"Unified Science" can refer to any of three related strands in contemporary thought. * Belief in the unity of science was a central tenet of

logical positivism Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...

. Different logical positivists construed this doctrine in several different ways, e.g. as a

reductionist Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical pos ...

thesis, that the objects investigated by the

special sciences Special sciences are those sciences other than fundamental physics. In this view, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience—indeed, all sciences except fundamental physics—are special sciences. The status of the special sciences, and their relat ...

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. * The writings of Edward Haskell 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 The vast part of the work of Haskell and his contemporaries remains unpublished, however.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 Anthony Judge, (Port Said, 21 January 1940) is mainly known for his career at the Union of International Associations (UIA), where he has been Director of Communications and Research, as well as Assistant Secretary-General. He was responsible at the ...

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 Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, a subset of Earth system science, that takes a holism, holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general ...

and the associated Emergy Synthesis, modeling the " ecosystem": the geochemical, biochemical, and thermodynamic processes of the

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust (geology), crust and the portion of the upper mantle (geology), mantle that behaves elastically on time sca ...

and biosphere. 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).

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 Positive
Timothy 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 relationship
Anthony Judge's further development of these ideas Analytic philosophy Metatheory of science Science studies

See also

References

External links