Human Sciences and Natural Sciences

There is a close relationship between the question of the unity of the sciences and that of the scientificity of the human and social sciences, because they both involve the question of the identification of scientific knowledge. There are three intertwined questions, which the development of science in contemporary times has renewed with the introduction of numerical methods, the generalization of the use of probabilities, and the emergence of new fields of knowledge. How do we think of the distinction, if it exists, between natural sciences and human sciences, and consequently how do we think of the question of the unity of the sciences? In this chapter, I will seek to show that the treatment of these questions requires a distinction between different levels of scientific generality, degrees of formalization, and forms of scientificity, which go beyond the alleged cleavage between natural sciences and human and social sciences.