Unity of science and encyclopaedia

from the idea to the configurations

Olga Pombo

pp. 157-172

in: Dana Riesenfeld, Giovanni Scarafile (eds), Perspectives on theory of controversies and the ethics of communication, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

Unity of Science is a regulative idea and a task. That is why it has been grasped through the most extreme metaphors of an invisible totality and has given rise to some epistemological programmes and even intellectual movements. But, before to mount up to such exemplary issues, I will pay attention to the deep, institutional configurations of Unity of Science (Library, Museum, "République des Savants", School and Encyclopaedia) and to their polyhedric articulations. More than a game of complementarities, what seems to be interesting is to show that their structured relationship is endowed with important descriptive and normative capacity.