose its unity also by being divided up into two or more independent and unitary parts. One cell may become two cells. One bottle may become many pieces of glass. The republic of Czechoslovakia actually became the Czech republic and the republic of Slovakia. Unity is a matter both of external discontinuity and of internal continuity. (There is a particularly severe problem of upholding unity if external boundaries are threatened at the same time as internal boundaries are becoming more important, as in the Bosnian case).

The following sections are included:

• Introduction

• Historical origin

• The experimental method

• Fundamental options

• Development and cognitive value of the science of nature

• Physics and subjectivity

• Conclusions

The following sections are included:

• Introduction

• Reduction and holisme

• Complexity and the Unity of Science

• Complexity and the Unity of Science

• Conclusion

• References

The following sections are included:

• Multidisciplinarité versus interdisciplinarité

• Applications et constitutions

• Conditions d'une bonne interdisciplinarité

• Unité de la science, interdisciplinarité, intersubjectivité, dialogue

The following sections are included:

• E. O. Wilson, Sociobiology, and Unification

• Consilience

• Culture

The following sections are included:

• Reduction

• Integration

• Conclusion

• References

The following sections are included:

• Scientific unity and its significance

• Disunity within physics

• Unity and judicious realism

• References

The following sections are included:

• The bizarre history of the cosmological constant

• The cosmological constant and inflation

• The cosmological constant and the vacuum energy density

• Mathematical naturalness of the cosmological constant

• REFERENCES

The following sections are included:

• Introduction

• Metatheoretical aspects of physical theories

• Universality and self-referentiality

• Interpretations of quantum mechanics

• Universality and inconsistency

• Conclusion: What if quantum mechanics is universally valid?

• References

The reason for believing quantum mechanics to be universal – which seems convincing – is that it is the theory of atoms, and that atoms constitute everything. In fact, this reason is most questionable since "orthodox" quantum mechanics is not descriptive of "things," but only predictive of observations. Yet, the experimental confirmations of decoherence theory indicate that, as such, quantum mechanics is universal.