CommitteeⅠ The Unity of the sciences

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Last year the committee, working partly with the same participants and partly with new participants, addressed itself to the methodological aspects of the unity of science and in particular to exploring the unifying potential of the economic approach and of the evolutionary perspective. It also dealt with the idea of "reductive unity" and, as a sequel to it, with the unification of physics. This year we shifted our focus from strict reductionism, which often is dogmatic and may even impede scientific progress, to intertheoretic criticism and cooperation. There are many examples of how this shift is fruitful: chemistry is more than physics(though they are mutually relevant): biology is more than chemistry; psychology needs brain plus mind; sociology describes the behavior of individuals, but in complex arrangements; and the study of science itself requires close attention to the various intertheoretical relationships. The word science was taken in the wide sense of disciplined inquiry that includes all of the social sciences and the humanities. The committee's approach was truly multidisciplinary. ranging from physics and chemistry to biology, sociology, history, and the self-reflection of scientific inquiry. We wanted to draw a sort of ecological map of intellectual inquiry.