Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Edward O. Wilson

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An enormous intellectual adventure. In this groundbreaking new book, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, considered to be one of the world's greatest living scientists, argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience--the proof that everything in our world is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws that comprise the principles underlying every branch of learning. Professor Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, now once again breaks out of the conventions of current thinking. He shows how and why our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos and the human species--a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in the last two centuries. Drawing on the physical sciences and biology, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, and the arts, Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and humanistic scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world as it most profoundly, elegantly, and excitingly is.

Book Details

Publisher: Vintage
Publish Date: Mar 30th, 1999
Pages: 384
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.06in - 5.19in - 0.82in - 0.62lb
EAN: 9780679768678
Categories: • Philosophy & Social Aspects• Essays• Life Sciences - Biology

About the Author

Edward O. Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1929. He is the author of two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, On Human Nature (1978) and The Ants (1990, with Bert Hölldobler), as well as many other groundbreaking works, including Consilience, Naturalist, and Sociobiology. A recipient of many of the world's leading prizes in science and conservation, he was a Pellegrino University Research Professor and Honorary Curator in Entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. He died in 2021.

Praise for this book

"A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in search of deep laws to unite them." --The Wall Street Journal

"An original work of synthesis . . . a program of unrivalled ambition: to unify all the major branches of knowledge--sociology, economics, the arts and religion--under the banner of science." --The New York Times

"As elegant in its prose as it is rich in its ideas . . . a book of immense importance." --Atlanta Journal & Constitution

"Edward O. Wilson is a hero. . . he has made landmark scientific discoveries and has a writing style to die for. . . . A complex and nuanced argument." --Boston Globe

"One of the clearest and most dedicated popularizers of science since T. H. Huxley. . . . Mr. Wilson can do the science and the prose." --Time

"An excellent book. Wilson provides superb overviews of Western intellectual history and the current state of understanding in many academic disciplines." -- Slate

"The Renaissance scholar still lives. . . . A sensitive, wide-ranging mind discoursing beautifully. . . . Wilson's buoyant intellectual courage is bracing." --Seattle Weekly