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Universal science (Universalwissenschaft; scientia generalis, scientia universalis) is a branch of metaphysics, dedicated to the study of the underlying principles of all science. Instead of viewing knowledge as being separated into branches, Universalists view all knowledge as being part of a single category. Universal science is related to, but distinct from universal language.

Precursors
Logic and rationalism lie at the foundation of the ideas of universal science. In this section, I will briefly explain the historical development of the foundational ideas in logic that underpin universal science. Specifically, I will pull ideas from Aristotle's book, Categories, which attempts to categorize all possible things that can be the subject of a proposition (a statement that can be either true or false).

Lullism
The first attempt to unify all knowledge into a single universal science was by the European philosopher Ramon Llull. In his book Ars Magna, Llull conjectures that there exists a set of fundamental knowledge, from which all other knowledge can be deduced. In this section, I will further discuss the symbolic system Llull developed and introduced to aid in making logical deduction. Another potentially interesting thing to look into is Llull's relation to the developments of computers and computation.

Descartes & Leibniz
In this section, I will discuss the attempts of Rene Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz to develop their own versions of universal science. Descartes developed his ideas in his book, titled "Mathesis Universalis," while Leibniz developed many of his ideas in his "Characteristica universalis". Furthermore, Leibniz attempted to develop a system of formal logic and symbolic manipulation that would enable proofs to arise in a mechanical and combinatorial manner. Some other areas to develop in this section are the idea of encyclopedias as a form of universal science, along with Leibniz's attempts at creating a comprehensive encyclopedia of all knowledge.

Modern Influences
The ideas of universal science culminated in the developments of mathematics and the study of systems of formal logic during the early 20th century. These notions were rigorously studied by mathematicians include David Hilbert, Georg Cantor, and Kurt Gödel. The last of these became famous for his "Incompleteness Theorems," which guaranteed the existence of true statements that were impossible to prove in certain axiomatic frameworks of mathematics. A good example is the undecidability of Euclid's 5th postulate.