Edward Wilson, the founder of sociobiology and a persistent advocate of integrating the humanities and natural sciences.
This book is a masterpiece that summarizes that huge project.
He emphasizes that natural science, humanities, and social sciences must cooperate based on the perspective that human knowledge is essentially unified.
To persuasively present this vision of a "grand integration of knowledge," we deeply analyze the various branches that branch off from the main trunk of Western scholarship, and clearly demonstrate the potential for knowledge integration hidden within these branches, yet overlooked by experts in the field.


Starting from the worldview of ancient Greek philosophers, which can be said to be the roots of Western scholarship, through the Enlightenment, which became the mother of modern scholarship and science, and reaching to modern natural science, social science, art, and religious theory, it encompasses the intellectual adventure of humankind diachronically and synchronicly with the prospect of a grand integration of knowledge.
And it seeks to synthesize the two by crossing the major walls that block academic disciplines: the conflict between natural scientists and social scientists, the dichotomy of mind and body, the conflict between geneticists and nurtureists, the debate between empiricists and transcendentalists over ethical standards, and the antagonism between materialists and theists, through the latest scientific achievements.


The original title, 'consilience', is derived from the Latin word 'consiliere', meaning 'jumping together', and means "the 'integration' of knowledge by connecting facts and fact-based theories across fields to create a common basis of explanation."
Professor Choi Jae-cheon of the Department of Life Sciences at Seoul National University, a student of Edward Wilson and the translator of this book, translated this concept as 'consilience' when translating the book.
It is a word created by combining the word ‘tong’ (統), meaning ‘large stem’ or ‘clue’, and the word ‘seop’ (攝), meaning ‘to catch’ or ‘to grasp’, and has the meaning of ‘to catch a large stem.’
Also, when it is used as “supervise the three armies,” it means “rule over everything” or “supervise and govern.”