Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge is a 1998 book by the biologist E. O. Wilson, in which the author discusses methods that have been used to unite the sciences and might in the future unite them with the humanities. Wilson uses the term consilience to describe the synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor.

Definition of consilience

This book defines consilience as "Literally a 'jumping together' of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation." The word is borrowed from Whewell's phrase the consilience of inductions in his book Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. Whewell posited that this consilience of inductions occurs when an induction obtained from one class of facts coincides with an induction obtained from a different class. In this way a consilience is a test of the truth of a theory.

Examples of consilience discussed by Wilson

Chapter 1 The Ionian enchantment

Chapter 2 The great branches of learning

Chapter 3 The Enlightenment

Chapter 4 The natural sciences

Chapter 5 Ariadne's thread

Chapter 6 The mind

Chapter 7 From genes to culture

Chapter 8 - 12

The remaining chapters are titled Chapter 8 The fitness of human nature, Chapter 9 The social sciences, Chapter 10 The arts and their interpretation, Chapter 11 Ethics and religion, Chapter 12 To what end?

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