Re: [asa] The Origin(s) of 'Scientism'

Greg,
I've got an old micro edition of OED, which makes it complicated to try
to copy the several lines of examples. However, every halfway decent
library should have a copy of the new edition.

I took the dogmatism v scientism to refer to anti-science religious dogma
and insistence that only science can be relevant.
Dave

On Sat, 5 Aug 2006 10:53:36 -0400 (EDT) Gregory Arago
<gregoryarago@yahoo.ca> writes:
Thanks for sharing that, Dave. I tried the on-line OED, but don't have
access to the database. Could you go a bit further with how it emerged -
does OED cite a first usage or early usages of the term 'scientism'? Does
it acknowledge a scientist, philosopher or other thinker who
identified/defined it?

Don, what more can you say about the misapplication of science? Is this
an ideological dimension or some kind of over-reaching of science's
domain? Perhaps 'applied science' is rather different from 'natural
science' in a similar way to how 'social science' differs from a 'pure'
study of nature. Probably we would agree that 'scientism' is more than
simply applied scientific methodology?

Curious also to hear how scientism and dogmatism are contrasted.

Gregory

p.s. as for "Ideas of the Great Philosophers" and Bertrand Russell
(1872-1970), perhaps he identified or supported 'scientism' using a
philosophy of science approach?

"D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
OED takes the term back to 1877, with a contrast between dogmatism and
scientism.
Dave

Don Nield <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
A google search with "scientism dictionary" produces quite a bit of
information.
It appears that the word has been in use since the 19th century. It
started out as simply referring to scientific methodology. At some
stage it acquired the secondary meaning of misapplication ot the
scientific method to fields outside science.
Don

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Received on Sat Aug 5 15:07:02 2006