Consilience with the ahumanists

E O Wilson

I am presently re-reading E O Wilson (1998) “Consilience – the unity of knowledge”. He was born in 1929 and is still going strong.

I first came across him about 1975 regarding ‘Sociobiology’ which, if I remember correctly, I linked closely to my ideas of Humanism which I understood, at the time, as following from the notion that ‘mankind is on its own’ ie I was, and still am, encultured to the Naturalist (Bright) perspective.

I am presently at p40 of the book and I have been introduced to a history of mainly Western thought since the Ancient Greeks and focusing on the Enlightenment. Wilson reckons it began well but lost its way.

“The Enlightenment or Age of Reason was a cultural movement of intellectuals in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its purpose was to

• reform society using reason, 
• challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and
• advance knowledge through the scientific method.

It promoted scientific thought, skepticism and intellectual interchange and opposed superstition, intolerance and some abuses of power by the church and the state. The ideas of the Enlightenment have had a major impact on the culture, politics, and governments of the Western world. 

The Scientific Revolution is closely tied to the Enlightenment, as its discoveries overturned many traditional concepts and introduced new perspectives on nature and man's place within it. The Enlightenment flourished until about 1790–1800, after which the emphasis on reason gave way to Romanticism's emphasis on emotion, and a Counter-Enlightenment gained force.” (Based on Wikipedia)

So we are back with the simple minded either/or debate featuring emotion v reason. BUT we can now come at it from the point of view of evolutionary psychology (linked to neuroscience) and this calls for multi-discipline and multistakeholder teamwork.

Around the table we might have, amongst others, biologists, ecologists, geneticists, geographers, historians, archaeologists, paleontologists, psychologists (various flavours), sociologists, anthropologists, politicians, economists, media people, lawyers, philosophers, and a sprinkling of ahumanists

Ref: http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/brights-and-supers.html

Wilson is very quotable: “This is the cardinal tenet of scientific understanding: Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution.” (Consilience, p33)