一个几何学隐喻:关于统一科学的可能性

Coordination of Space and Unity of Science

针对科学的统一和不统一的争论,本文探讨了一个几何学隐喻,即在一个流形上建立整体坐标系的可能性。作者解释了为什么后者是一个好的隐喻,因为它表明了“统一”对科学而言意味着什么以及原则上包含什么。通过对统一/不统一争论的部分现存文献的细致研究,作者表明了该隐喻是如何有助于说明其中某些观点的。

This essay explores a metaphor in geometry for the debate between the unity and the disunity of science, namely, the possibility of putting a global coordinate system (or a chart) on a manifold. It is explained that why the former is a good metaphor that shows what it means (and takes in principle) for science to be unified. And then the author goes through some of the existing literature on the unity/disunity debate and shows how the metaphor sheds light on some of the views and arguments in the paper.