Abstract
The term “scientism” is used in a variety of ways with both negative and positive connotations. I suggest that some of these uses are inappropriate, as they aim simply at dismissing without argument an approach that a particular author does not like. However, there are legitimate negative uses of the term, which I explore by way of an analogy with the term “pseudoscience.” I discuss these issues by way of a recent specific example provided by a controversy in the field of bioethics concerning the value, or lack thereof, of homeopathy. I then frame the debate about scientism within the broader context of C.P. Snow’s famous essay on the “two cultures.”
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Notes
Indeed, I have recently organized a symposium on the theme at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center (https://sites.google.com/site/scientismworkshop/), the proceedings of which are currently being considered for publication by the University of Chicago Press.
From §67 of the Investigations on the fuzziness of the concept of game: “I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than ‘family resemblances’; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way. And I shall say: ‘games’ form a family.” Wittgenstein here is rejecting the Platonic, essentialist approach to definitions of concepts, in favour of a more nuanced, organically construed one. It is the latter approach that I am using in analysing the idea of scientism.
A recent paper by Loughlin, Lewith, and Falkenberg attempts to define scientism more precisely as “the view that science, and only science, reveals the truth, such that all true claims are part of a true scientific theory, or are reducible to claims of this sort” (2013, 131). The authors point out that such a view is historically associated with logical positivism and interestingly argue that it comes with an (implicit) ontology: “This epistemological thesis is closely associated with an ontological thesis, about reality or ‘what really exists’, to the effect that science reveals the true nature or essence of the world” (2013, 132). There is much that I agree with in this paper, but I still think a less sharp, Wittgensteinian approach comes closer to do justice to the bewildering variety of not only epistemic and ontological claims surrounding scientism but also its broader psychological and sociological dimensions.
See, for instance, Digital Humanities Now, http://digitalhumanitiesnow.org (accessed December 22, 2014).
It is true that Holmes et al. (2006) qualify their usage by the prefix “micro,” as in microfascism. But here is what they say right at the beginning of their paper (which, incidentally, is entitled “Deconstructing the Evidence-Based Discourse in Health Sciences: Truth, Power and Fascism,” with no “micro” modifier): “Although it is associated with specific political systems, this fascism of the masses, as was practised by Hitler and Mussolini, has today been replaced by a system of microfascisms—polymorphous intolerances that are revealed in more subtle ways. Consequently, although the majority of the current manifestations of fascism are less brutal, they are nevertheless more pernicious” (Holmes et al. 2006, 180). So, according to Holmes et al. (2006), there is a definite link between the original fascism of Hitler and Mussolini and the “micro” variety practised by some within the healthcare community. Which, of course, is nonsense on stilts.
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Pigliucci, M. Scientism and Pseudoscience: A Philosophical Commentary. Bioethical Inquiry 12, 569–575 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-015-9665-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-015-9665-1