The Order and Integration of Knowledge

TL;DR

This paper analyzes William Oliver Martin's 1957 work on the nature, classification, and interrelations of different kinds of knowledge, highlighting implications for science and religion compatibility.

Contribution

It provides a detailed overview of Martin's classification of knowledge types and their relationships, clarifying the potential for harmony or conflict between science and theology.

Findings

Knowledge types are either autonomous or synthetic.

Relations among knowledge types include instrumental, constitutive, and regulative.

Theology and science can be compatible without conflict.

Abstract

William Oliver Martin published "The Order and Integration of Knowledge" in 1957 to address the problem of the nature and the order of various kinds of knowledge; in particular, the theoretical problem of how one kind of knowledge is related to another kind. Martin characterizes kinds of knowledge as being either autonomous or synthetic. The latter are reducible to two or more of the autonomous (or irreducible) kinds of knowledge, viz., history (H), metaphysics (Meta), theology (T), formal logic (FL), mathematics (Math), and generalizations of experimental science (G). Metaphysics and theology constitute the two domains of the ontological context while history and experimental science are the two domains of the phenomenological context. The relation of one kind of knowledge to another may be instrumental, constitutive, and/or regulative. For instance, historical propositions are constitutive of G, metaphysical propositions are regulative of G, and propositions in formal logic and mathematics are instrumental to G. Theological propositions are not related to G and so there is no conflict between science and theology. Martin's work sheds light on the possible areas of incompatibility between science and religion.