The unity of knowledge

Knowledge is better viewed as a seamless web than as a partitioned set. We attempt to show this by developing an internal critique of Hirst’s theory that there exists a certain number of logically distinct forms of knowledge. In the course of this critique we produce some very general results which tell against any form of epistemic fragmentation, whether based on logical, semantical, or epistemological grounds. We urge, finally and briefly, the credentials of a materialist view which avoids the problems of fragmentation, preserves the unity of knowledge, and accounts for the errors of the kind of view we are attacking.