Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 18:03, 11 December 2024

Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.

While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientists", some scholars, as well as political and religious leaders, have also adopted it as a pejorative term with the meaning "an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)".

Overview

Francis Bacon has been viewed by some scholars as an early proponent of scientism, but this is a modern assertion as Bacon was a devout Anglican, writing in his Essays, "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."

With respect to the philosophy of science, the term scientism frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek, philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, and philosophers such as Mary Midgley, the later Hilary Putnam, and Tzvetan Todorov to describe (for example) the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methods and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measured or confirmatory.

More generally, scientism is often interpreted as science applied "in excess". This use of the term scientism has two senses:

• The improper use of science or scientific claims. This usage applies equally in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the topic is perceived as beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, and in contexts where there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify a scientific conclusion. It includes an excessive deference to the claims of scientists or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as scientific. This can be a counterargument to appeals to scientific authority. It can also address attempts to apply natural science methods and claims of certainty to the social sciences, which Friedrich Hayek described in The Counter-Revolution of Science (1952) as being impossible, because those methods attempt to eliminate the "human factor", while social sciences (including his own topic of economics) mainly concern the study of human action.
• "The belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry", or that "science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective" with a concomitant "elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience". Tom Sorell provides this definition: "Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on natural science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture." Philosophers such as Alexander Rosenberg have also adopted "scientism" as a name for the opinion that science is the only reliable source of knowledge.

It is also sometimes used to describe the universal applicability of the scientific method, and the opinion that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or the most valuable part of human learning, sometimes to the complete exclusion of other opinions, such as historical, philosophical, economic or cultural opinions. It has been defined as "the view that the characteristic inductive methods of the natural sciences are the only source of genuine factual knowledge and, in particular, that they alone can yield true knowledge about man and society". The term scientism is also used by historians, philosophers, and cultural critics to highlight the possible dangers of lapses towards excessive reductionism with respect to all topics of human knowledge.

For social theorists practising the tradition of Max Weber, such as Jürgen Habermas and Max Horkheimer, the concept of scientism relates significantly to the philosophy of positivism, but also to the cultural rationalization for modern Western civilization. Ernesto Sabato, physicist and essayist, wrote in his 1951 essay Hombres y engranajes ("Man and mechanism") of the "superstition of science" as the most contradictory of all superstitions, since this would be the "superstition that one should not be superstitious". He wrote: "science had become a new magic and the man in the street believed in it the more the less he understood it".

Definitions

Reviewing the references to scientism in the works of contemporary scholars in 2003, Gregory R. Peterson detected two main general themes:

• It is used to criticize a totalizing opinion of science as if it were capable of describing all reality and knowledge, or as if it were the only true method to acquire knowledge about reality and the nature of things;
• It is used, often pejoratively, to denote violations by which the theories and methods of one (scientific) discipline are applied inappropriately to another (scientific or non-scientific) discipline and its domain. An example of this second usage is to term as scientism any attempt to claim science as the only or primary source of human values (a traditional domain of ethics) or as the source of meaning and purpose (a traditional domain of religion and related worldviews).

The term scientism was popularized by F. A. Hayek, who defined it in 1942 as the "slavish imitation of the method and language of Science".

Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, in his 1971 essay "The New Universal Church", characterized scientism as a religion-like ideology that advocates scientific reductionism, scientific authoritarianism, political technocracy and technological salvation, while denying the epistemological validity of feelings and experiences such as love, emotion, beauty and fulfillment. He predicted that "in coming years, the chief political dividing line will fall less and less among the traditional division between 'right' and 'left', but increasingly between the adherents of scientism, who advocate 'technological progress at any price', and their opponents, i.e., roughly speaking, those who regard the enhancement of life, in all its richness and variety, as being the supreme value".

E. F. Schumacher, in his A Guide for the Perplexed (1977), criticized scientism as an impoverished world view confined solely to what can be counted, measured and weighed. "The architects of the modern worldview, notably Galileo and Descartes, assumed that those things that could be weighed, measured, and counted were more true than those that could not be quantified. If it couldn't be counted, in other words, it didn't count."

In 1979, Karl Popper defined scientism as "the aping of what is widely mistaken for the method of science".

In 2003, Mikael Stenmark proposed the expression scientific expansionism as a synonym of scientism. In the Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, he wrote that, while the doctrines that are described as scientism have many possible forms and varying degrees of ambition, they share the idea that the boundaries of science (that is, typically the natural sciences) could and should be expanded so that something that has not been previously considered as a subject pertinent to science can now be understood as part of science (usually with science becoming the sole or the main arbiter regarding this area or dimension). According to Stenmark, the strongest form of scientism states that science does not have any boundaries and that all human problems and all aspects of human endeavor, with due time, will be dealt with and solved by science alone. This idea has also been termed the myth of progress.

Intellectual historian T. J. Jackson Lears argued in 2013 that there has been a recent reemergence of "nineteenth-century positivist faith that a reified 'science' has discovered (or is about to discover) all the important truths about human life. Precise measurement and rigorous calculation, in this view, are the basis for finally settling enduring metaphysical and moral controversies." Lears specifically identified Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker's work as falling in this category. Philosophers John N. Gray and Thomas Nagel have made similar criticisms against popular works by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, atheist author Sam Harris, and writer Malcolm Gladwell.

Strong and weak scientism

There are various ways of classifying kinds of scientism. Some authors distinguish between strong and weak scientism, as follows:

• Strong scientism: "of all the knowledge we have, scientific knowledge is the only 'real knowledge'" (Moti Mizrahi), or, "the view that some proposition or theory is true and/or rational to believe if and only if it is a scientific proposition or theory" (J. P. Moreland), or, "only science yields epistemically credible data" (Michael W. Austin)
• Weak scientism: "of all the knowledge we have, scientific knowledge is the best knowledge" (Moti Mizrahi), or, "science is the most valuable, most serious, and most authoritative sector of human learning" (J. P. Moreland), or, "scientific knowledge claims are the most credible knowledge claims" (Michael W. Austin)

Relevance to debates about science and religion

Both religious and non-religious scholars have applied the term scientism to individuals associated with New Atheism. Theologian John Haught argued that philosopher Daniel Dennett and other New Atheists subscribe to a belief system of scientific naturalism, which includes the dogma that "only nature, including humans and our creations, is real: that God does not exist; and that science alone can give us complete and reliable knowledge of reality." Haught argued that this belief system is self-refuting since it requires its adherents to assent to beliefs that violate its own stated requirements for knowledge. Christian philosopher Peter Williams argued in 2013 that it is only by conflating science with scientism that New Atheists feel qualified to "pontificate on metaphysical issues". Daniel Dennett responded to religious criticism of his 2006 book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by saying that accusations of scientism " an all-purpose, wild-card smear ... When someone puts forward a scientific theory that really don't like, they just try to discredit it as 'scientism'. But when it comes to facts, and explanations of facts, science is the only game in town".

Non-religious scholars have also associated New Atheist thought with scientism and/or with positivism. Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel argued that philosopher Sam Harris conflated all empirical knowledge with scientific knowledge. Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton argued that Christopher Hitchens possessed an "old-fashioned scientistic notion of what counts as evidence" that reduces knowledge to what can and cannot be proven by scientific procedure. Agnostic philosopher Anthony Kenny has also criticized New Atheist philosopher Alexander Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality for resurrecting a self-refuting epistemology of logical positivism and reducing all knowledge of the universe to the discipline of physics.

Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, discussed resemblances between scientism and traditional religions, indicating the cult of personality that develops for some scientists. He defined scientism as a worldview that encompasses natural explanations, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason.

The Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr has stated that in the Western world, many will accept the ideology of modern science, not as "simple ordinary science", but as a replacement for religion.

Gregory R. Peterson wrote that "for many theologians and philosophers, scientism is among the greatest of intellectual sins". Genetic biologist Austin L. Hughes wrote in the conservative journal The New Atlantis that scientism has much in common with superstition: "the stubborn insistence that something ... has powers which no evidence supports."

Repeating common criticisms of logical positivism and verificationism, philosopher of religion Keith Ward has said that scientism is philosophically inconsistent or even self-refuting, as the truth of the two statements "no statements are true unless they can be proven scientifically (or logically)" and "no statements are true unless they can be shown empirically to be true" cannot themselves be proven scientifically, logically, or empirically.

Philosophy of science

Anti-scientism

Philosopher Paul Feyerabend, who was an enthusiastic proponent of scientism during his youth, later came to characterize science as "an essentially anarchic enterprise" and argued emphatically that science merits no exclusive monopoly of "dealing in knowledge" and that scientists have never operated within a distinct and narrowly self-defined tradition. In his essay Against Method he depicted the process of contemporary scientific education as a mild form of indoctrination, intended for "making the history of science duller, simpler, more uniform, more 'objective' and more easily accessible to treatment by strict and unchanging rules".

cience can stand on its own feet and does not need any help from rationalists, secular humanists, Marxists and similar religious movements; and ... non-scientific cultures, procedures and assumptions can also stand on their own feet and should be allowed to do so ... Science must be protected from ideologies; and societies, especially democratic societies, must be protected from science ... In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality.

— Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, p. viii

Pro-scientism

Physicist and philosopher Mario Bunge used the term scientism with a favorable rather than pejorative sense in numerous books published during several decades, and in articles with titles such as "In defense of realism and scientism" and "In defense of scientism". Bunge said that scientism should not be equated with inappropriate reductionism, and he dismissed critics of science such as Hayek and Habermas as dogmatists and obscurantists:

To innovate in the young sciences it is necessary to adopt scientism. This is the methodological thesis that the best way of exploring reality is to adopt the scientific method, which may be boiled down to the rule "Check your guesses." Scientism has been explicitly opposed by dogmatists and obscurantists of all stripes, such as the neoliberal ideologist Friedrich von Hayek and the "critical theorist" Jürgen Habermas, a ponderous writer who managed to amalgamate Hegel, Marx, and Freud, and decreed that "science is the ideology of late capitalism."

— Mario Bunge, Evaluating Philosophies

In 2018, philosophers Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci co-edited a book titled Science Unlimited? The Challenges of Scientism in which a number of chapters by philosophers and scientists defended scientism. In his chapter "Two Cheers for Scientism", Taner Edis wrote:

It is defensible to claim that scientific, philosophical, and humanistic forms of knowledge are continuous, and that a broadly naturalistic description of our world centered on natural science is correct ... At the very least, such views are legitimate—they may be mistaken, but not because of an elementary error, a confusion of science with ideology, or an offhand dismissal of the humanities. Those of us who argue for such a view are entitled to have two cheers for an ambitious conception of science; and if that is scientism, so be it.

— Taner Edis, "Two Cheers for Scientism"

Rhetoric of science

Thomas M. Lessl argued that religious themes persist in what he terms scientism, the public rhetoric of science. There are two methods of describing this idea of scientism: the epistemological method (the assumption that the scientific method trumps other ways of knowing) and the ontological method (that the rational mind represents the world and both operate in knowable ways). According to Lessl, the ontological method is an attempt to "resolve the conflict between rationalism and skepticism". Lessl also argued that without scientism, there would not be a scientific culture.

Rationalization and modernity

In the introduction to his collected works on the sociology of religion, Max Weber asked why "the scientific, the artistic, the political, or the economic development  ... did not enter upon that path of rationalization which is peculiar to the Occident?" According to the German social theorist Jürgen Habermas, "For Weber, the intrinsic (that is, not merely contingent) relationship between modernity and what he called 'Occidental rationalism' was still self-evident." Weber described a process of rationalisation, disenchantment and the "disintegration of religious world views" that resulted in modern secular societies and capitalism.

"Modernization" was introduced as a technical term only in the 1950s. It is the mark of a theoretical approach that takes up Weber's problem but elaborates it with the tools of social-scientific functionalism ... The theory of modernization performs two abstractions on Weber's concept of "modernity". It dissociates "modernity" from its modern European origins and stylizes it into a spatio-temporally neutral model for processes of social development in general. Furthermore, it breaks the internal connections between modernity and the historical context of Western rationalism, so that processes of modernization ... no longer burdened with the idea of a completion of modernity, that is to say, of a goal state after which "postmodern" developments would have to set in. ... Indeed it is precisely modernization research that has contributed to the currency of the expression "postmodern" even among social scientists.

— Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity

Habermas is critical of pure instrumental rationality, arguing that the "Social Life–World" of subjective experiencing is better suited to literary expression, whereas the sciences deal with "intersubjectively accessible experiences" that can be generalized in a formal language, while the literary arts "must generate an intersubjectivity of mutual understanding in each concrete case". Habermas quoted writer Aldous Huxley in support of this duality of literature and science:

The world with which literature deals is the world in which human beings are born and live and finally die; the world in which they love and hate, in which they experience triumph and humiliation, hope and despair; the world of sufferings and enjoyments, of madness and common sense, of silliness, cunning and wisdom; the world of social pressures and individual impulses, of reason against passion, of instincts and conventions, of shared language and unsharable feelings and sensations...

— Aldous Huxley, Literature and Science

See also

• Anti-technology
• Antireductionism
• Cargo cult science
• Conflict thesis
• Consequentialism
• Déformation professionnelle
• Demarcation problem
• Eliminative materialism
• Francis Bacon
• Greedy reductionism
• High modernism
• Materialism
• Non-overlapping magisteria
• Pseudoskepticism
• Radical empiricism
• Relativism
• Science and the Catholic Church
• Science of morality
• Science wars
• Scientific management
• Scientific mythology
• Scientific realism
• Scientific reductionism
• Scientific imperialism
• Scientific skepticism
• Scientistic materialism
• Sokal affair
• Technological dystopia
• New Frontier
• Post-scarcity economy
• Technocentrism
• Technological utopianism
• Techno-progressivism
• Progress
• Worldview

References

1. "Glossary Definition: Scientism". PBS.org. 1999. Archived from the original on 2000-10-11. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
2. ^ Hietanen, Johan; Turunen, Petri; Hirvonen, Ilmari; et al. (July 2020). "How not to criticise scientism". Metaphilosophy. 51 (4): 522–547. doi:10.1111/meta.12443. into four categories in terms of how strong (science is the only source of knowledge) or weak (science is the best source of knowledge) and how narrow (only natural sciences) or broad (all sciences or at least not only the natural sciences) they are.
3. "Scientism". Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
4. Robinson, S.; Whitney, D.; Trepanier, L.; et al. (2019). Eric Voegelin Today: Voegelin's Political Thought in the 21st Century. Political Theory for Today. Lexington Books. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-4985-9664-0. Retrieved 2023-02-11 – via Google Books.
5. Bacon, Francis (1625). The Essayes Or Counsels, Ciuill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount St. Alban. Iohn Hauiland – via Google Books.
6. Rey, Abel (1909). "Review of La Philosophie Moderne". The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. 6 (2): 51–3. doi:10.2307/2011609. JSTOR 2011609.
7. Maslow, Abraham (1962). "Preface". Toward a Psychology of Being (1st ed.). There are criticisms of orthodox, 19th Century scientism and I intend to continue with this enterprise
8. Hayek, Friedrich (1980). The Counter Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason. Liberty Fund.
9. Hacohen, Malachi Haim (2002). Karl Popper: the formative years, 1902–1945: politics and philosophy in interwar Vienna. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89055-7.
10. ^ Beale, Jonathan (January 2019). "Scientism and scientific imperialism". International Journal of Philosophical Studies. 27 (1): 73–102. doi:10.1080/09672559.2019.1565316. S2CID 171857595. There are also several philosophers, in addition to Wittgenstein, for whom anti-scientism is a leitmotif in their work, such as Mary Midgley and the later Hilary Putnam.
11. ^ Putnam, Hilary (1992). Renewing Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. x. ISBN 9780674760936.
12. Todorov, Tzvetan (2001). The Imperfect Garden: the legacy of humanism. Princeton University Press. p. 20. Scientism does not eliminate the will but decides that since the results of science are valid for everyone, this will must be something shared, not individual. In practice, the individual must submit to the collectivity, which 'knows' better than he does.
13. ^ Outhwaite, William (2009) . Habermas: Key Contemporary Thinkers (2nd ed.). Polity Press. p. 22.
14. Peterson 2003, p. 753: "the best way to understand the charge of scientism is as a kind of logical fallacy involving improper usage of science or scientific claims"
15. Ryder, Martin (2005). "Scientism". In Mitcham, Carl (ed.). Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Vol. 4. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 1735–1736. Archived from the original on 2012-06-30. Retrieved 2007-07-05.
16. Blackburn, Simon (2005). "Scientism". The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford paperbacks (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 331–32. ISBN 978-0-19-861013-7. LCCN 2006271895. Scientism: Pejorative term for the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry.
17. Bannister, Robert (1998). "Behaviorism, Scientism and the Rise of The 'Expert'". swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/. Archived from the original on 2008-10-12. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
18. Haack, Susan (2003). Defending Science Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
19. Sorell, Thomas 'Tom' (1994). Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science. Routledge. pp. 1ff.
20. Rosenberg, Alex (2011). The Atheist's Guide to Reality. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-34411-0.
21. Quinton, Anthony (1999). "Scientism". In Bullock, Alan; Trombley, Stephen; Lawrie, Alf (eds.). The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (3rd ed.). London: HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 775. ISBN 0002558718. OCLC 45667833.
22. Collins, Michael (March 20, 1983). "A Critical Analysis of Competency-based Systems in Adult Education". Adult Education Quarterly. 33 (3): 174–83. doi:10.1177/074171368303300305. S2CID 142438118.
23. Chargaff, Irwin (December 1997). "In Dispraise of Reductionism". BioScience. 47 (11): 795–7. doi:10.2307/1313101. JSTOR 1313101.
24. Sawyer, R Keith (2000). "Connecting Culture, Psychology and Biology: Essay Review on Inghilleri's From Subjective Experience to Cultural Change". Human Development. 43: 56–59. doi:10.1159/000022658. S2CID 145691908.
25. Wieseltier, Leon (4 September 2013). "Crimes Against Humanities". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 27 October 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013. His essay, a defense of "scientism," is a long exercise in assimilating humanistic inquiries into scientific ones. By the time Pinker is finished, the humanities are the handmaiden of the sciences, and dependent upon the sciences for their advance and even their survival.
26. Lears, T.J. Jackson (6 November 2013). "Get Happy!!". The Nation. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013. ...scientism is a revival of the nineteenth-century positivist faith that a reified "science" has discovered (or is about to discover) all the important truths about human life. Precise measurement and rigorous calculation, in this view, are the basis for finally settling enduring metaphysical and moral controversies—explaining consciousness and choice, replacing ambiguity with certainty.
27. Brunkhorst, Hauke (1995). "Dialectical Positivism of Happiness: Max Horkheimer's Materialist Deconstruction of Philosophy". In Seyla Benhabib; Wolfgang Bonss; John McCole (eds.). On Max Horkheimer: New Perspectives. The MIT Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0262522076. Archived from the original on 2021-01-26. Retrieved 2020-01-29 – via Google Books.
28. ^ Sabato, Ernesto (2003) . "El Nuevo Fetichismo". Hombres y engranajes (in Spanish). Editorial Planeta / Seix Barral. ISBN 978-950-731-378-3.
29. ^ Peterson 2003.
30. Peterson, Donald R (June 2004), "Science, Scientism, and Professional Responsibility", Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11 (2): 196–210, doi:10.1093/clipsy.bph072, The term scientism is ordinarily used with pejorative intent.
31. Hakfoort, C (1992), "Science deified: Wilhelm Osstwald's energeticist world-view and the history of scientism", Annals of Science, 49 (6): 525–44, doi:10.1080/00033799200200441, The term 'scientism' is sometimes used in a pejorative sense
32. Bannister, Robert C (1991), Sociology and Scientism: The American Quest for Objectivity, 1880–1940, The University of North Carolina Press, p. 8, Scientism... a term of abuse since Friedrich Hayek first popularized it in the 1940s.
33. Hayek, F. A. v. (1942). "Scientism and the Study of Society. Part I". Economica. 9 (35): 267–291. doi:10.2307/2549540. JSTOR 2549540.
34. ^ Grothendieck, Alexander (1971). "The New Universal Church" (PDF). Survivre et Vivre (9): 3–8. Translated by John Bell.
35. Orr, David (October 1992), "Environmental Literacy: Education as if the Earth Mattered", Twelfth Annual EF Schumacher Lectures, Great Barrington, MA, archived from the original on 2005-11-08, retrieved 2011-03-24{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
36. Popper, Karl R. (1979). Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Revised ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. p. 185. LCCN 79318586. OL 4489088M.
37. ^ Stenmark, Mikael (2003), "Scientism", in van Huyssteen, J Wentzel Vrede (ed.), Encyclopedia of science and religion (2nd ed.), Thomson Gale, p. 783
38. Monastra, G; Zarandi, MM (2004), Science and the Myth of Progress
39. Lears, T.J. Jackson (6 November 2013). "Get Happy!!". The Nation. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
40. Gray, John (20 April 2012). "The Knowns and the Unknowns". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 22 December 2013. These theories show the continuing appeal of scientism—the modern belief that scientific inquiry can enable us to resolve conflicts and dilemmas in contexts where traditional sources of wisdom and practical knowledge seem to have failed.
41. Gray, John (22 November 2013). "Malcolm Gladwell Is America's Best-Paid Fairy-Tale Writer". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 4 December 2013. Retrieved 22 December 2013. ... the mix of moralism and scientism is an ever-winning formula, as Gladwell's career demonstrates.
42. Nagel, Thomas (20 October 2010). "The Facts Fetish". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 27 October 2013. Retrieved 22 December 2013. Harris urges that we use scientific knowledge about humans to discover what will maximize their well-being, and thereby to discover the right way to live. This is an instrumental use of science, starting out from his basic moral premise.
43. Mizrahi, Moti, ed. (2022). For and against scientism: science, methodology, and the future of philosophy. Collective studies in knowledge and society. Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-6334-4.
44. ^ Mizrahi 2022, p. 106.
45. ^ DeWeese, Garrett J.; Moreland, James Porter (2021). Philosophy made slightly less difficult: a beginner's guide to life's big questions (2nd ed.). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-8308-3915-5.
46. ^ Moreland, James Porter (2017). Philosophical foundations for a Christian worldview (2nd ed.). Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press. p. 348. ISBN 978-0-8308-8917-4.
47. ^ Moreland, James Porter; Willard, Dallas (1997). Love your God with all your mind: the role of reason in the life of the soul. Colorado Springs, Colo: NavPress. p. 146. ISBN 978-1-57683-016-1.
48. ^ Taliaferro, Charles; Harrison, Victoria S.; Goetz, Stewart (2013). The Routledge companion to theism. Routledge philosophy companions. New York: Routledge. p. 337. ISBN 978-0-415-88164-7.
49. Robinson, Marilynne (Nov 2006), "Hysterical Scientism: The Ecstasy of Richard Dawkins", Harper's Magazine
50. Stephen LeDrew on his 'The Evolution of Atheism' an Interview, 10 Dec 2015, archived from the original on 10 March 2016, retrieved 10 March 2016
51. Haught, John (2008). God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Westminster John Knox Press. pp. X.
52. Haught, John (2008). God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 17.
53. Williams, Peter S. (2013). C.S. Lewis vs. the New Atheists. Paternoster. p. 1928.
54. Byrnes, Sholto (10 April 2006), "When it comes to facts, and explanations of facts, science is the only game in town", New Statesman, archived from the original on 16 October 2011
55. Nagel, Thomas (20 October 2010). "The Facts Fetish". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 27 October 2013. Retrieved 22 December 2013. He says that the discovery of moral truth depends on science, but this turns out to be misleading, because he includes under "science" all empirical knowledge of what the world is like ... Harris urges that we use scientific knowledge about humans to discover what will maximize their well-being, and thereby to discover the right way to live.
56. Eagleton, Terry (2010). Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. Yale University Press. p. 6.
57. Kenny, Anthony (June 2012). "True Believers". Times Literary Supplement. The main tenets of this philosophy are bracingly summed up in a series of questions and answers: Is there a God? No. What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is.
58. Shermer, Michael (June 2002), "The Shamans of Scientism", Scientific American, 286 (6): 35, Bibcode:2002SciAm.286f..35S, doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0602-35, archived from the original on 2006-10-16
59. Chittick, William (2007). The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Bloomington: World Wisdom. ISBN 978-1-933316-38-3.
60. Hughes, Austin (Fall 2012). "The Folly of Scientism". The New Atlantis. 37: 32–50. Archived from the original on 22 July 2018. Retrieved 26 July 2018.
61. Ward, Keith (2006), Is Religion Dangerous?
62. Alston, William P (2003). "Religious language and verificationism". In Moser, Paul K; Copan, Paul (eds.). The Rationality of Theism. New York: Routledge. pp. 26–34. ISBN 978-0-415-26332-0.
63. Preston, John (21 September 2016). "Paul Feyerabend". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Feyerabend's youthful positivist scientism makes quite a contrast with his later conclusions."
64. Feyerabend 1993, p. vii: "Imre Lakatos loved to embarrass serious opponents with jokes and irony and so I, too, occasionally wrote in a rather ironical vein. An example is the end of Chapter 1: 'anything goes' is not a 'principle' I hold... but the terrified exclamation of a rationalist who takes a closer look at history"
65. Feyerabend 1993, pp. viii, 9, 11.
66. Feyerabend 1993, p. viii.
67. Bunge, Mario (1983). Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World. Treatise on Basic Philosophy. Vol. 6. Dordrecht; Boston: D. Reidel. p. 263. doi:10.1007/978-94-015-6921-7. ISBN 9789027716347. OCLC 9759870.
68. Mahner, Martin; Bunge, Mario (1997). Foundations of Biophilosophy. Berlin; New York: Springer-Verlag. p. 135. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-03368-5. ISBN 3540618384. OCLC 36630019. S2CID 6273758. Finally, we should add a version of scientism ... This is the thesis that anything knowable and worth knowing can be known scientifically, and that science provides the best possible factual knowledge, even though it may, and does, in fact, contain errors. This form of scientism should not be mistaken for the neopositivist unification program, according to which every discipline should ultimately be reduced to one basic science, such as physics or psychology.
69. ^ Bunge, Mario (2006). Chasing Reality: Strife Over Realism. Toronto Studies in Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 264. doi:10.3138/9781442672857. ISBN 0802090753. OCLC 61174890. As for scientism, it is the thesis that the scientific method is the best strategy for attaining the more objective, more accurate, and deepest truths about facts of any kind, natural or social. ... True, Hayek (1955) famously claimed that scientism is something quite different, namely, the attempt on the part of some social scientists to ape their colleagues in the natural sciences, in ignoring the inner life of their referents. But this arbitrary redefinition involves confusing naturalism, or reductionist materialism (as practised, e.g., by the sociobiologists), with scientism.
70. Bunge, Mario (2017). "Scientism". Doing Science: In the Light of Philosophy. Singapore: World Scientific. p. 137. doi:10.1142/10333. ISBN 9789813202764. OCLC 959200429. Scientism is the thesis that all cognitive problems are best tackled by adopting the scientific approach, also called 'the scientific attitude' and 'the scientific method.' While most contemporary philosophers reject scientism, arguably scientists practice it even if they have never encountered the word.
71. Bunge, Mario (1986). "In Defense of Realism and Scientism". Annals of Theoretical Psychology. Vol. 4. Springer-Verlag. pp. 23–26. doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-6453-9_3. ISBN 978-1-4615-6455-3. As for scientism, I take it to be quite different from Tennessen's 'belief in some sort of scientific world view miraculously emanating from the main bulk of the testimony of the senses or so-called scientific results.' The brand of scientism I defend boils down to the thesis that scientific research (rather than the navel contemplation or the reading of sacred texts) can yield the best (truest and deepest) possible knowledge of real (concrete, material) things, be they fields or particles, brains, or societies, or what have you. ... I take the scientific method, rather than any special results of scientific research, to be the very kernel of scientism. Consequently, I cannot accept Tennessen's implicit approval of Feyerabend's antimethodology or 'epistemological anarchism'—the latest version of radical skepticism.
72. Bunge, Mario (December 2014). "In defense of scientism" (PDF). Free Inquiry. 35 (1). Council for Secular Humanism: 24–31. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-09-18. Retrieved 2019-09-19. Scientism is the thesis that all cognitive problems concerning the world are best tackled adopting the scientific approach, also called 'the spirit of science' and 'the scientific attitude'. While most contemporary philosophers reject scientism, arguably scientists practice it even if they have never encountered the word. However, the correct meaning of 'scientism' has proved to be even more elusive than that of 'science'...
73. Bunge, Mario (2012). Evaluating Philosophies. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. 295. New York: Springer-Verlag. p. 24. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4408-0. ISBN 9789400744073. OCLC 806947226.
74. ^ Boudry, Maarten; Pigliucci, Massimo, eds. (2017). Science Unlimited?: The Challenges of Scientism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 76. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226498287.001.0001. ISBN 9780226498003. OCLC 975442387.
75. ^ Lessl, Thomas M. (Fall 1996). "Naturalizing science: Two episodes in the evolution of a rhetoric of scientism". Western Journal of Communication. 60 (4): 1. doi:10.1080/10570319609374555.
76. Habermas, Jürgen (1990), The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Polity Press, ISBN 0-7456-0830-2, pp. 2–3.
77. Olson, R. (2008). Science and scientism in nineteenth-century Europe. University of Illinois Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-252-07433-2. LCCN 2007005146. Archived from the original on 2016-07-31. Retrieved 2016-01-27.
78. Habermas, J; Shapiro, JJ (1971). Toward a rational society: student protest, science, and politics (paperback). Beacon Press. pp. 50–51. ISBN 978-0-8070-4177-2. LCCN 73121827. Archived from the original on 2016-07-31. Retrieved 2016-01-27.

Bibliography

• Feyerabend, Paul (1993) , Against Method (3rd ed.), Verso, ISBN 978-0-86091-646-8.
• Haack, Susan (2012). "Six Signs of Scientism". Logos & Episteme. 3 (1): 75–95. doi:10.5840/logos-episteme20123151. We need to avoid both under-estimating the value of science, and over-estimating it. ... One side too hastily dismisses science; the other too hastily defers to it. My present concern, of course, is with the latter failing. It is worth noting that the English word 'scientism' wasn't always, as it is now, pejorative.
• Mizrahi, Moti (July 2017). "What's So Bad About Scientism?". Social Epistemology. 31 (4): 351–367. doi:10.1080/02691728.2017.1297505. S2CID 151762259. I have argued that scientism should be understood as the thesis that scientific knowledge is the best knowledge we have, i.e., weak scientism. I have shown that scientific knowledge can be said to be better than non-scientific knowledge both quantitatively and qualitatively.
• Peterson, Gregory R (2003), "Demarcation and the Scientistic Fallacy", Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 38 (4): 751–61, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.2003.00536.x, the best way to understand the charge of scientism is as a kind of logical fallacy involving improper usage of science or scientific claims.
• Ridder, Jeroen de; Peels, Rik; Woudenberg, René van, eds. (2018). Scientism: Prospects and Problems. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190462758.001.0001. ISBN 978-0190462758. OCLC 949911467. This collection is one of the first to develop and assess scientism as a serious philosophical position.

External links

• CS Lewis: Science and Scientism, Lewis society, 9 April 2018.
• Burnett, "What is Scientism?", Community dialogue, American Association for the Advancement of Science, archived from the original on 2012-07-02.
• "Science and Scientism", Monopolizing knowledge (World Wide Web log), The Biologos Foundation.
• Martin, Eric C. "Science and Ideology § Science as Ideology: Scientism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Scientism on Academia.edu

Links to related articles

v t e Philosophy of science Concepts Analysis Analytic–synthetic distinction A priori and a posteriori Causality Mill's Methods Commensurability Consilience Construct Correlation function Creative synthesis Demarcation problem Empirical evidence Experiment design Explanatory power Fact Falsifiability Feminist method Functional contextualism Hypothesis alternative null Ignoramus et ignorabimus Inductive reasoning Intertheoretic reduction Inquiry Nature Objectivity Observation Paradigm Problem of induction Scientific evidence Evidence-based practice Scientific law Scientific method Scientific pluralism Scientific Revolution Testability Theory choice ladenness scientific Underdetermination Unity of science Variable control dependent and independent more... Theories Coherentism Confirmation holism Constructive empiricism Constructive realism Constructivist epistemology Contextualism Conventionalism Deductive-nomological model Epistemological anarchism Evolutionism Fallibilism Foundationalism Hypothetico-deductive model Inductionism Instrumentalism Model-dependent realism Naturalism Physicalism Positivism / Reductionism / Determinism Pragmatism Rationalism / Empiricism Received view / Semantic view of theories Scientific essentialism Scientific formalism Scientific realism / Anti-realism Scientific skepticism Scientism Structuralism Uniformitarianism Verificationism Vitalism Philosophy of... Biology Chemistry Physics Space and time Social science Archaeology Economics‎ Geography History Linguistics Psychology Related topics Criticism of science Descriptive science Epistemology Exact sciences Faith and rationality Hard and soft science History and philosophy of science Non-science Pseudoscience Normative science Protoscience Questionable cause Relationship between religion and science Rhetoric of science Science studies Sociology of scientific ignorance Sociology of scientific knowledge Philosophers of science Precursors Roger Bacon Francis Bacon Galileo Galilei Isaac Newton David Hume Auguste Comte Henri Poincaré Pierre Duhem Rudolf Steiner Karl Pearson Charles Sanders Peirce Wilhelm Windelband Alfred North Whitehead Bertrand Russell Otto Neurath C. D. Broad Michael Polanyi Hans Reichenbach Rudolf Carnap Karl Popper Carl Gustav Hempel W. V. O. Quine Thomas Kuhn Imre Lakatos Paul Feyerabend Ian Hacking Bas van Fraassen Larry Laudan Category Philosophy portal Science portal v t e Science and technology studies Economics Economics of science Economics of scientific knowledge History History and philosophy of science History of science and technology History of technology Philosophy Anthropocene Antipositivism Empiricism Fuzzy logic Neo-Luddism Philosophy of science Philosophy of social science Philosophy of technology Positivism Postpositivism Religion and science Scientism Social constructivism Social epistemology Transhumanism Sociology Actor–network theory Social construction of technology shaping of technology Sociology of knowledge scientific Sociology of scientific ignorance Sociology of the history of science Sociotechnology Strong programme Science studies Antiscience Bibliometrics Boundary-work Consilience Criticism of science Demarcation problem Double hermeneutic Logology Mapping controversies Metascience Paradigm shift black swan events Pseudoscience Psychology of science Science citizen communication education normal Neo-colonial post-normal rhetoric wars Scientific community consensus controversy dissent enterprise literacy method misconduct priority skepticism Scientocracy Scientometrics Team science Traditional knowledge ecological Unity of science Women in science STEM Technology studies Co-production Cyborg anthropology Design studies Dematerialization Digital anthropology Digital media use and mental health Early adopter Engineering studies Financial technology Hype cycle Innovation diffusion disruptive linear model system user Leapfrogging Normalization process theory Media studies Reverse salient Skunkworks project Sociotechnical system Technical change Technocracy Technoscience feminist Technological change convergence determinism revolution transitions Technology and society criticism of dynamics theories of transfer Women in engineering Policy Academic freedom Digital divide Evidence-based policy Factor 10 Funding of science Horizon scanning Politicization of science Regulation of science Research ethics Right to science Science policy history of science of Technology assessment Technology policy Transition management Portals Science History of science Technology Category Associations Journals Scholars v t e Analytic philosophy Related articles Areas of focus Metaphysics Epistemology Language Mathematics Science Turns Aretaic Linguistic Performative Logic Classical Deviant Mathematical Non-classical Paraconsistent Philosophical Predicate Theories Anti-realism Causal theory of reference Descriptivism Emotivism Feminism Functionalism Logical atomism Logical positivism Marxism Neurophilosophy Ordinary language Pragmatism Quietism Scientific structuralism Sense data Analytic theology Analytical Thomism Concepts Analysis (paradox of analysis) Analytic–synthetic distinction Counterfactual Natural kind Reflective equilibrium Supervenience Modality Actualism Necessity Possibility Possible world Realism Rigid designator Philosophers Noam Chomsky Keith Donnellan Gottlob Frege Edmund Gettier Jaakko Hintikka Giuseppe Peano Russ Shafer-Landau Ernest Sosa Barry Stroud Australian realism David Malet Armstrong David Chalmers J. L. Mackie Peter Singer J. J. C. Smart Cambridge Arif Ahmed Charlie Broad Casimir Lewy Norman Malcolm G. E. Moore Graham Priest Bertrand Russell Frank P. Ramsey Ludwig Wittgenstein Oxford G. E. M. Anscombe J. L. Austin Michael Dummett Antony Flew Philippa Foot Peter Geach Paul Grice R. M. Hare Alasdair MacIntyre Derek Parfit Gilbert Ryle John Searle P. F. Strawson Richard Swinburne Charles Taylor Bernard Williams Timothy Williamson Logical positivists A. J. Ayer Ernest Nagel Berlin Circle Carl Gustav Hempel Hans Reichenbach Vienna Circle Rudolf Carnap Hans Hahn Otto Neurath Moritz Schlick Friedrich Waismann Harvard Roderick Chisholm Donald Davidson Daniel Dennett Nelson Goodman Christine Korsgaard Thomas Nagel Robert Nozick Hilary Putnam W. V. O. Quine John Rawls Notre Dame Robert Audi Peter van Inwagen Pittsburgh School Robert Brandom Patricia Churchland Paul Churchland Adolf Grünbaum John McDowell Ruth Millikan Alexander Pruss Nicholas Rescher Wilfrid Sellars Bas van Fraassen Pragmatism Susan Haack Nicholas Rescher Morton White Princeton Alonzo Church Jerry Fodor Kurt Gödel David Lewis Jaegwon Kim Saul Kripke Richard Rorty Nathan Salmon Michael Walzer Quietism James F. Conant Alice Crary Cora Diamond Reformed Alvin Plantinga William Lane Craig Nicholas Wolterstorff Science Paul Feyerabend Thomas Kuhn Karl Popper Stanford School Nancy Cartwright John Dupré Peter Galison Ian Hacking Patrick Suppes Lwow-Warsaw Jan Łukasiewicz Alfred Tarski Category Index v t e Positivism Perspectives Antihumanism Empiricism Rationalism Scientism Declinations Legal positivism Logical positivism Positivist school Postpositivism Sociological positivism Machian positivism (empirio-criticism) Rankean historical positivism Polish positivism Russian Machism Principal concepts Consilience Demarcation Evidence Induction Justification Pseudoscience Critique of metaphysics Unity of science Verificationism Antitheses Antipositivism Confirmation holism Critical theory Falsifiability Geisteswissenschaft Hermeneutics Historicism Historism Human science Humanities Metaphysics Methodological dualism Problem of induction Reflectivism Related paradigm shifts in the history of science Non-Euclidean geometry (1830s) Uncertainty principle (1927) Related topics Behavioralism Post-behavioralism Critical rationalism Criticism of science Epistemology anarchism idealism nihilism pluralism realism Holism Instrumentalism Modernism Naturalism in literature Nomothetic–idiographic distinction Objectivity in science Operationalism Phenomenalism Philosophy of science Deductive-nomological model Ramsey sentence Sense-data theory Qualitative research Relationship between religion and science Sociology Social science Philosophy Structural functionalism Structuralism Structuration theory Positivist-related debate Method Methodenstreit (1890s) Werturteilsstreit (1909–1959) Positivismusstreit (1960s) Fourth Great Debate in international relations (1980s) Science wars (1990s) Contributions The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830) A General View of Positivism (1848) Critical History of Philosophy (1869) Idealism and Positivism (1879–1884) The Analysis of Sensations (1886) The Logic of Modern Physics (1927) Language, Truth, and Logic (1936) The Two Cultures (1959) The Universe in a Nutshell (2001) Proponents Richard Avenarius A. J. Ayer Alexander Bogdanov Percy Williams Bridgman Auguste Comte Eugen Dühring Émile Durkheim Stephen Hawking Ernst Laas Ernst Mach C. P. Snow Berlin Circle Vienna Circle Criticism Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909) History and Class Consciousness (1923) The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934) The Poverty of Historicism (1936) World Hypotheses (1942) Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951) Truth and Method (1960) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) Conjectures and Refutations (1963) One-Dimensional Man (1964) Knowledge and Human Interests (1968) The Poverty of Theory (1978) The Scientific Image (1980) The Rhetoric of Economics (1986) Critics Theodor W. Adorno Gaston Bachelard Mario Bunge Wilhelm Dilthey Paul Feyerabend Hans-Georg Gadamer Jürgen Habermas Thomas Kuhn Vladimir Lenin György Lukács Herbert Marcuse Deirdre McCloskey Stephen Pepper Karl Popper Willard Van Orman Quine E. P. Thompson Bas van Fraassen Max Weber Concepts in contention Knowledge Objectivity Phronesis Truth Verstehen Category

• 19th century in philosophy
• 20th century in philosophy
• 21st century in philosophy
• Empiricism
• Scientific method
• Naturalism (philosophy)
• Metatheory of science
• Political theories
• Lifestyle
• Religion and science
• Postmodernism
• Criticism of science
• Political pejoratives
• New Atheism