Among the most promising options for vindicating Oppenheim and Putnam’s unity of science hypothesis is the ‘Mentaculus’ of Albert and Loewer. I assess whether this promise can be borne out. My focus is on whether the Mentaculus can deliver what Oppenheim and Putnam call the ‘unity of laws’: the reduction of special science laws to the laws of fundamental physics. I conclude that although the Mentaculus may support a fairly strong form of reductionism, it falls short (...) of upholding the unity of laws. (shrink)

Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the challenge from multiple realisation. Pluralism and the disunity of science are the new norm, and higher-level natural kinds and special science laws are considered to have an important role in scientific practice. What kind of reductionism does multiple realisability challenge? What does it take to reduce one (...) phenomenon to another? How do we determine which kinds are natural? What is the ontological basis of unity? In this Element, Tuomas Tahko examines these questions from a contemporary perspective, after a historical overview. The upshot is that there is still value in the idea of a unity of science. We can combine a modest sense of unity with pluralism and give an ontological analysis of unity in terms of natural kind monism. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

The application of statistical methods and models both in the natural and social sciences is nowadays a trivial fact which nobody would deny. Bold analogies even suggest the application of the same statistical models to fields as different as statistical mechanics and economics, among them the case of the young and controversial discipline of Econophysics . Less trivial, however, is the answer to the philosophical question, which has been raised ever since the possibility of “commuting” statistical thinking and models between (...) natural and social sciences emerged: whether such a methodological kinship would imply some kind of more profound unity of the natural and the social domain. Starting with Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874) and ending with the Vienna Circle (from the late 1920s until the 1940s), this paper offers a brief historical and philosophical reconstruction of some important stages in the development of statistics as “commuting” between the natural and the social sciences. This reconstruction is meant to highlight (with respect to the authors under consideration): (1) the existence of a significant correlation between the readiness to “transfer” statistical thinking from natural to social sciences and vice versa, on the one hand, and the standpoints on the issue of the unity/disunity of science, on the other; (2) the historical roots and the fortunes of the analogy between statistical models of society and statistical models of gases. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore a metaphor in geometry for the debate between the unity and the disunity of science, namely, the possibility of putting a global coordinate system (or a chart) on a manifold. I explain why the former is a good metaphor that shows what it means (and takes in principle) for science to be unified. I then go through some of the existing literature on the unity/disunity debate and show how the metaphor sheds (...) light on some of the views and arguments. (shrink)

During the last three decades, there has been a growing realization among physicists and cosmologists that the relation between particle physics and cosmology may constitute yet another successful example of the unity of science. However, there are important conceptual problems in the unification of the two disciplines, e.g. in connection with the cosmological constant and the conjecture of inflation. The present article will outline some of these problems, and argue that the victory for the unity of (...) class='Hi'>science in the context of cosmology and particle physics is still far from obvious. (shrink)

Modem science and technology tend to create one global civilization. To what extent and how can cultural pluralism be preserved under these conditions? Neither inherent limitations of natural science and technology nor alternative lines of developing them offer a promising road for pluralism. But it is to be expected that the unifying trend will not carry over into the realm of the human and social sciences; these are rather to be construed as "locally dispersed", i.e. uncapable of being (...) developed into a unified theory of human nature, whereas natural science refers to a unified picture of non-human nature. Thus, modest hopes for preserving pluralism seem to be justified. (shrink)

Modem science and technology tend to create one global civilization. To what extent and how can cultural pluralism be preserved under these conditions? Neither inherent limitations of natural science and technology nor alternative lines of developing them offer a promising road for pluralism. But it is to be expected that the unifying trend will not carry over into the realm of the human and social sciences; these are rather to be construed as "locally dispersed", i.e. uncapable of being (...) developed into a unified theory of human nature, whereas natural science refers to a unified picture of non-human nature. Thus, modest hopes for preserving pluralism seem to be justified. (shrink)

As a leading member of the Vienna Circle, Rudolph Carnap's aim was to bring about a "unified science" by applying a method of logical analysis to the empirical data of all the sciences. This work, first published in English in 1934, endeavors to work out a way in which the observation statements required for verification are not private to the observer. The work shows the strong influence of Wittgenstein, Russell, and Frege.

Evolutionary Biology has two principal explananda, fit and diversity (Lewontin 1978). Natural selection theory stakes its claim to being the central unifying concept in biology on the grounds that it demonstrates both phenomena to be the consequence of a single process. By now the standard story hardly needs reiterating: Natural selection is a force that operates over a population, preserving the better fit, culling the less fit, and along the way promoting novel solutions to adaptive problems. Amundson’s historical survey of (...) the concept of adaptation captures the idea succinctly: The phenomenon of adaptation is at the core of modern evolutionary biology. Natural selection, the mechanism universally regarded as the primary causal influence on phenotypic evolutionary change, is first and foremost an explanation of adaptation. (1996: 11) At the same time, it appears that the capacity of natural selection to cause adaptations cannot account for every feature of the nature and distribution of biological form. Reason to believe this devolves from the simple fact that the bearers of biological form are organisms and a salient fact about organisms is that each faces the tribunal of the environment as a corporate entity, not as a loose aggregate of independent traits. One consequence of this fact is that at each stage of its development from egg to adult an organism must be an integrated, functioning whole. Another is that for any form to arise in an organism at a time, it must develop from the materials and processes at the organism’s disposal. The requirement of integration and the processes of development that produce it leave their distinctive marks on form. It seems reasonable, then, to suppose that one might appeal to the processes of development and the principles by which they operate in explaining the nature and distribution of biological form. (See here Gould 1977; Rose and Lauder 1996). (shrink)

1. A Historical Look at Unity 2. Field Guide to Modern Concepts of Reduction and Unity 3. Kitcher's Revisionist Account of Unification 4. Critics of Unity 5. Integration Instead of Unity 6. Reduction via Mechanisms 7. Case Studies in Reduction and Unification across the Disciplines.

The present thesis explores some metaphysical issues concerning biochemical kinds and the relations between chemical and biological properties and phenomena. The main result of this thesis is that there is something sui generis about biochemical kinds. This result is motivated by two theoretical steps. The first is characterising biochemical functions as weakly emergent from the chemical structure [Chapter 3, Chapter 6]. The second is via an account for which biochemical kinds are natural categories [Chapter 4, Chapter 7]. The thesis comprises (...) four parts. Part I [Chapter 1, Chapter 2] aims to offer the methodological and conceptual tools that underpin this research. Chapter 1 presents the debate on the unity of science and the motivation of the research. Chapter 2 presents the account of natural kinds that will be used throughout the thesis. Part II [Chapter 3, Chapter 4] offers a detailed metaphysical analysis of the molecular gene. Chapter 3 argues that molecular genes are weakly emergent from nucleic acids. Chapter 4 argues that the category "molecular gene" can be deemed a natural kind, following the account presented in Chapter 2. Part III [Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7] explores some of the themes related to biochemical kinds and generalises some of the results from Part II. Chapter 5 considers biochemical functions and how functional attribution should be interpreted for biochemical molecules. Chapter 6 considers the relation between biochemical functions and structure, spelt in terms of weak emergence and explores unity in biochemistry. Chapter 7 considers the topic of biochemical kinds per se and argues that biochemical kinds are natural categories. Part IV [Chapter 8] elucidates the main outcome and the implications that this research can have for future discussion in the philosophy and metaphysics of biochemistry and the unity of science. (shrink)

Advances in molecular biology have generally been taken to support the claim that biology is reducible to chemistry. I argue against that claim by looking in detail at a number of central results from molecular biology and showing that none of them supports reduction because (1) their basic predicates have multiple realizations, (2) their chemical realization is context-sensitive and (3) their explanations often presuppose biological facts rather than eliminate them. I then consider the heuristic and confirmational implications of irreducibility and (...) argue that purely biochemical approaches are likely to be unsound and to be unable to confirm an important range of statements. I conclude by sketching criteria for scientific unity that do not entail reducibility and yet leave an important place for identifying underlying mechanisms. Molecular biology, properly understood, provides an excellent paradigm of non-reductive unity between different explanatory levels. (shrink)

Ontology should be conceived as supervenient on scientific theories. They tell us what categories of things there really are. Thus, we would have a unique system of ontology if we would attain the unity of science through a reductionist program. For this, it should be clear how a relation of intertheoretical reduction (with ontological implications) is to be conceived. A formal proposal is laid out in this paper. This allows us also to define the notion of a fundamental (...) theory. Now, it appears that, considering the state of really existing science, the idea of reductionism as based on this explication is highly implausible. However, even if this is the case, the question whether it is possible to build up a unique ontological system remains open. Its resolution depends on the notion of compatibility between fundamental theories, and its application to existing theories and their empirical bases. (shrink)

Abstract According to John Dupré, the metaphysics underpinning modern science posits a deterministic, fully law?governed and potentially fully intelligible structure that pervades the entire universe. To reject such a metaphysical framework for science is to subscribe to ?the disorder of things?, and the latter, according to Dupré, entails the impossibility of a unified science. Dupré's argument rests crucially upon purported disunities evident in the explanatory practices of science. I critically examine the implied project of drawing metaphysical (...) conclusions from epistemological premisses concerning the nature of our explanatory practices. I then argue that Dupré fails to answer a particular argument for the ontological unity of science that rests upon assumptions about the causal structure of the world. This ?causal? argument for the unity of science might be countered by a more radical metaphysical revisionism. The latter, however, seems unable to account for features of our explanatory practices that testify to a measure of explanatory unity in science. I conclude by sketching a strategy that might enable the revisionist to overcome such difficulties. (shrink)

From 1918 to the late 1940s, a host of influential scientists and intellectuals in Europe and North America were engaged in a number of far-reaching unity of science projects. In this period of deep social and political divisions, scientists collaborated to unify sciences across disciplinary boundaries and to set up the international scientific community as a model for global political co-operation. They strove to align scientific and social objectives through rational planning and to promote unified science as (...) the driving force of human civilization and progress. This volume explores the unity of science movement, providing a synthetic view of its pursuits and placing it in its historical context as a scientific and political force. Through a coherent set of original case studies looking at the significance of various projects and strategies of unification, the book highlights the great variety of manifestations of this endeavour. These range from unifying nuclear physics to the evolutionary synthesis, and from the democratization of scientific planning to the utopianism of H.G. Wells's world state. At the same time, the collection brings out the substantive links between these different pursuits, especially in the form of interconnected networks of unification and the alignment of objectives among them. Notably, it shows that opposition to fascism, using the instrument of unified science, became the most urgent common goal in the 1930s and 1940s. In addressing these issues, the book makes visible important historical developments, showing how scientists participated in, and actively helped to create, an interwar ideology of unification, and bringing to light the cultural and political significance of this enterprise. (shrink)

the demise of the logical positivism programme. The answers given to these qu- tions have deepened the already existing gap between philosophy and the history and practice of science. While the positivists argued for a spontaneous, steady and continuous growth of scientific knowledge the post-positivists make a strong case for a fundamental discontinuity in the development of science which can only be explained by extrascientific factors. The political, social and cultural environment, the argument goes on, determine both the (...) questions and the terms in which they should be answered. Accordingly, the sociological and historical interpretation - volves in fact two kinds of discontinuity which are closely related: the discontinuity of science as such and the discontinuity of the more inclusive political and social context of its development. More precisely it explains the discontinuity of the former by the discontinuity of the latter subordinating in effect the history of science to the wider political and social history. The underlying idea is that each historical and - cial context generates scientific and philosophical questions of its own. From this point of view the question surrounding the nature of knowledge and its development are entirely new topics typical of the twentieth-century social context reflecting both the level and the scale of the development of science. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to present and analyse the basic assumptions of Leszek Nowak’s conception of the unity of science. According to Nowak, the unity of science is manifested in the common application of the method of idealisation in scientific research. In accordance with his conception, regardless of the discipline they represent, researchers go through the same stages in building a theory. Two key ones among them are: introducing idealising assumptions into the representation and (...) then their concretisation. In this view, idealisation is the basis of the scientific method, while other cognitive procedures complement it. Nowak’s conception has particular relevance in the context of the dispute between naturalism and anti-naturalism and in the context of the continuing rift between social scientists and natural scientists. It calls into question the anti-naturalist thesis of the ontological uniqueness of social sciences and the resulting methodological consequences. I argue that Nowak’s conception is a cognitively valuable contribution to the contemporary epistemology of science, but it also has weaknesses, mainly due to the limitations of applying the idealisation-concretisation scheme in research practice. For it turns out, as I point out in this essay, that many idealising assumptions are not subject to concretisation and that concretisations do not always condition an increase in the explanatory and/or predictive power of the representations. (shrink)

It has been maintained, by bothphilosophers and modern scjentists, that the twa domains of discourse of science and of philosophy are disjoint. Though admitting that many physicists subscribed to metaphysical principies, it was claimed - by Duhem and Reichenbach among others - that the scientist's philosophical convictions play, or shouldplay, no role in his scientiflc work. The presentpaper attempts lo refute this separatist view by showing that Einstein 's metaphysical realism - caupied with his Platonistic panmathematicism - played a (...) crucial role in his construction of the Relativity Programme and in his criticism of Quantum Mechanics (EPRparadox). The article also shows that although Einstein was neither a strict Humean nor a strict Machian, his phenomenalist interpretation of the empirical basis proved ta be an antidote against bath conventianalist scepticism and Neurath's coherence theory of (scientific) truth. (shrink)

The Unity of Science is often thought to be reductionist, but this is because we fail to distinguish questions from answers. The questions asked by different sciences are different---the biologist is interested in different topics from the physicist, and seeks different explanations---but the answers are not peculiar to each particular science, and can range over the whole of scientific knowledge. The biologist is interested in organisms--- concept unknown to physics---but explains physiological processes in terms of chemistry, not (...) a mysterious vital force. The replacement of Laplacian determinism by quantum mechanics further erodes the tendency towards reductionism. The answers given in different explanations are not subsumed under one complete theory; and quantum mechanics does not have a concept of haecceitas, "this-i-ness" which would make its entities the fundamental constituents of everything. (shrink)

Neste artigo apresentamos as propostas de Otto Neurath para o problema da unidade da ciência. Conhecido integrante do Círculo de Viena, Neurath defende que a ciência deve ser unificada por meio da chamada concepção de mundo científica, uma orientação ou atitude em relação ao mundo e aos problemas que é característica da ciência. Neste artigo apresentamos o caráter social dos projetos de Neurath, como o da Enciclopédia Internacional da Ciência Unificada. Contrastamos a proposta de Neurath com a crítica pós-modernista da (...) abordagem contextualizada dos estudos sobre a ciência. Essa crítica parte de estudos de comunidades científicas e, em geral, apresenta a conclusão de que não há um fator que unifique a ciência. O termo "ciência" denotaria apenas uma coleção de atividades sem características relevantes em comum. A comparação feita mostra que a posição de Neurath é compatível com a abordagem contextualizada, apesar de defender a unidade da ciência. Por fim, avaliamos o aspecto político da proposta de Neurath diante da crítica pós-moderna e notamos que as ideias do Círculo de Viena e da Enciclopédia podem ser valiosas nos dias de hoje. This paper discusses Otto Neurath's proposal for the problem of the unity of science. This author, a well-known member of the Vienna Circle, proposes that science is to be unified by the so-called scientific world-conception, a characteristic orientation or attitude of science towards the world and the problems it deals with. In this paper, emphasis is given to the social aspect of Neurath's projects, as found, for instance, in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. It contrasts Neurath's proposal with the post-modernist criticism, developed in the contextualized approach to science studies, that stems from studies of scientific communities and, in general, presents the conclusion that there is no unifying factor for science. The term 'science' would then denote just a collection of activities with no relevant common characteristics. The comparison made shows that Neurath's position is compatible with the contextualized approach, even though he defends the unity of science. Finally, the political aspect of Neurath's proposal is evaluated in the light of the post-modernist criticism, and it is pointed out that the ideas of the Vienna Circle and the Encyclopedia might be valuable nowadays. (shrink)

The increasingly wide spread use of RCM, rational choice modeling, and RCT, rational choice theory, in disciplines like economics, law, ethics, psychology, sociology, political science, management facilitates interdisciplinary exchange. This is a great achievement. Yet it nurtures the hope that a unified account of rational active choice making might arise from ‘reason’ in terms of intuitively appealing axioms. Such ‘rationalist’ characterizations of rational choice neglect real human practices and empirical accounts of those practices. This is theoretically misleading and practically (...) dangerous. Searching for a wide reflective equilibrium, WRE, on RCT in evidence-oriented ways can explicate ‘rational’ without rationalism. (shrink)

Ross & Spurrett's (R&S's) rebuttal of recent reductionistic work in the philosophy of mind relies on claims about the unity of science and explanation. I call those claims into question.

It has been maintained, by both philosophers and modern scientists, that the two domains of discourse of science and of philosophy are disjoint Though admitting that many physicists subscribed to metaphysical principles, it was claimed - by Duhem and Reichenbach among others - that the scientist's philosophical convictions play, or should play, no role in his scientific work. The present paper attempts to refute this separatist view by showing that Einstein's metaphysical realism - coupled with his Platonistic panmathematicism - (...) played a crucial role in his construction of the Relativity Programme and in his criticism of Quantum Mechanics. The article also shows that although Einstein was neither a strict Humean nor a strict Machian, his phenomenalist interpretation of the empirical basis proved to be an antidote against both conventionalist scepticism and Neurath's coherence theory of truth. /// Tanto filósofos como cientistas têm defendido a ideia de que os domínios discursivos da Ciência e da Filosofia seguem caminhos separados. Mesmo admitindo que muitos cientistas subscreveram princípios metafísicos, a ideia tem sido defendida - por Duhem e Reichenbach, entre outros - de que as convicções filosóficas do cientista não desempenham, ou deveriam não desempenhar, qualquer papel no seu trabalho científico. O objectivo do presente artigo é refutar esta visão separatista das coisas mostrando de que modo o realismo metafísico de Einstein - associado ao seu panmatematicismo platónico - desempenhou um papel crucial na sua construção do Programa da Relatividade e nas suas críticas à Mecânica Quântica. O artigo mostra igualmente que embora Einstein não fosse nem um Humeano estrito nem um estrito Macheano, a sua interpretação fenomenalista da base empírica demonstrou ser um antídoto quer contra o cepticismo convencionalista quer contra a teoria da coerência da verdade de Neurath. (shrink)

The aim of the series Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, of which this is the first volume, is to take up anew the challenge of considering the ...

Science is a dynamic process in which the assimilation of new phenomena, perspectives, and hypotheses into the scientific corpus takes place slowly. The apparent disunity of the sciences is the unavoidable consequence of this gradual integration process. Some thinkers label this dynamical circumstance a ‘crisis’. However, a retrospective view of the practical results of the scientific enterprise and of science itself, grants us a clear view of the unity of the human knowledge seeking enterprise. This book provides (...) many arguments, case studies and examples in favor of the unity of science. These contributions touch upon various scientific perspectives and disciplines such as: Physics, Computer Science, Biology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, and Economics. (shrink)

The paper argues that substantial support for Soros' claims about uncertainty and reflexivity in economics and human affairs generally are provided by the operation of both factors in the biological domain to produce substantially the same processes which have been recognized by ecologists and evolutionary biologists. In particular predator prey relations have their sources in uncertainty – i.e. the random character of variations, and frequency dependent co-evolution – reflexivity. The paper argues that despite Soros' claims, intentionality is not required to (...) produce these phenomena, and that where it does so, in the human case, it provides no basis to deny a reasonable thesis of the methodological or causal unity of science. The argument for this conclusion is developed by starting with a biological predator/prey relation and successively introducing intentional components without affecting the nature of the process. Accepting the conclusion of this argument provides substantial additional inductive support for Soros' theory in its economic application. (shrink)