Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

The cardinal epistemology of tawhid, meant here functionally as the unity of knowledge of the divine law is central to all forms of intellection in Islamic methodological worldview. The episteme of tawhidi unity of knowledge and its induction of the unifying and evolutionary learning world-system is formalized to relate to the goal of the universal balance, justice, and moderation termed as al-wasatiyyah. This connection is made via the medium of the objective and purpose of the tawhidi divine law of unity of knowledge and its induction in the unifying world-system by generality and details. This is the medium of maqasid as-shari'ah. This paper formalizes in methodological sense the model of the circular causal interrelationship between [T] awhid, al-[ w] asitiyyah, and [m] aqasid as-shari'ah. The resulting model of the Qur'anic origin, carrying with it the features of philosophical and mathematical intellection is both analytical and applied in nature. Several examples of particular problems are studied within the framework of the generalized theory of the T,W,M interrelations presented in this paper.

In my essay “On the Problem of Truth, Goodness and Beauty in Chinese Philosophy,” I suggested that the conceptions of truth, goodness, and beauty rest on three propositions: the unity of Heaven and man, the unity of knowledge and action, and the unity of sentiment and scenery. Among these, the unity of Heaven and man is the most fundamental, and it is from this that the other two unities are derived. The unity of knowledge and action requires that people realize both the “heavenly way” and the “human way” and practice them in daily life, while the unity of sentiment and scenery requires that people express Heaven’s work in their thoughts and feelings.

‘Can we actually “know” the universe? My God, it is hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown …’ is a line from one of Woody Allen’s books. The line seems appropriate as the opening line for an essay in which I plan to examine some of the many problems with the idea of ‘unity of knowledge’ or ‘consilience’ as presented by the Harvard University biologist E. O. Wilson (1998). Concerning the gospel of ‘consilience’ I have doubts about its ‘unification metaphysics’ (material determination, all the way down) and its ‘unified learning’ pedagogy (with its emphasis on one particular, even peculiar, ‘natural science’ conception of knowledge; Wilson, 1998, p. 5, 3).

Big History unifies human knowledge across time, identifying eight major threshold events where new forms of complexity emerge. It thus presents a powerful (and awe-inspiring) narrative of emergence, over deep time. A useful addition to the Big History toolkit is a formal, testable systems meta-meta-science, which can be used to analyze, synthesize, and model the underlying units, and their dynamics (function/behavior), across all the domains Big History examines. Evolutionary Culturology (Ev Cult) provides such scientific tools. As a transdisciplinary (all-disciplinary) meta-meta-science, Ev Cult synthesizes the meta-sciences, including Systems Science (and Complexity Science), Information and Communication Science, Cultural Evolution Science, Creativity Science and more, offering a standardized universal, or one-size-fits-all, scientific toolkit, that operates across all domains - physical, chemical, astronomical, geological, biological, psychological, sociological, anthropological, cultural, and technological, even rendering the units in the Arts/Humanities scientifically measurable and countable. Ev Cult defines the fractal HOLON/parton as the universal unit (of: information, and energy, and matter), governed by three universal laws of systemic behavior/function: (1) integration upward/outward, (2) cooperation/competition laterally with peer units, and (3) control/command, downward/inward. These three simple scientific laws enable a computable, fractal model of evolution applicable to all known systems and domains. Big History identifies major thresholds (and mini-thresholds) of complexity, while Ev Cult further provides simple scientific tools to identify the universal (1) units, (2) scale-levels, (3) laws, and (4) mechanisms of change (evolution) behind them. Ev Cult maps Big History’s `Eight Major Thresholds’, Chaisson’s `energy gradients’, and Volk’s `Grand Sequence’ to a unified scale-ladder of nested systems. In doing so, it enables the examination of Big History not merely as a grand, unifying meta-narrative, but also as a universal systems meta-meta-science. Ev Cult provides solutions to various longstanding scientific problems including: the structure and function (behavior) of the units of culture; a simplified scientific taxonomy of all information; and universal mechanisms of evolution across 50,000+ domains. Since Ev Cult’s discovery in 1992, it has seen practical application in commercial private practice across over 50 industries (and 50,000+ domains), offering measurable gains in modeling, prediction and control, pedagogy, and ethical systems design. After 20 years of private industry testing and refinement, Ev Cult was academically published in a 2016 PhD. Where thinkers like Teilhard de Chardin envisioned cosmic convergence, and eminent authors such as David Christian, Eric Chaisson, Yuval Noah Harari and many more - offer sweeping historical syntheses, Evolutionary Culturology further provides a formal, testable system of consilience, the unity of knowledge - thus providing a universal `language’ (in fact, a universal science) across all domains and disciplines. Ev Cult certainly does not compete with Big History, but rather co-operates with, and enhances it, with additional tools of scientific analysis and synthesis. By turning Big History’s awe-inspiring grand narrative into a predictive meta-meta-scientific framework, Ev Cult operationalizes the unity of knowledge across all domains and scales.

(1995). Huang Zuo's Meeting with Wang Yangming and the Debate over the Unity of Knowledge and Action. Ming Studies: Vol. 1995, No. 1, pp. 53-73.

The chief aim of this research is to single out, in light of the overall view of Antonio Rosmini, a high level of integration between the various disciplines, which is to be defined “transdisciplinary”, within the epistemological architecture of the Theosophy, and to investigate his ambitious attempt to restore the unity of knowledge, developed by Rosmini in the course of his life and implemented by the Theosophy , in light of this new “transdisciplinary” paradigm.

There is much of value to be found in A. S. Cua's latest book, THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION: A STUDY IN WANG YANG-MING'S MORAL PSYCHOLOGY. One of its most admirable qualities is the sense it conveys of the author as one who, like the Confucius of ANALECTS 9:4, carefully avoids preconceptions, arbitrariness, dogmatism, and egotism and thus puts himself in a potentially very productive relationship with his readers. Professor Cua's evident sense of involvement in his subject determines the presentation of this book as a personal reflection, yet the commitment is balanced with a remarkable intellectual openness that informs the argument throughout. The author repeatedly communicates his awareness that this book, like other good books, should contribute to an ongoing dialogue on an important subject and his recognition that the point of such an inquiry is not to provide definitive solutions to problems which, after all, cannot really be resolved, but rather to help to cultivate an appreciation for their significance, complexity and perenniality. Thus the book is not only stimulating but engaging in that it provides profound reassurance about the constructive possibilities of comparative ethics in ongoing work in the humanities.

Self-reflective transformational-transformative co-ordinations of the psychological

Contrary to Tawhidi way of organizing and formalizing unity of knowledge by the portfolio of inter-related financing instruments that gain their relational inter-causal dynamics, the way of shari’ah in financing is one of separable contracts (aqd). Thereby, two opposite pictures are attained regarding the mode of financing. The shari’ah approach cannot address the central ontology of unity of knowledge explained by inter-variable endogenous relationship unraveling pervasive complementarities in and between ‘everything’. Contrarily, Tawhid is indispensably premised in its primal ontology of monotheistic unity of knowledge and its replication in the unified world-system by way of using the organic inter-causal meaning of endogenous relationship between the variables. The difference between these approaches in respect of the gains that can be obtained from Islamic financing in the case of applying Tawhidi methodological worldview can be noticed. This is contrary to the case of aqd-based approach of shari’ah in all its forms. Such empirical differentiation arising from the Tawhidi methodological origin contrary to the shari’ah approach is brought out by the abstracto-empirical study of the principle financing instruments.

A Study on the Practical Character of the unity of knowledge and practice between Wang, Soo-In and Jo, Sik

greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and humanities. The ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and resulting chaos in philosophy are not reflections of the real world but artifacts of scholarship. . . . Consilience is the key to unification. . . . Its surest test will be its effectiveness in the social sciences and humanities. The strongest appeal of consilience is in the prospect of intellectual adventure and, given even modest success, the value of understanding the human condition with a higher degree of certainty. —Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998, 8–9) Given the recent convergence of evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology-sociobiology, one might expect that the next generation of researchers will rapidly untangle all the major mysteries of human behavior and cognition. Unfortunately, I do not think that this will happen quickly. The main reason is that no branch of the evolutionary social sciences has an adequate understanding of human culture. Culture is a product of evolved cognitive mechanisms, but its existence may significantly alter behavioral patterns from those normally expected (from non-cultural organisms), and its emergence has probably uniquely shaped evolved human cognition and emotion. —Kim Hill , “Evolutionary Biology, Cognitive Adaptations, and Human Culture” (2007, 351)

Moral education affinity has a very important influence on the smoothdevelopment of moral education activities and the improvement of educationaleffectiveness. From the perspective of psychology, the needs and emotions ofthe educatees are its motivational mechanism, the will of the educatees is itsmaintenance mechanism, psychological compatibility is its guarantee mechanism,and the learning psychology of the educatees is the reinforcement mechanism.The generation of moral education affinity is the process of educators’ activeinterpersonal attraction, the application of positive psychological effect, the changeof educatees’ attitude, and the psychological exchange and interaction betweeneducators and educatees. The main way to cultivate moral education affinity isto fully pay attention to the needs or changes of the educatees, make efforts tostimulate and strengthen the learning motivation, maintain the main status androle of the educatees, and enhance the appeal and affinity of the educationalprocess through the unity of knowledge and action.

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The unity of knowledge

Purpose The purpose of this study/paper is the generalized ontological law of monotheism (unity of knowledge) and its functioning in the financial world system is summarized and contrasted with the recent conception of “shari’ah-compliance”. Thereby, some specific rulings of shari’ah-compliance in Islamic finance are critically annulled. The principal problem of the inability of shari’ah-compliance in the formalism of rate-setting and debt cancellation is pointed out in analytical ways. The alternative valuation models in the light of the Tawhidi ontological law are formalized. Many important issues are examined in analytical and Tawhidi authentic ways of Islamic law contra to shari’ah-compliance. Design/methodology/approach The epistemological approach commencing from the Tawhidi ontological law is used as the premise of developing analytical formalism to counter the irrelevant rulings done by the field of shari’ah compliance. Thereby, endogenous moral and ethical foundations are studied in deriving analytical finance models of asset valuation, rate-determination and debt cancellation. Findings Substantive analytical results are derived for intellection in the area of the primal ontological law of Tawhid that negates many of the rulings framed up in shari’ah-compliance area of Islamic law. These results can guide financial academia, practitioners and policymakers. Research limitations/implications The paper can be expanded subsequently to the area of analytical Islamic finance in general by further investigating the Modigliani and Miller theorem on optimal debt-equity structure of corporate finance. An introduction to this study is provided in this paper as a starting point of dealing with the debt problem of shari’ah-compliance. Practical implications The paper presents important guidance as input for the rulings of shari’ah-compliance idea held by shari’ah advisory boards and similar institutions presently operating at the financial level. Social implications The paper presents a subtle transformation of the social and financial order in the light of the Tawhidi ontological law quite differently from the way that shari’ah-compliance envisions. Originality/value The theoretical and projected applied perspectives in analytical finance presented in this paper provide a methodological worldview for all areas of social finance with ethical consciousness. Such analytical approach is much needed today in the reconstruction of global finance in the scale of ethics and away from the sole focus on capital market efficiency.