Rational Consilience

Abstract

This final chapter focusses on the question of how insights gained from multiple disciplines can be brought together or colligated into a deeper and more satisfying vision of the world. It specifically engages the question of whether it is irrational to hold beliefs which are developed through the use of different rational strategies and criteria—for example, the scientist who is also a socialist, or a theologian who is also a natural scientist. It is argued that any form of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary engagement requires working with multiple rationalities and learning to live with the tensions this creates. In arguing for the need for integration and dialogue, the chapter criticizes the influential approach to consilience developed by E. O. Wilson on the grounds that it it is excessively dependent on the intellectual framework provided by the Enlightenment, and gives too prominent a place to the natural sciences. A more open approach is suggested in its place.