Unification: What is it, how do we reach and why do we want it?

Synthese 118 (3):479-499 (1999)
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Abstract

This article has three aims. The first is to give a partial explication of the concept of unification. My explication will be partial because I confine myself to unification of particular events, because I do not consider events of a quantitative nature, and discuss only deductive cases. The second aim is to analyze how unification can be reached. My third aim is to show that unification is an intellectual benefit. Instead of being an intellectual benefit unification could be an intellectual harm, i.e., a state of mind we should try to avoid by all means. By calling unification an intellectual benefit, we claim that this form of understanding has an intrinsic value for us. I argue that unification really has this alleged intrinsic value.

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References found in this work

Causality and explanation.Wesley C. Salmon - 1998 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Explanatory unification.Philip Kitcher - 1981 - Philosophy of Science 48 (4):507-531.
Explanatory unification and the causal structure of the world.Philip Kitcher - 1989 - In Philip Kitcher & Wesley Salmon (eds.), Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 410-505.

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