Customer Reviews

The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science

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This book is primarily an attack on reductionism. It is not the first such attack, and I am quite sure it will not be the last. The subtitle suggests that its scope will cover sundry branches of science (Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of science). However, that is a bit misleading. The primary discipline which Dupre engages is biology, with a few references (in passing) to quantum mechanics along the way. Not that this is bad, mind you, but those who are looking for a book that deals with the philosophy of science in general as opposed to just biology should look elsewhere. Overall, I found this a rather boring book. Not a bad book, but boring. It seemed to be on the redundant side & I can pretty much sum-up its thesis in one sentence: there are too many variables at work for reductionism to be a plausible working paradigm in the taxonomy of species. Dupre believes that too many times the classification of species is not as straightforward as one would think, but are instead based on the personal preferences of biologists rather than on barriers supplied by Nature. In other words, all (or most all) boundaries imposed by scientists to categorize species are inconsistant and are at best artificial. The faults of Reductionism are nothing new anyone involved in the philosophy of science, but Dupre does do a good job of expanding on and giving his own spin to some of the more trenchant objections to the paradigm. All in all, I would only suggest this book if one has a keen interest in either biology or the philosophy of science. A lack of enthusiasm in either of these areas is likely to make this book a tedious read.