This article is part of The Limits of Science: an ongoing debate between scientist Peter Atkins and philosopher Mary Midgley.
Midgley launches the debate by arguing that science does not have the answers to every question. In Science Unlimited, Atkins contends that, in fact, science will explain all of existence. Then, Midgley responds in Knowledge is Not an Empire, by arguing that science is just one field of enquiry among others. Now, Atkins counters that only science offers us a deep understanding of reality.
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The delusion that human knowledge is some kind of empire, despotically ruled by one's own favourite study, is not a new one. The classicists who for centuries taught Greek and Roman literature throughout Europe suffered from it badly, and they have, I think, only been cured of it by going out of fashion after the Second World War. That, however, was the epoch at which the field of academic studies began its recent vigorous expansion. It was also the epoch at which scholars became so much better educated about this expansion, and about the importance of relations between its various branches, that it is rather surprising today to find this kind of monopolistic claim still being made.
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