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Some Indications of Unity Among the Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Extract

From the beginnings of thought, through the period of ancient Greece and including the medieval and early modern period, knowledge was sought after and looked upon as an integrated totality. In recent years certain scientific fields have progressed at greatly accelerated rates, leading to extreme complexity. The specialization necessary for comprehension of any of these fields has tended to destroy the integration of knowledge. Yet there are some hopeful signs amid the confusion of modern philosophy. The present note attempts to sketch a perspective toward integration of a large portion of scientific knowledge, the perspective which has been opened by modern researches and was not known at the time when the old dichotomies of mechanism versus vitalism, determination versus freedom, cause versus purpose, etc., arose. The discussion was stimulated by a series of lectures at Carleton College given by Henry Margenau, lectures which seek encouragingly to reverse the trend toward rigid compartmentalization. Its substance is drawn largely from two recent books, What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger (1) and Cell and Psyche by Edmund W. Sinnott (2).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1955

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References

(1) Schködinger, Erwin, What Is Life?, New York, Macmillan Co., 1945.Google Scholar
(2) Sinnott, Edmund W., Cell and Psyche, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1950.Google Scholar
(3) du Noüy, Lecomte, Human Destiny, New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1942.Google Scholar
(4) Margenau, Henry, The Nature of Physical Reality, New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1950.Google Scholar