Reduction, Integration, and the Unity of Science: Natural, Behavioral, and Social Sciences and the Humanities

Abstract

This chapter discusses the unity of science with respect to natural, behavioral, and social sciences and humanities. The notion that science is unified in one way or another dates back at least to Aristotle, though unity claims since then have been diverse and variously motivated. By way of introduction to the modern discussion of unity, disunity, and integration, the chapter examines five historical attempts to unify knowledge: Aristotle's metaphysical and hierarchical unity; the Enlightenment project of the French Encyclopedists; the systematic unity of Naturphilosoph Lorenz Oken; the methodological unity of the Vienna School's Encyclopedia of Unified Science; and finally, the organizational unity of cybernetics and general systems theory. Aristotle arranged the “sciences” into three divisions: the theoretical sciences (metaphysics, mathematics, and physics); the practical sciences (e.g., ethics and politics); and the productive sciences (poetry and rhetoric)—that is, he divided the sciences according to their purposes. Theoretical sciences are concerned with knowledge alone and for its own sake, practical sciences are for doing, and productive sciences are for making. Despite these divisions, Aristotle's image of the sciences was one of unified hierarchy.