Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson (March 1998)
Requirements: ePUB Reader | 2.0 Mb
Overview: In this groundbreaking new book, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, considered to be one of the world’s greatest living scientists, argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience – the proof that everything in our world is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws that comprise the principles underlying every branch of learning.
Professor Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, now once again breaks out of the conventions of current thinking. He shows how and why our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos and the human species–a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in the last two centuries.
Drawing on the physical sciences and biology, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, and the arts, Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and humanistic scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world as it most profoundly, elegantly, and excitingly is. An enormous intellectual adventure.
Genre: Non-Fiction, Epistemology
"Thanks to the rampant success of Stephen Hawking’s, Brief History of Time, a great many are familiar with the project to formulate a grand unified theory linking together all the basic physical forces. In a book that is truly a magnum opus, Wilson is concerned with an even bigger project, the unification of all knowledge by the means of science, so that the explanations of differing kinds of phenomena are seen to be connected and consistent with one another–that is, to be consilient. Consilience is the summum bonum of science as a way of knowledge, a philosophy; discovering it across all fields of knowledge–the arts and humanities, not excluding religion, as well as the physical and social sciences–would complete the work of the Enlightenment to demonstrate that creation is intrinsically orderly and even predictable. Wilson sympathetically reinterprets the Enlightenment, especially the work and attitude of Condorcet, sadly allowing that its termination in the French revolutionary reign of terror justifiably accounts for some of its subsequent bad press, then proceeds to show that the consilience of the natural sciences has been conclusively established and to argue that discoveries in brain science and genetics, in particular, should be applied to the problems of social science, aesthetics, ethics, and religion in order to bring them into the single web of cause and effect that encompasses everything. Wilson is confident that such applications will eventually be made, but he also feels it is urgent that they be made. As human population burgeons and its environment deteriorates, continued human success depends on making the wise choices that sound knowledge makes possible. Wilson dazzlingly reaffirms the cogency and the power of scientific materialism." ~Booklist, starred review"A tour de force from a scholar for whom such tours are par for the course. Wilson, who sowed the seeds of sociobiology decades ago, expands his agenda to the whole of human learning and behavior. All, in both the realms of art and science, can be reduced to a common set of unifying principles, or consilience. All can be subsumed under the basic laws of physics and their offspring in chemistry and biology. For instance, the reductionist new genetics and molecular biology have revolutionized our understanding of biology in terms of evolution, human development, and the brain as the vehicle of human behavior. Further, Wilson restates his notion of the co-evolution of genes and culture, but it is here that his argument is weakest, based on the premise that we are genetically programmed toward certain archetypal forms and themes which he finds in primitive and ancient art but which are dubiously applicable in the modern world. Wilsons arguments on achieving consilience in the humanities will no doubt rile many of the faithful in these fields. For example, he rails against economists for their arid mathematical models that pay no heed to the irrational ways humans behave and he pretty well damns anyone who espouses cultural relativism; and he has very little good to say about philosophers in general. On the other hand, he writes knowledgeably about mind, making it clear that emotion is inextricably tied to reason, and his distinction between religion and ethics is well argued. In the end, Wilson invites scholars to explore the gaps in knowledge, as well as move toward synthesis "We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom." He also pulls out all the stops on the future of the biosphere, noting the potential for changing our genetic make-up. No doubt many scholars will accuse Wilson of simplistic arguments, errors, and distortions. But how many have the guts to venture beyond the boundaries of their specialty to make a case for unity? For that reason alone, Wilsons proposal merits the attention and debate of the broad community of scholars." ~Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Download Instructions:
Drop APKMirror:
Files CDN
