Worin könnten die Einheit und die Vielfalt der Wissenschaften bestehen?
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Paul Hoyningen-Huene
Abstract
What could the unity and diversity of the sciences consist in? In the heyday of logical empiricism, the answer to the title question was easy. The sciences stand in hierarchical order, and the diversity of the sciences is domesticated by reduction relations among them, leading to their unity. However, in the 1960s Feyerabend and Kuhn claimed that these reduction relations cannot be that simple because usually, the concepts of the involved sciences do not fit neatly together. Instead, there are conceptual incongruities between them, which where baptized “incommensurability”. This holds both diachronically, that is for precursor and successor theories, and synchronically, that is for sciences whose subject matter is some whole and sciences whose subject matter is their parts, respectively. If one does not accept the resulting, seemingly unbridgeable diversity of the sciences, one needs a different viewpoint. This viewpoint may be delivered by “Systematicity Theory” that is a new general philosophy of science. Systematicity theory claims that all sciences exhibit, in several dimensions, a higher degree of systematicity, when compared with everyday knowledge. However, as the concept of systematicity varies with the different disciplines and sub-disciplines, the unity among the sciences generated by systematicity is of the Wittgensteinian family resemblance kind which, at the same time, respects their diversity.
Abstract
What could the unity and diversity of the sciences consist in? In the heyday of logical empiricism, the answer to the title question was easy. The sciences stand in hierarchical order, and the diversity of the sciences is domesticated by reduction relations among them, leading to their unity. However, in the 1960s Feyerabend and Kuhn claimed that these reduction relations cannot be that simple because usually, the concepts of the involved sciences do not fit neatly together. Instead, there are conceptual incongruities between them, which where baptized “incommensurability”. This holds both diachronically, that is for precursor and successor theories, and synchronically, that is for sciences whose subject matter is some whole and sciences whose subject matter is their parts, respectively. If one does not accept the resulting, seemingly unbridgeable diversity of the sciences, one needs a different viewpoint. This viewpoint may be delivered by “Systematicity Theory” that is a new general philosophy of science. Systematicity theory claims that all sciences exhibit, in several dimensions, a higher degree of systematicity, when compared with everyday knowledge. However, as the concept of systematicity varies with the different disciplines and sub-disciplines, the unity among the sciences generated by systematicity is of the Wittgensteinian family resemblance kind which, at the same time, respects their diversity.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Inhalt V
- Einleitung 1
- Worin könnten die Einheit und die Vielfalt der Wissenschaften bestehen? 23
- Mathematik in den Wissenschaften 38
- Synergetik als ein Beitrag zur Einheit der Wissenschaft 69
- Leben für Dummys: Von Descartes, Maschinen und Automaten bis zur modernen Systembiologie und Biotechnologie 99
- Vom Geist des Besonderen – Zur Kritik der Unterscheidung von Geistes- und Naturwissenschaft 129
- Einheit oder Vielfalt als theoretische Grundlage der Psychologie? 183
- Emergenz und die Autonomie des Sozialen – Soziologie zwischen Individualismus und Holismus 198
- Theologie als Wissenschaft? Fünf Einwände aus Sicht der naturalistischen Wissenschaftstheorie 232
- Über die Autoren/Herausgeber 273
- Personenregister 276
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Inhalt V
- Einleitung 1
- Worin könnten die Einheit und die Vielfalt der Wissenschaften bestehen? 23
- Mathematik in den Wissenschaften 38
- Synergetik als ein Beitrag zur Einheit der Wissenschaft 69
- Leben für Dummys: Von Descartes, Maschinen und Automaten bis zur modernen Systembiologie und Biotechnologie 99
- Vom Geist des Besonderen – Zur Kritik der Unterscheidung von Geistes- und Naturwissenschaft 129
- Einheit oder Vielfalt als theoretische Grundlage der Psychologie? 183
- Emergenz und die Autonomie des Sozialen – Soziologie zwischen Individualismus und Holismus 198
- Theologie als Wissenschaft? Fünf Einwände aus Sicht der naturalistischen Wissenschaftstheorie 232
- Über die Autoren/Herausgeber 273
- Personenregister 276
