Wilson and Gould: The Engagement of the Sciences and the Humanities

Abstract

This article looks at two evolutionary theorists, E.O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould, whose differing notions of consilience
reflect a fundamental divide on the nature of the relationship between the sciences and the humanities. This article reads Wilson as seeing
a need for the social sciences and humanities to move toward the reductive methods and principles of the natural sciences. It charts a brief
intellectual history of Wilson’s argument. This article presents Gould and his wish to approach the sciences and the humanities as
independent domains of investigation. At issue between Gould and Wilson is the weight given to analysis and synthesis. Wilson is keen
to argue that both methods, the analytical breaking down of parts via reduction and the synthetic rebuilding of knowledge, are important
in his endeavor of consilience. This article argues that reduction is weighted heavier by Wilson (if only because the sciences are better at it).
However, Gould’s approach values the sort of synthesis that can also be found in the humanities, predicated on the basic understanding
that the parts cannot always describe the whole. In this way, the synthetic move upward from analysis is considered to be a different
process altogether. Thus, Gould looks to the humanities as an example of how this might be done. In such a way, Gould promotes an
equal engagement by both domains instead of marginalizing one at the benefit of the other.