Abstract
Amazon (2013):
Calls for a "consilient" or "vertically integrated" approach to the study of human
mind and culture have, for the most part, been received by scholars in the humanities
with either indifference or hostility. One reason for this is that consilience has
often been framed as bringing the study of humanistic issues into line with the study
of non-human phenomena, rather than as something to which humanists and scientists
contribute equally. The other major reason that consilience has yet to catch on in
the humanities is a dearth of compelling examples of the benefits of adopting a consilient
approach. Creating Consilience is the product of a workshop that brought together
internationally-renowned scholars from a variety of fields to address both of these
issues. It includes representative pieces from workshop speakers and participants
that examine how adopting such a consilient stance -- informed by cognitive science
and grounded in evolutionary theory -- would concretely impact specific topics in
the humanities, examining each topic in a manner that not only cuts across the humanities-natural
science divide, but also across individual humanistic disciplines. By taking seriously
the fact that science-humanities integration is a two-way exchange, this volume takes
a new approach to bridging the cultures of science and the humanities. The editors
and contributors formulate how to develop a new shared framework of consilience beyond
mere interdisciplinarity, in a way that both sides can accept.