The Paradigm of Unity (PU) as the Basis for a “Copernican Revolution” (CR) in the Social Sciences (Note 1)

Thomas Kuhn regarded the Copernican Revolution (CR) as the one which best illustrates the nature of scientific revolutions in the history of science. This is related with the essence of the paradigm in a Kuhnian sense that is a mental shift involving change in the theories, instruments, values and assumptions used to understand a set of phenomena. Copernicus had to change the well-established geocentric system, which functioned not only in the science of his day but also in the culture, tradition, social perception, and even the mentality of religious and political The concept of Paradigm of Unity (PU) is used to denote the societal activity of Chiara Lubich and the Focolare Movemen—in building the psychosocial infrastructure for unity in various social domains; for example, in the economy of communion, in politics (politicians for unity project), in public media (journalists for unity), in ecumenism and interreligious contacts (ecumenical and interreligious Focolari Centers). This conception is a great inspiration, a kind of Copernican revolution for the social sciences, which would motivate researchers in the social sciences to build their own research paradigm with a mental and methodological power and potentiality that could offer new vision to the social sciences (as Copernicus did in the natural sciences).

heliocentric paradigm of Copernicus. However, we will use reasoning by analogy as a cognitive vehicle to construct a new paradigm in a Kuhnian sense for the social sciences.
In his works on analogy, Biela (1991Biela ( , 1998 introduced the notion of analogicalcogito which denotes reasoning by analogy as a cognitive "vehicle" for seeking connections, relations and correspondence between a new domain in question and the well-known domain. Analogy is used as a cognitive vehicle in science, particularly when: formulating a new hypothesis, -introducing new concepts, and arguing new theses.
A new domain is a reality that is in question, because, at the least, it is less known. Therefore, the question is how to cope with a new reality which, on the one hand, is expected to be understood, and, on the other hand, is risky because of its novelty and requires decisions as to which path to follow and how to cognitively encompass the current state of the environment.
For our purposes we will use analogy as a cognitive vehicle in arguing a mental resemblance between the genesis of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus and Chiara Lubich's intuitive discovery of people's 'communion' with its constitutive dynamic, which is building unity with others.
From a mental perspective one can observe a resemblance between the Copernican revolution in astronomy and the path of Chiara Lubich, who created the inspiration for constructing a revolutionary Kuhnian-type paradigm for the social sciences via her social action and writings. Copernicus had to break down the mentally-based Ptolemaic geocentric system. Chiara Lubich had to break down the vision of human individuals that was well-established since antiquity, as living in endless conflict, aggression and fears in their communities.
Plato wrote in his State that in each city there are really two cities: the city of well-being and rich citizens, and the city of poverty, i.e., of poor citizens. Therefore, he concludes, where rich individuals are in close proximity with the poor, there will be never-ending struggle, conflict and mutual aggression. This vision could be called the paradigm of divisions producing disintegration, conflicts, war and anxiety.
In the twentieth century, two very dangerous totalitarian systems, i.e., communism and Nazism, tried to "solve" this problem by functioning in a pattern typical of Plato' shuman society, full of cruel divisions and disintegration. The setotalitarian systems proposed two simple solutions for human activity: aggression and fear. That is why the reviews of the social sciences, to which sociology, pedagogy, psychology, the management sciences, the political sciences and journalism belong have not elaborated a different paradigm in a Kuhniansense. They reflect (Biela, 2006) that the main focus of research emphasizes the processes and phenomena of disintegration and pathologies, rather than integration and sustainable development, the understanding that human ambitions override the need for the common good, and finally, that the autonomy of individuals or elitist groups who do not care for the good of other persons dominates over the need to learn how to cooperate and educate for altruism. For example, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economic Vol. 3, No. 3, 2020 4 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
one of the main findings in the field of social perception is the so-called phenomenon of ethnocentrism found in the area of in-group and out-group perception (see: e.g., in denominational groups; Biela, McKeachie, Lin, Lingoes, 1993). Another example may be the theories and research on collective behavior which were initiated by Gustav LeBon's (1895LeBon's ( , 2018 crowd psychology and the classical statements by Herbert Blumer (1970) (Note 5). This approach is evidently focused on the destructive behaviors of people who lose their individuality in mass-gatherings (Blumer, 1970, Plummer, 1998Zimbardo, 1970;Reicher, Stott, Cronin, Adang, 2004).
What did Chiara Lubich do in spite of the anxiety and chaos of war in an extremely difficult and risky situation in 1944 in Trento (Lubich, 2007)? She decided not to escape from her own life emergency, but together with her friends to help other people to survive, those who were in a much more difficult situation. Amidst the bombing of the war, she evidently documented, in terms of real facts, that building unity is possible in social endeavors (even in extreme environments The real novelty of Chiara Lubich's kind of unity lies in its deep psychological and spiritual riches.
Each relationship with another human being builds unity, as mutual understanding and acceptance of the other as a gift. Such an attitude is really a mutual self-transcendence, which offers the chance for growth of the persons who are in this relationship. Moreover, the emotional, motivational and value content of these kinds of relationships is intended to achieve such goods like mutual love, brotherhood, understanding, acceptance and help-without any preliminary conditions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economic Vol. 3, No. 3, 2020 5 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
What psychological and sociological outcomes could be expected for communities which accept the above-mentioned relationships? From the perspective of social perception: decreased social stereotyping, prejudices and biases related to others who think or behave differently could be expected.
From the point of view of personality, we can foresee that in a community united in this way, an increase of authenticity in human relations will be observed, and, which is also very important, the members of such-integrated communities do not lose their sense of individuality.
In conclusion, the analysis of the theoretical and spiritual backgrounds of the social projects and educational arrangements of Chiara Lubich and the Focolare Movement leads us to say that they certainly represent a kind of'Copernican revolution' in the social sciences.  (Lugon, 1971, Ruisel, 2013.

The Paradigm of Unity for the Social Sciences
Nowadays, the social sciences are desperately seeking theoretical concepts, research programs and applications, a paradigm that would shed light on the factors and regularities leading to conversion of large areas of disintegration, conflicts and wars involving senseless death, and created by some people for other people-into spaces of integration, harmony and the mutual goodwill of people toward each other.
The only alternative to conflicts and social disintegration is integration; to self-centeredness-solidarity.
Europe's recent history has shown that even the undeterred communist block system can scatter like the proverbial house of cards, if the alternative to it is the power of human solidarity. A program should be provided to help people in building unity among themselves on a more sustainable basis than the simple negation of communism and the promotion of democracy as simply the advancement of the autonomy of the individual. It must be a program of YES to building unity in families, professional groups, local communities, economic relations, and international relations-based on the basis of the new psychological, spiritual, social and economic dimensions.
The social phenomena formed by the Focolare Movement are signposts which demonstrate specific activities as opportunities to build unity and social integration on the basis of new and deeper principles.
The activities of this movement are a living and real example of the application of the paradigm of unity to the social sciences, so much needed to attain a new applicational power capable of prevention and treatment of social pathology, conflicts, overt aggression, wars and terrorism. Chiara Lubich, who www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economic Vol. 3, No. 3, 2020 6 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
imbuedher writings and social activities with the charism of preaching the gospel of unity, was a living inspiration and offers motivation for the social sciences in building an interdisciplinary paradigm of unity as a methodological basis for constructing theoretical models, strategies for empirical research and application schemas. If the paradigm of unity becomes well-established in the social sciences, it may play a role as significant as that played by the Copernican revolution in the natural sciences in the XV-XVI centuries and later.
Analyzing the above-mentioned projects of unity in economic, educational, ecumenical and scientific endeavors with the created infrastructures, events, social phenomena and activities, one can interpret all of them as truly existing designates of the new concept.

How Far Are
We in Building the Paradigm of Unity in the Social Sciences and Political Sciences (Biela, 1996) Now?
Let us begin our analysis by reflecting on the methodological status of the conception of the paradigm of unity in the social science disciplines at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. The methodological status of each of the scientific disciplines consists of three elements: the subject of research, the goals to be reached, and the research methods. Following is a review of the disciplines within the University's Faculty of Social Sciences: sociology, psychology, pedagogy, economics, management sciences, journalism and social communication sciences and political science.

Psychology, Sociological and Political Sciences
We will now review the literature regarding issues related to the paradigm of unity in the disciplines of psychology and sociology. Some general introductory remarks will be found on the methodological values of the paradigm of unity in the social sciences with exemplification of these proposals for the psychological sciences (Biela, 2006(Biela, , 2009) and economics (Biela, 2006). Then Biela (2013a) presented the methodological status of psychology in relation to the perspective offered by the paradigm of unity.
Cognitive unity, which assumes the concept of private theories of reality, is explored. This concept denotes the common sense understanding of principles based on Thomas Raid (2018). Emotional unity is interpreted as a level of emotional integration, which is an outcome of emotional intelligence. The motivational domain of human activity is treated as the central sphere to be integrated. Biela (2013a) assumed that this domain is an intentional and vectoral reality.

Social Psychology, Sociology of Collective Behavior
According to Moscovici's (1985) psychological and historical treatise on mass psychology, the 20th century can be called the age of the crowd. According to Gustav LeBon's (2018) crowd psychology and Ortega y Gasset's (1994) treatise on rebellious masses, the crowd played an important role in the movements which created the two totalitarian systems in Europe, i.e., the communist system and fascism. These examples and the two world wars, which were also scenes of crowd and mass behavior in European countries, could lead one to draw the conclusion that collective behaviors played a largely destructive role in the history of Europe in the 20th century.
However, one might say that interpreting the history of the entire 20th century simply in terms of the psychology of the crowd and masses seems to be an example of a negatively-oriented bias which predominates in social psychology and sociology research. Negativity bias is recognized as a psychological phenomenon by which humans pay more attention to and give more weight to negative rather than positive experiences or other kinds of information. This kind of negativity bias is observed in psychological and sociological research, where researchers pay much more attention to pathologies, abnormalities, dysfunctions, deviations, disorders, disintegrations, and other aspects of negative biases rather than to the positive side of human behavior.
Negativity bias is also seen in collective behavior literature. Starting with Le-Bon's (2018) classic study on the crowd, social psychologists have generally interpreted collective behavior in negative terms.
Then, Freud (1921) viewed this behavior as a manifestation of negative and destructive desires, which could explode in the crowd-forming process. These negatively-biased research studies were conducted to reach the full truth about collective behaviors. Yet the lack of a positive orientation makes it difficult to construct a general theory of human behavior in a collective context. Biela showed in his monograph on collective behavior that the discipline should go beyond the psychology of the crowd to identify a new psychological and social force articulated in terms of the agoral gathering as a new conception of collective behavior. This approach is based on the paradigm of unity, which brings the hope of large scale self-transcendence and social integration in collective behavior situations, which definitively depicts the positive side of human nature. The authors of this monograph (i.e., Ferjenčik, 3013;Naništová, 2013;Kida, 2013;Andrukiewicz, 2013;Wołońciej, 2013) are convinced that in order to have a more complete understanding of collective behavior phenomenon and its role in the history of Europe, one should also analyze the positive and constructive side of collective behavior.
In the late 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s we can observe unbelievably rapid large-scale political and constitutional transformations in Central and Eastern Europe. This metamorphosis was initiated on a large scale by the "Solidarność" Solidarity movement in the summer of 1980 in Poland.
The Polish political experiment resulted in a new movement toward democracy, freedom and independence. This inspired other countries like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany, Romania, the Baltic Soviet Republics and Albania.
It is hypothesized that collective behaviors (e.g., peaceful demonstrations, non-violent marches, strikes) called agoral gatherings had a significant psycho-social impact on these societies, causing rapid mental changes in people. Waves of agoral gatherings changed Central and Eastern Europe of the 1980s and 1990s. These changes accelerated a process of social integration and led citizens to articulate their need for freedom, self-determination and collective decision-making in public affairs.
The Authorintroduced the concept of agoral gathering with its constitutive characteristics, (i.e., 1.
higher-value-oriented motives of the participants; 2. non-violent intentions of the participants; 3.
voluntary participation; 4. publicity of the assembly; 5. mass scale of the gathering; 6. the experience of spiritual unity among the participants and the social meaning of the gathering; and 7. positive social impact of the gathering), which were used in research as empirical criteria to identify the cases of this  Revolution agoral gatherings showed that the reverse is equally possible, namely, that creating suitable conditions can lead to considerable dedication and solidarity.
Naništová (2013) gives a retrospective analysis of the Velvet Revolution agoral gatherings in Slovakia from the current perspective of their former participants. Her presentation of the retrospective data analysis is preceded, however, by a broad theoretical background on the interpretive schemes regarding the process of social change, collective behavior and social change, and the attributes of agoral gatherings that took place during the Velvet Revolution in Slovakia. Her intriguing comparative reflection is that: "Metaphorically, we can say that this radical turning point took place in Poland lasting ten years, in Hungary ten months and in Czechoslovakia ten days. These ten eventful days in According to Havel (1990), the space for such a revolution should be human existence in the deepest sense. He sees the perspective of 'existential revolution' primarily in moral reconstruction and restoration of values like trust, openness, responsibility, solidarity and love.
In turn, Kida (2013) points the way towards building a model to understand the macro level transformation in Poland, where the wave of agoral gatherings had its origin. The theoretical framework of this model interprets the relationship between mental change and seeing social integration perspectives in the social, economic, constitutional, and political reality. This framework is defined as the theory of cognitive and solidarity-subject oriented needs fulfillment. Most important here is the notion of "cognitive needs" and of "solidarity-subject oriented needs." Kida underlines that the agoral gathering appears as a new positive psycho-social phenomenon that involves cognitive and value-oriented processes. One of these processes is thinking by analogy about the expectations, desires and ideas of others that correspond to one's own. This gathering initiated the process of social integration and human solidarity and accelerated large-scale political changes in Europe. Therefore, the agoral gathering might be recognized as a first and necessary step to large-scale mental changes of the social consciousness of the participants (e.g., a sense of togetherness, a need for social integration and solidarity).
Andrukiewicz (2013) interprets pilgrimages as agoral gatherings. It has to be underscored that identification of a given pilgrimage as an agoral gathering does not automatically mean that each pilgrimage is one. In order to interpret a pilgrimage as an agoral meeting, it is essential for specific circumstances and conditions to appear so that processes typical for the agoral gathering are able to function. This is not obviously the case for all pilgrimages. There are pilgrimages where individual and personal motives dominate on a significant scale among participants, and the process of integration, experience of community spirit as well as sense of the importance and the influence of a social event is not sufficiently noticeable. However, in order to identify such differences, it is necessary to conduct an empirical verification of the already-mentioned conditions for agoral gatherings based on relevant empirical research. This is a task which opens a wide field for future research concerning mass pilgrimages and types of agoral gatherings. Andrukiewicz provides an empirical verification with research outcomes and results analysis based on the fifteenth pilgrimage of Radio Maria Family to Częstochowa. In the course of this analysis, the question arose as to whether the list of the seven constitutive characteristics of agoral gatherings is exhaustive and if any significant role of the factor which could be described as "representative" was noted.
And finally, Wołońciej (2013) interprets agoral gathering processes in terms of collective memory and a cultural dimension, the narrative behavior of the participants. His analysis explores the notion of agoral gathering (Biela, 1989) from the socio-cultural perspective and bridges the concept of collective behavior, memory and culture. Collective behaviors of the homo socialis seem to be directly linked to  According to Kornas-Biela (2013), the perspective preferred by the paradigm of unity has much in common with the proposals made by one of the theoretical trends in contemporary psychology called positive psychology (Seligman, Csikszentmihalyi, 2000;Seligman et al., 2005). Such a perspective on the study of the prenatal period of human life would focus not only on preventing any disturbances in prenatal development, in relations between the child and its relatives, and on their experiences related to procreation, but also on optimal sing the child's integral development, prenatal bonding and the developmental character of events related to procreation, an optimistic vision of what happens from conception to the parents' first contacts with the child after birth-concerning both the life of the conceived person, as well as its mother and those in the nearest environment.
What is, then, the main focus of the paradigm of unity in prenatal education and pedagogy? First of all, this perspective means teleological unity, that is, unity resulting from the same goal, which is providing the most advantageous prenatal development, finalized with a birth of a healthy child, and supporting the parents so that their procreation experiences would contribute to their personal development-considering that the specific situation of the prenatal child requires a unity of the child's and parents' development.
Hence, the paradigm of unity in prenatal psychology, education and pedagogy suggests focusing on positive goals in theoretical studies, research methodology, as well as in practically supporting the immediate and more distant family in which the conceived child is living, and also the broader social environment. The positive goal-of supporting the proper development of the prenatal child, delivery, the health condition of the mother, and the positive experiences of all persons who are involved in the procreation process-is seen from a systemic point of view and considers various factors and conditions, the integration of which is crucial for successful prenatal-and hence, postnatal-development and human procreation as such.
In the Polish educational sciences (i.e., pedagogy) the experiences of the Focolare communities and the concept of the paradigm of unity inspired researches to reflect mainly on theoretical conceptions of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economic Vol. 3, No. 3, 2020 11 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
pedagogy of unity (Kozubek, 2009) and its practical applications in various domains. One of them is a pedagogy of unity project on media as a tool in education towards universal brotherhood. Examples from three cultures were explored: Europe, Africa, and Latin America (Kozubek, 2009). Another analysis was the pedagogical inspiration of the Focolare Movement towards the pedagogy of unity as a challenge for Christian education (Kozubek, Kornas-Biela, Abignente, 2007). Also to be emphasized are the following projects related to education and connected with the paradigm of the unity: education towards peace-making (Kozubek, 2012); creating a community dimension of integrated education in accordance with the pedagogy of unity (Kozubek, 2012), and a project on community and unity in selected sectors of social life (Kozubek, 2015a). pedagogy, but also for each personalistically-oriented style of upbringing.

Economics and the Management Sciences
The disciplines of economics and the management sciences also belong to the social sciences. As far as behavioral economics is concerned, Biela (2012) distinguished manifestations of integrative as opposed to narrow specialization in the development of scientificdisciplines, where the criterion of distinguishing these two tendencies is a different concept of the paradigm. This proposal, called the paradigm of unity, has been shown in more detail in economics and psychology (Biela, 2006). Such an approach can be described as an integrative approach for the behavioral sciences.
A complementary integrative approach in the search for a new paradigm for economic science is the proposal to understand the subject of economic analysis as decision-making entities within social and economic life, as presented by K. Kłosiński in his work on the rationality of decisions (Kłosiński, 2009) and later by T. Żylicz, who defines economics as the study of human choices (Żylicz, 2009). According to this approach, the subject of economics as a science can be described as decision-making, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economic Vol. 3, No. 3, 2020 12 Published by SCHOLINK INC. economic analysis will need to be understood as decision analysis.
The two proposals for a new integration paradigm in economic science presented above are reconcilable with each other, because decisions as a matter of economic analysis may be taken from the point of view of maximizing the usefulness or value of the action, taking into account not only the welfare of the individual, but the entire context of the social environment and natural heritage, according to the principles set out in the paradigm of unity (Biela, 2006(Biela, , 2012. Grochmal (2013Grochmal ( , 2014   looking for new, creative solutions in order to improve society and not only the business (Grochmal, 2014).
In concluding part of his analysis on paradigms in management sciences, Grochmal (2014) states that the paradigm of unity can be treated as an attempt to search for ageneral paradigm in the management sciences.
In this context one can pose the following question: What kind of benefits will the methodological status of the particular disciplines of social sciences gain, if they accept the paradigm of unity? We will reflect in this respect on the subject and goal of the social sciences from the perspective of the paradigm of unity.

The subject of the Social Sciences
The subject of the contemporary social sciences, as taken in their various disciplines, can be defined as psychosocial phenomena which are empirically observed in the form of human activities-revealed in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economic Vol. 3, No. 3, 2020 13 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
human performance and behavior. For the social sciences, such behavior always takes place in the concrete stimuli of everyday life situations or in some unusual circumstances (e.g., extreme situations).
From the paradigm of unity point of view, one can say that any human individual or group of people does not behave just as a passive, reactive party in the situation of concrete stimuli, but rather actively interacts with the situational stimuli, and the outcome of this interaction shapes their own situation. At the very beginning, the paradigm of unity allows us to see human behavior (individual or collective one) in a concrete situation as an outcome of the interactive processing between the human subject and the situational stimuli. The human being is an active entity shaping the unity relationship with the external stimuli (i.e., the other persons, natural environment) and the ideas existing in his or her own mind. Such an example may be the Good Samaritan laws, which take their name from the Parable of the Good Samaritan, found in Luke 10:25-37. This parable recounts the aid given by one traveler (from the area known as Samaria) to another traveler of a different religious and ethnic background, who had been beaten and robbed by bandits and left alone on a road. This parable also talks about the other two travelers (i.e., the priest and the Levite) who were going the same way. They saw the robbed man, yet did not stop to help him but continued their journey without any hesitation. This situation is well-known in the literature. Applying the paradigm of unity, we can say that only the Samaritan created a situation where he entered into a relationship to help someone who was in need. Pietro Benvenuti's painting of the Good Samaritan clearly indicates that two other persons walking along the same road certainly received the same stimulus as they passed, i.e. a wounded man lying on the ground, awaiting assistance. However, their interaction with the perceived stimulus did not create, in terms of social perception, the situation of being in a helpful relationship to the other person who is in need because he had been robbed. They simply were very busy and did not care about the person lying on the ground and awaiting help. It was not their business. This kind of behavior in social psychology literature is called the bystander effect.
The same situational stimuli evoked quite different behaviors at three passers-by, but only one of them created situational and behavioral unity with the person who was in real need. From this interpretation we can see that the paradigm of unity really can help to attain a clearer understanding the subject of social science disciplines.

The Goals of the Social Sciences from the Perspective of the Paradigm of Unity
The social science disciplines are committed to two types of objectives: 1. theoretical-cognitive goals, and 2. practical-applied ones. As far as the goals of social sciences are concerned, the paradigm of unity perspective assumes that the human being first aims to build unity with him/herself (i.e., self-integration), then he or she has the opportunity to build unity with other persons (i.e., horizontal social integration); standing on the ground which is a natural environment, there is also the chance to build ecological integration, and finally, the human individual can build unity with the transcendental reality (i.e., vertical spiritual integration). However, the above-mentioned types of integration primarily deal with the ability to build empathic ties of a given individual with another person who is in need.
The other person's perspective enables a more efficient integration of one's own personality, a more positive use of one's own intellectual abilities, and functioning in a more creative way by getting emotionally engaged in social situations and taking up social and professional roles.
First of all, the social sciences aim to recognize the regularities and psycho-social mechanisms which control and steer human behavior in the particular situations which are in question. As far as the paradigm of unity is concerned, its primary cognitive goal is to recognize human behavioral regularities in social contexts which lead towards creating a person's internal unity with him/herself and then with other persons, with the physical and natural environment, and finally with transcendental reality (for Christians, this means with the Holy Trinity). This theoretical-cognitive goal is explained in a more explicit way by Biela (2009).
Therefore, as far as the cognitive goals of the paradigm of unity are concerned, they aim to discover the truth about the human being in a more integrated, synthetic and holistic way. Such a perspective allows the social sciences to be equipped with the concept of personality which assumes, first of all, its internal integration with personal identity and unity in oneself as a goal. Then the paradigm of unity suggest that unity building should be undertaken in other realms, in family relations (family members unity); professional relations (vocational/institutional unity), neighbor relations (neighbor unity), fellowship or friendship relations, (fellowship/friendship unity), and in local and other community relations.
Unity as a psychosocial reality is constituted through the process of integration, which is relational in its nature, i.e., it consists of human relations between an individual and other persons. As such it is a social and relational part of one's personality. The process of an individuals' integration also extends into the world of nature (the natural environment and the environment created by man), which constitutes his/her unity with the world of nature. There is a relational reality between the person and the physical environment. This means that the physical environment is also a part of one's personality in the sense that the environment, available to the person for motor-sensory interactions, secures the fulfillment of some biological or psychological needs for this person. The more important these needs are, the more fundamental the part of the personality the given environment touches. Therefore, in this context environmental pollution could be interpreted as a factor leading to the depersonalization and alienation of people who live in polluted areas.
The applied goals of the social sciences could be defined from a perspective of the paradigm of unity in the following way: how to help people more effectively play their social roles, perform their tasks, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economic Vol. 3, No. 3, 2020 15 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
solve individual or collective problems (existential, social, vocational-professional, religious, health, environmental)? In the context of the applied goals of the social sciences, the paradigm of unity suggests that one should be focused on psycho-social assistance in developing and training the skill of empathy toward other persons. This ability is based on the analogy of experience, expectations, attitudes, goals, values and motives (Biela, 1991). It also makes clear that taking the perspective of the other person helps to overcome one's own difficulties in integrating oneself (see: Wojtyła, 2011).
Moreover, the other person's perspective enables more efficient integration of one's own personality, a more positive use of one's intellectual abilities, and functioning in a more creative way by becoming emotionally engaged in social situations and taking up social and professional roles.

Conclusion
Concluding our reflections on the goals of the social sciences from the paradigm of unity perspective, the author emphasizes that this point of reference offers the opportunity to prevent social, economic and political conflicts by promoting dialogue, consensus building and social integration. Therefore, the paradigm of unity could be described as a teleologically-oriented paradigm for social science.
The Paradigm of Unity (PU) conception, used in the laudatio of Chiara Lubich's honorary doctorate (Biela, 1996), recognized the societal contribution of the Folocari Movementin building psychosocial infrastructures for unity in various social domains. These domains include the economy of communion, politics (politicians for unity project), in public media (journalists for unity), in ecumenism and inter-religious contacts (ecumenical and inter-religion centers).The conception of this paradigm offers great inspiration to motivate the social sciences to construct their own research paradigm of a type of mental and methodological power and potentiality which could birth a new vision of the social world.