Title: Consilience. The unity of knowledge.
Author: Edward O. Wilson
Category: Expository – History of Science
What is the book about as a whole?
In this book Wilson talks about how the Natural Sciences and the Humanities are intrinsic united in a whole that constitutes human knowledge. He makes a case for stop viewing them as separate and even conflicting issues and instead see the unity and coherence that he calls Consilience.
What is being said in detail, and how?
In chapter one he talks about the Ionian Enchant Wilson talks about his own background and how he become interested in science. He talks about the Linnaean system of dividing plants systematically and giving order to what it seems to be so huge to give an account of. Talking about this order he remind us about the Ionian enchant, the belief of the ancient inhabitants of the Ionian region about the world is orderly arranged and that it can be explained by a few laws. He starts to argue about the unity of knowledge and how much it has been separated in recent years. In chapter two he present us the key for unification: that is Consilience. He likes to use this word since it hasn’t loose his spirit and its meaning has not been confused. Of particular interest for me was his mention to Liberal Arts and how they are a key component in order to understand the world where we live in. The idea of a potential infinite human progress was really appealing for me.
The chapter entitled The Enlightenment was one of my favorite of all the book. It present us with the optimistic view based in rationality and a thrill for discovery of the man of the XVVII and XVIII centuries. On this chapter he makes an overview of the great champions of reason such as Newton, Descartes, Condorcet and others. But this view that emphasizes the human potential to discover the unity of knowledge and the lawful regularities that govern it declined in the XIX century. First romanticism and afterwards the paradoxical position of postmodernism. This philosophy claims that one might not now anything at all! How sad and impossible it seems!
In the next chapter Wilson makes great remarks about Science. He says that is neither a belief system of a philosophy, is a series of mental operations of educated people that has enable us to learn about the orderly world in which we live. But science is no random work is a well-informed exercise of imagine and make hypothesis to explain our reality. It differentiate from pseudo-science because its results can be showed by experimentation (repeatability), the explanations are the easiest (economy) and coherence with other discoveries in science (consilience). Next he talks about the human mind and how complex it is. And the mind is so amazing since is the place where everything we know and everything we would ever be able to know is created. One interesting insight is that the function of the brain that was to make us fit to survive has an unintended result the brain now is trying to understand itself. In this chapter he describes some of the structure of the brain. In the next chapter he talks about how genes and culture are linked, and how we can tend a bridge to understand both of them in a better light. It also introduces the term Epigenetics that stand for rules that are implicit in the configuration of our genes and how we might interact with our environment. From language to building houses we have a preset disposition to do something. Culture and genes co-evolve as product of human activity.
He also talks about the Social Sciences and points out the lack of consilience in these sciences and how much they would benefit of that. He also makes a remark about the particular nature of Economics and how it might fit some of the criteria of the natural sciences. Next he talks about the Arts and how they have a genetic evolutionary background. Next he also talks about the morals and ethics and how they arise also from human activity but also from genetic predispositions. Many of the qualities that now we have might be explained as a consequence of our evolution. As final point he tell us what would be the end of Consilience and why this is important. In short would enable humanity to reach a better understanding of the world in which we live.
What are the author’s questions and problems?
The author is concern about the growing separation among the natural sciences and the humanities and how this might not let us achieve the ancient goal of a unified understanding of the universe.
What books are connected with it?
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
Words and Rules by Steven Pinker
