The goal of this essay is to probe how science could have been different—and how it still can be! —by looking at if and how a general science of human behavior could have, in fact, arose at different points in the past couple of centuries, and still can. I argue that the history of science shows plenty of examples of intellectual techniques and methods that were created for other purposes that could have been fruitfully deployed to develop facets of a separate and integrated human science even as certain basic philosophical precepts stood in the way. The essay examines these missed opportunities and critiques past and contemporary efforts to bridge natural, artificial, and human phenomena. While doing so, the essay points to ways in which physics itself would have been enriched had it taken human behavior as a “legitimate” object of study. I also sketch conceptual issues that must be addressed before a truly new science of humans can emerge.
Abhijnan Rej
Discuss on Forums
View All