Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge - Edward O. Wilson New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, 332 pp. US$26.00. ISBN 0-679-45077-7. Alfred A. Knopf, 201 E. 50th St., New York, NY 10022, USA.

Précis

Edward O. Wilson continues an argument begun in earlier works that all branches of knowledge are converging around basic fundamental laws of nature discovered through the scientific method. He eclipses earlier calls to bridge the gaps between evolutionary biology and philosophy, for example, by an appeal to involve the arts as well as the humanities in this “jumping together” of the various branches of human knowledge. Wilson draws upon his work in population genetics, entomology, and ethology to propose ways in which science can inform and transform current debates in philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. He maintains that the sciences, humanities, and arts, properly understood, contribute to the “conviction, far deeper than a mere working proposition, that the world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws.”