---
title: "The Two Cultures"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:37:36.584922+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Antecedents ==
Contrasting scientific and humanistic knowledge is a repetition of the Methodenstreit of 1890 German universities. A quarrel in 1911 between Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile on the one hand and Federigo Enriques on the other one is believed to have had enduring effects in the separation of the two cultures in Italy and to the predominance of the views of (objective) idealism over those of (logical) positivism. In the social sciences it is also commonly proposed as the quarrel of positivism versus interpretivism.

== See also ==
Culture war
The Third Culture
Science wars
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, a 1998 book written by biologist Edward Osborne Wilson, as an attempt to bridge the gap between "the two cultures"
Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns
Interdisciplinarity, a movement to cross boundaries between academic disciplines, including the divide between "the two cultures"

== References ==

== Further reading ==
Burguete, Maria, and Lam, Lui, eds. (2008). Science Matters: Humanities as Complex Systems. World Scientific: Singapore. ISBN 978-981-283-593-2
James, Frank A. J. L. (29 November 2016). "Introduction: Some Significances of the Two Cultures Debate" (PDF). Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. 41 (2–3): 107–117. Bibcode:2016ISRv...41..107J. doi:10.1080/03080188.2016.1223651.
Sinclair, Andrew (1987). The Red and the Blue. Intelligence, Treason and the Universities (Coronet Books, Hodder and Stoughten, U.K.) 211 pages ISBN 0-340-41687-4

== External links ==
Bragg, Melvyn. "The Two Cultures" (discussion). UK: BBC Radio 4.
Ferris, Timothy (13 October 2011). "The World of the Intellectual vs. The World of the Engineer". Wired.
Griffiths, Phillip (13 September 1995). "Phillip Griffiths looks at 'Two Cultures' Today". UK: St Andrews. Archived from the original on 2 November 2007.
Precht, Richard David (2013). "Natural Sciences and Humanities: Genesis of two Worlds" (Webvideo). ZAKlessons. YouTube.
"Are We Beyond the Two Cultures?". Seed. 7 May 2009. Archived from the original on 10 May 2009.