Consilience : consensus between sciences in the third millennium/21st century

Niniejszy artykuł stanowi przedruk z: "Język polski XXI wieku: analizy, oceny, perspektywy" / (red.) Grzegorz Szpila, Język a komunikacja 17 (2007). Kraków: Tertium; 15-23

Consilience (the term originating in inductive logic and "modernized" in the 1990s by E. O. Wilson, the creator of sociobiology) refers to the age-long dream of humanity that one day all branches of learning will see their unification - from hard sciences, through social and economic studies, to humanities and even the visual arts. Consilience is a search for a common system that would underlie the totality of human knowledge. It has found its reflection in the General Systems Theory, hybrid disciplines and interdisciplinary studies. The author argues that the methodological quests of modern linguistics, which occupies a central position in relation to several disciplines, can direct us towards reacing consilience by focusing on categories and concepts of great generality (necessity vs. contingency, mathematical vs. non-mathematical modelling, the structure of game, etc.). Consilience raises a question as to the feasibility of working out a common language and set of problems for all scholars and scientists despite the progressing narrowness of specialization and minuteness of research.