Peter Achinstein: “What is a ‘theory of everything’ and why should we want one?”

Abstract: Scientists and philosophers who seek, or advocate seeking, a “theory of everything” (e.g., string theory, Thomas Nagel’s panpsychic theory, David Chalmers’ “construction of the world”) want to produce a grand, unifying theory that can explain everything on the basis of fundamental laws and constituents of the universe.  Advocates of this idea offer very general empirical, or a priori, or methodological reasons for doing so.  These reasons are worth examining and criticizing.

Peter Achinstein is the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein University Professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva University, director of the Yeshiva Center for History and Philosophy of Science, founder and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for History and Philosophy of Science, and a professor at Johns Hopkins University.