unity of science

Naturalism has typically been entangled with a physicalist view. Physicalism, on the other hand, falls short of accounting for qualitative states of mental phenomena. The hard problem of consciousness seems to be a natural epistemic boundary in such a way that we do not even have any conceptualization as to how we can possibly account for mental states in physicalist terms in the future, which leads us to some version of causal/ontological plurality in the sense that it does not seem possible to explain everything with the same parameters even though the world fundamentally consists in a single substance. If plurality in multiple levels of scientific explanation is necessary, I argue that strong emergentism is, as a metaphysical framework, the best candidate to account for this fact. I will tackle two major physicalist views by Kim and Sider. Kim shows us that non-reductive physicalism is a bankrupt project whereas Sider’s physicalism that postulates a pure and complete fundamental level renders higher-level phenomena (including mental reality) metaphysically spurious. In relation to Kim and Sider’s accounts, I will try to elaborate on my view that physicalism, when pursued to the end, is inherently reductive and ultimately falls short of accounting for the mental reality. I emphasize that the causal identification of brain and mind rests on an arbitrary carving of world, namely a description of the world which cannot be intrinsic to nature. These are the main reasons why I conclude that our revised naturalism should be disentangled from physicalism and embrace the causal/ontological plurality of strong emergentism without falling for substance dualism.

The unity or non-unity of science has been one of the most important philosophical issues in the twentieth century. One of the most important answers to the question of the unity of science has been suggested by reductionists. The present article focuses on two prominent examples of such approaches. The first example was taken from the philosophical movements of rational positivism and the second example was chosen from the post-positivist philosophical movements. We have shown that the supposedly successful reductions in science have given rise to the idea that the answer to the question of the unity of science is possible through reduction. We have then argued that the reductionist approach is fundamentally inefficient, inadequate, and incorrect. Reductionism is ineffective because it does not contribute to conceptual and ontological simplification. It is inadequate because, first, it does not cover the ontological diversity of fundamentally different scientific activities, and second, it does not provide an adequate answer to the explanatory need on why one ontological and epistemological layer is more fundamental than the other ones. Reductionism is wrong because, first, it is incompatible with the history of the evolution of scientific theories; second, it does not properly explain the relationship between evidences and theories. Third, according to Foder, it cannot solve the problem of multiple-realizability; fourth, according to Feyerabend, if the incomparability of scientific theories is correct, the possibility of any kind of communication, including deductive communication, is ruled out. The failure of reductionism shows that models like Nigel and Putnam-Oppenheim do not provide a suitable answer to the problem of the unity of science. Therefore, it is suggested that the answer to the problem of the unity of science be pursued through a non-reductionist approach.

This article investigates and evaluates models of the unity of science in 20th century. In general, the models of unity of science could be divided into two parts and investigated separately. The first group are models which defend reductionism and eliminativism by relying on physicalism. The second group are the ones that by relying on methodology try to guarantee the unity of science. In evaluating the first group on the works of Thomas Nagle and William James it is argued that these models not adjusted to different ontological fields. The various methods of scientific research and different function of the values of preferring a theory in different contexts of comparison also undermine the claim of scientific unity in the second group models. Anyway, for avoiding the harmful result of the being incommensurable, relying on holism the possibility of giving a model of the unity of science could be defended which has provided possibility of interdisciplinary cooperation and defies any attempt for reductionism or ignorance of the plurality of methods.

Transforming methodology from Deduction to Induction and finally its generalization from the realm of nature studies to the scope of human being one by a positivistic presupposition has led to modern Humanities which have a charge to study human beings nature and behaviors scientifically. The main goal of the article is to show theoretical and practical insufficiency of this method in an Islamic society by conceptual interpretation and analysis of evidences. Theoretically it has presented four reasons to indicate inability of positivistic method in understanding, in general and particularly to understand a man favored in Islam whose perfect paradigm is God messenger Muhammad (s): The most important reason of postivists for meaningless of non-empirical propositions i.e, Verification is not verifiable; Inductive method does not lead in certainty; An Objective science is no possible; Scientific method unable to define human nature and behavior although it is sufficient to study raw matter. Practically, in the article it has been indicated that positivistic method in resolving Muslims problem contradicts Islamic method.