Abstract

In past decades, discussions of scientific unity have been largely directed toward the nature and problems of logical and/or ontological unity. In more recent times, discussions of scientific unity have grown somewhat passe. This paper characterizes a distinctly epistemological sort of interfield relation, dubbed "cluster relations." Different fields may be related by sharing a unifying case, a paradigmatic conception of how some of their phenomena are related. These relations have the misleading appearance of a kind of part-whole ontological relation. The examples of "color sciences" and "memory sciences" are used to clarify the nature of cluster relations. Although these relations are piecemeal, they may afford pragmatic benefits as well as understanding through unification.