I read E. O. Wilson's "Consilience" yesterday - at first glance, it seems to be an interesting take on the state of knowledge in the world today and how we might get around the fragmented nature of contemporary academia. However, despite the professed confidence of Wilson on his theory of Consilience, there are major, major problems with the theory that one must keep in mind when reading about it. I am especially infuriated by his comment on philosophy, and as a philosophy major, it is my foremost duty to defend my discipline against misguided scientific infringements such as his, and this post is my response, both emotional and intellectual, to his arrogance and naivety.

"Consilience is the key to unification (of knowledge)... literally a 'jumping together' of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation" (8). Clearly, his vision of Consilience and the attempted grand unification of knowledge is based firmly upon science. In his view, the primary purpose of knowledge is explanatory and descriptive. By grounding the knowledge upon the sciences, he hopes that the humanities can benefit equally by attaining a deterministic basis by which one may say "I know". This is in opposition to the current fluxation of humanistic studies - and also for inter-disciplinary studies where his theory of Consilience seems to be most focused upon.

However, according to his own admission, the belief in consilience suffers from the following flaws. It is not yet science; it is a metaphysical world view, shared by only a few scientists and philosophers; it cannot be proved with logic from first principles or grounded in any empirical tests; its best support is an extrapolation of the consistent past successes of natural sciences. Hence, Consilience fails by any scientific or even logical standards.

Philosophers also criticise his theory as "conflation, simplism, ontological reductionism, (and) scientism" (11). These are all fair criticisms, once you look deeply enough into the terminology of the critics. Below, I elaborate on how some of these criticisms may be framed:

Conflation - he intends to use science as a theoretical basis not only for the sciences, but also for philosophy and the humanities. The only reason one may provide is that science has so far proved to be the superior paradigm, and that this should be extended to the rest on the basis of intellectual authority. This is obviously false. The humanities operate on a completely different theoretical basis from the sciences by virtue of their subject matter. Wilson explained Consilience as the linking of various disciplines by the coincidences of Induction, but if so, his vision of unity of knowledge is superficial at best, artificial at worst. Yet, he argues for the disappearance of disciplinary boundaries despite providing no solid, common conceptual basis for linking all knowledge together, aside from Induction.

Simplism - Wilson suffers from the amateur's mistake of oversimplification, and overgeneralisation. Consilience works only if one assumes a common theoretical basis for all knowledge, and that all bodies of knowledge can be compatibly fused with the sciences. Both assumptions are highly doubtful. By simplifying the intellectual difficulties and ignoring the issues involved in the nature of knowledge itself, he is able to provide some examples of Consilience at work - examples that, I must say, are framed specifically for his purposes. For example, on page 9, he provides the example of overlaps in environmental policy, ethics, social science and biology, which he presents as equal and distinct disciplines in themselves. However, the comparisons of these four disciplines only makes sense when the overlap of ethics, social sciences and biology lies directly ON environmental policy, in which case environmental policy is a discipline whose body of knowledge depends on the other three. His example clearly fails in this case.

Scientism - According to Bernard Williams, scientism is the idea that "science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, indepedent of perspective... science leaves no room for an independent philosophical enterprise". However, that "science describing the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective" leads to "science leaving no room for an independent philosophical enterprise", is not obvious. It is true only if we assume that the aims of an independent philosophical enterprise is to describe the world as it is in itself. While Wilson does not actually say outright that philosophy has become outmoded, he claims that scientists are equally qualified to do what philosophers are doing. This is certainly true insofar as scientists performing armchair philosophy is concerned, but not true in the manner he seems to imply - that philosophy itself will become part of the sciences.

The way he has gone about making his case is not particularly encouraging. The above criticisms have shown that his theory fails by the standards of philosophical debate. Now, instead of even trying to understand his critics, Wilson simply labels them as "a few professional philosophers" sepaking in "their language", and by the use of semantic smokescreen and personal attacks, avoids the issue entirely, saying "let us move on, thus" (11). In other words, knowing the problems his theory faces, he arrogantly charges head on with his flag of scientism, blindly leading his followers down the road of ignorance.

Lastly, Wilson comments that "trust in consilience is the foundation of the natural sciences" (10). Unfortunately for him, Newton did not need to know anything outside of physics and mathematics in creating his three laws of motion. You do not need consilience, or even the attitude of consilience (if that is his intention) to do science. Even today, practicising scientists can be so specialised that some hardly look beyond their individual subject matter. Rather, trust in consilience is the foundation of HIS metaphysical world view of the natural sciences, "shared only by a few scientists and philosophers".

To conclude, Wilson's entire argument is almost completely based on the premise that one should have "trust in consilience", because "intellectually it rings true". One may discover a remarkable coincidence in his argumentative approach with that favoured by religious fundamentalists - in his case, Consilience is his religion, and he is its pastor. He is overconfident and arrogant (which is forgivable), and philosophically naive and childish (which is unforgiveable in an academic of his stature), backed by the seemingly indestructible edifice called the sciences, unperturbedly imposing his vision upon the rest of academia. With that, I beg everyone to read Wilson with extreme caution.
02:54
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