The Plurality of Science

Abstract

What I have to say falls under four headings: What is unity of science, unity and reductionism, the search for certainty, and the search for completeness.To answer this initial question, I turned to the introductory essay by Otto Neurath for Volume 1, Part 1, of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. He begins this way:Unified science became historically the subject of this Encyclopedia as a result of the efforts of the unity of science movement, which includes scientists and persons interested in science who are conscious of the importance of a universal scientific attitude.The new version of the idea of unified science is created by the confluence of divergent intellectual currents. Empirical work of scientists was often antagonistic to the logical constructions of a priori rationalism bred by philosophico-religious systems; therefore, “empiricalizatlon” and “logicalization” were considered mostly to be in opposition—the two have now become synthesized for the first time in history (p. I).