"Unified Science" can refer to any of three related strands in contemporary thought.
* Belief in the
unity of science
The unity of science is a thesis in philosophy of science that says that all the sciences form a unified whole.
Overview
The unity of science thesis was proposed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in "General System Theory: A New Approach to Unity of Scie ...
was a central tenet of
logical positivism. Different logical positivists construed this doctrine in several different ways, e.g. as a
reductionist thesis, that the objects investigated by the
special sciences reduce to the objects of a common, putatively more basic domain of science, usually thought to be physics; as the thesis that all of the theories and results of the various sciences can or ought to be expressed in a common language or "universal slang"; or as the thesis that all the special sciences share a common
method
Method ( grc, μέθοδος, methodos) literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In recent centuries it more often means a prescribed process for completing a task. It may refer to:
*Scien ...
.
* The writings of
Edward Haskell
Edward Fröhlich Haskell (August 24, 1906 – 1986) was a synergic scientist who dedicated his life to the unification of human knowledge into a single discipline. Biography
Haskell was born in Phillipopolis, now Plovdiv, Bulgaria. His mother wa ...
and a few associates, seeking to rework science into a single discipline employing a common artificial language. This work culminated in the 1972 publication of ''
Full Circle: The Moral Force of Unified Science''. The vast part of the work of Haskell and his contemporaries remains unpublished, however. Timothy Wilken and
Anthony Judge have recently revived and extended the insights of Haskell and his coworkers.
* Unified Science has been a consistent thread since the 1940s in
Howard T. Odum's
systems ecology and the associated
Emergy Synthesis, modeling the "
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
": the geochemical, biochemical, and thermodynamic processes of the
lithosphere and
biosphere
The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also ...
. Modeling such earthly processes in this manner requires a science uniting geology, physics, biology, and chemistry (H.T.Odum 1995). With this in mind, Odum developed a
common language of science based on electronic schematics, with applications to ecology economic systems in mind (H.T.Odum 1994).
See also
*
Consilience
In science and history, consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are ...
— the unification of knowledge, ''e.g.'' science and the humanities
*
Tree of knowledge system
References
* Odum, H.T. 1994. ''Ecological and General Systems: An Introduction to Systems Ecology.'' Colorado University Press, Colorado.
* Odum, H.T. 1995. 'Energy Systems and the Unification of Science', in Hall, C.S. (ed.) ''Maximum Power: The Ideas and Applications of H.T. Odum.'' Colorado University Press, Colorado: 365-372.
External links
Future PositiveTimothy Wilken's website, including a lot of material and diagrams on Edward Haskell's Unified Science
Cardioid Attractor Fundamental to Sustainability - 8 transactional games forming the heart of sustainable relationshipAnthony Judge's further development of these ideas
Analytic philosophy
Metatheory of science
Science studies