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ON THE POSSIBILITIES AND ASSUMPTIONS OF CONSILIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE

T. Zemcik

Abstract

E.O. Wilson, the founder of sociobiology, presents in his work Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge from 1998 a conjecture that postmodernism as a principal line of thought at the end of the 20th century, which is inherent in the mainstream social sciences and humanities, closes the door to the unity of knowledge - the so-called consilience. The purpose of this study was to analyse the possibilities of the consilience of knowledge in humanities and natural and social sciences in the state of postmodern crisis of an objective truth in the context of the early 21st century. The main question was whether the consilience of knowledge is really possible and useful from this point of view. For this analysis, we used the interpretative framework of a narrative approach in the perspective of wide connotations with regard to the meaning of consilience as a plausible tendency in present science also in the relativising conditions of the postmodern, or at present, it is possible to say post-factual or post-truth, times. The study presents a conclusion that even though WilsonВ’s observation is really significant and contributive, it disregards the entire perspective of this issue - the postmodernism interwoven with humanities and social sciences does not close the door to knowledge, on the contrary, it opens the door to its diversity. Thus there is no obstacle to the consilience of knowledge of various scientific disciplines from this point of view. This conclusion can be one of the many arguments which bring technical and social sciences and humanities closer together and can help connect the corpus of their knowledge. It justifies the possibility to create a platform where such consilience would be possible.

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