The unity of science is a thesis in
philosophy of science that says that all the sciences form a unified whole. The variants of the thesis can be classified as
ontological (giving a unified account of the structure of reality) and/or as
epistemic/pragmatic (giving a unified account of how the activities and products of science work).[1] There are also philosophers who emphasize the disunity of science, which does not necessarily imply that there could be no unity in some sense but does emphasize
pluralism in the ontology and/or practice of science.[1]
Early versions of the unity of science thesis can be found in
ancient Greek philosophers such as
Aristotle,[2][3] and in the later history of
Western philosophy.[2] For example, in the first half of the 20th century the thesis was associated with the unity of science movement led by
Otto Neurath,[4] and in the second half of the century the thesis was advocated by
Ludwig von Bertalanffy in "General System Theory: A New Approach to Unity of Science" (1951)[5] and by
Paul Oppenheim and
Hilary Putnam in "Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis" (1958).[6] It has been opposed by
Jerry Fodor in "Special Sciences (Or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis)" (1974),[7] by
Paul Feyerabend in Against Method (1975) and later works,[8][9] and by
John Dupré in "The Disunity of Science" (1983)[10] and The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science (1993).[11]
Jean Piaget suggested, in his 1918 book Recherche[12] and later books, that the unity of science can be considered in terms of a circle of the sciences, where logic is the foundation for mathematics, which is the foundation for mechanics and physics, and physics is the foundation for chemistry, which is the foundation for biology, which is the foundation for sociology, the moral sciences, psychology, and the theory of knowledge, and the theory of knowledge forms a basis for logic, completing the circle,[13] without implying that any science could be
reduced to any other.[14]
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von (December 1951). "General system theory: a new approach to unity of science: 1. Problems of general system theory". Human Biology. 23 (4): 302–312.
JSTOR41448003.
PMID14907026. Bertallanfy's article was part of a section that also included, in response,
Carl G. Hempel's "General system theory and the unity of science" (pp. 313–322), Robert E. Bass's "Unity of nature" (pp. 323–327), and
Hans Jonas's "Comment on general system theory" (pp. 328–335).
Kitchener, Richard F. (September 1981). "The nature and scope of genetic epistemology". Philosophy of Science. 48 (3): 400–415 (413).
doi:
10.1086/289007.
JSTOR186987.
S2CID144785292. Nowhere does Piaget suggest that sociology can be reduced to psychology, but instead refers to 'psycho-sociology'.
Piaget, Jean (1918).
Recherche(PDF) (in French). Lausanne: Édition La Concorde. p. 59.
OCLC2565864.
Archived(PDF) from the original on 2016-06-29. Retrieved 9 February 2017.