Philosophical Unity of Science through Methodological Diversity: Reconstructing Critical Rationalism in an Islamic Epistemological Framework

Modern philosophical inquiry is increasingly characterized by methodological diversity. Empirical science, rational analysis, metaphysical reflection, and normative inquiry employ different standards of justification, yet they often address interconnected aspects of reality. This diversity raises a fundamental metaphilosophical question: Can diverse forms of inquiry contribute to a unified understanding of reality without being reduced to a single universal method? The problem becomes particularly visible in the application of Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion beyond the empirical sciences. While critical rationalism provides a powerful framework for criticism, testability, and the elimination of error, its direct application to non-empirical and normative claims remains limited.

This contribution proposes Islamic Critical Rationalism (ICR) as a conceptual framework for addressing this problem. Building on the critical function of Popperian rationalism while drawing on the integrative orientation of Islamic epistemology, ICR reconstructs the relationship among different forms of inquiry through four interconnected layers: ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiological. The ontological layer concerns the scope and structure of reality; the epistemological layer concerns the legitimate sources and conditions of knowledge; the methodological layer differentiates appropriate procedures for evaluating different kinds of claims; and the axiological layer concerns the values and purposes that guide the production and application of knowledge.

Within this framework, falsifiability is neither rejected nor treated as a universal criterion. It retains its critical function in the evaluation of empirically testable claims, while rational coherence, interpretive adequacy, and normative or revelatory considerations operate within their respective domains. The resulting model therefore distinguishes methodological criteria without fragmenting epistemological inquiry. Its central claim is that epistemological unity should not be understood as methodological uniformity. A unified account of reality can accommodate methodological diversity when different forms of inquiry are related within a coherent epistemological structure.

The philosophical significance of this reconstruction lies in its potential to overcome epistemic fragmentation without collapsing into relativism or methodological monism. By connecting empirical, rational, metaphysical, and normative dimensions within a structured framework, ICR offers a model of epistemic defragmentation in which plurality of methods becomes compatible with philosophical unity. The contribution therefore speaks directly to the conference theme by arguing that philosophy can facilitate a unified understanding of reality not by imposing one method on all forms of inquiry, but by establishing principled relations among their distinct epistemic functions.