Abstract

Science does not exist in vacuum; it arises and works in context. Ground-breaking achievements transforming the scientific landscape often stem from philosophical thought, just as symbolic logic and computer science were born from the early analytic philosophy, and for the very reason they impact our global worldview as a coherent whole as well as local knowledge production in different specialised domains. Here we take first steps in elucidating rich philosophical contexts in which Samson Abramsky’s far-reaching work centring around categorical science as a new kind of science may be placed, explicated, and articulated. We argue, inter alia, that Abramsky’s work, as a whole, may be construed as demonstrating the categorical unity of science, or rather the sciences, in a mathematically rigorous, down-to-earth manner, which has been a salient feature of his work. At the same time we trace his intellectual history, leading from duality, to intensionality, and to contextuality, and place it in a broader context of philosophy beyond the analytic-continental divide, namely towards the reintegration of them as in the post-analytic tradition. Besides, we address issues in philosophy of category theory, such as the foundational autonomy of category theory and the (presumably two) dogmas of set-theoretical foundationalism, which Abramsky actually touch upon in one of his few philosophically inclined works. As to philosophy of category theory, we also address categorical structuralism as higher-order structuralism, categorical epistemology as elucidating higher-order meta-laws, and categorical ontology as allowing for reduction of ontological commitment via structural realism, the structuralist resolution of Benaceraff’s dilemma, and the pluralistic multiverse view of science as opposed to the set-theoretical reductionist ‘universe’ view. We conclude by speculating about the existence of the Oxford School of (Pluralistic) Unified Science as opposed to the Vienna Circle of (Monistic) Unified Science and to the Stanford School of (Pluralistic) Disunified Science; Categorical Unified Science may potentially allow us to reconcile the two camps on the unity and disunity of science whilst doing justice to both of them. Categorical unity arguably allows for unification via epistemological and ontological networking, and via knowledge transfer thus enabled, rather than unification via the reduction of everything and every truth to a single foundationalist framework, whilst taking at face value disunity, plurality, and diversity, and their significance in science and in human civilisation as a whole.