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

Greg,
I think you are using "naturalistic" in a narrower sense than most of us
do. I take a checklist, such as used in the social sciences and some
areas of psychology, to be naturalistic, though it is not a strictly
physical measurement. The use of a checklist to infer a mental or social
state is legitimate, up to a point. But it cannot be used to infer that
there is an immaterial soul in the makeup of human beings.

Scientism has degrees, from using the "scientific method" to justify
value theory to dogmatic declarations that what science studies is all
there is or all that can be studied.
Dave

On Mon, 7 Aug 2006 15:43:12 -0400 (EDT) Gregory Arago
<gregoryarago@yahoo.ca> writes:
Please excuse, I had planned to drop the topic already, given the helpful
answers and links. But Don’s reply got me thinking.
 
Don wrote: “The way I use the term scientism, the scientific method is
essentially identical with methodological naturalism.”
 
This doesn’t seem exactly right to me, since a definition that equates
‘scientific method’ with ‘naturalistic’ has its own turn to take in
dispelling ideology. The reason I brought in applied science and social
science with natural science was to distinguish that science can be
non-naturalistic in its methodology. It may be that natural scientists
want to have a monopoly on ‘scientific’ practice and that would be both
unjust and inaccurate.
 
I had done the Google searches already before the OP and found some of
the dictionary definitions. There are apparently many levels of
‘scientism,’ least of which imo is simply ‘doing science.’
 
According to Steve Fuller at Warwick University, scientism is “the
doctrine that science can justify value commitments,” for which he cites
Tom Sorell’s Scientism (1991, Routledge).
 
Further, he adds that, “scientistic thinkers blur the boundaries between
‘is’ and ‘ought,’ ‘fact’ and ‘value,’ ‘natural’ and ‘rationally’ - -
typically by assimilating the latter term in each binary to the former.
For the most part, postmodernists appear to be ‘antiscience’ only because
scientists still harbour a puritanical attitude toward science that would
drive a sharp wedge between these pairs of terms.” (“The Re-Enchantment
of Science: A Fit End to the Science Wars?” 1999)
 
Perhaps those at ASA who would protect their domain of science while
admitting that it is a limited sphere of knowledge, would be willing to
comment on when their colleagues exceed disciplinary boundaries and
pronounce on extra-scientific things such as value commitments. When does
a puritanical attitude toward science assume things that it is trying to
prove?
 
In particular, the issue of blurring the boundary between ‘natural’ and
‘rational’ seemed most acute to me. Whenever someone writes ‘the nature
of,’ my ears perk up for what is to follow. I also wonder if 'scientism'
could be used for the opposite of what Don mentions, when someone moves
from a discussion of religion to a discussion of evolution, perhaps with
the notion that evolution enables them to be an intellectually fulfilled
theist.
 
Arago
 

Don Nield <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
Hi Gregory:
I suspect that you are looking for more precision than I would like to
employ here. For me, the definitions in the dictionary on my shelves
(Collins Concsise English Dictionary, 1992) are adequate.The entry reads:
scientism 1. the application of the scientific method. 2. the
uncritical application of scientific methods to inappropriate fields of
study. I take it that those defintions apply to popular usage rather than
technical definitions used by philosophers. It is the second of the two
defintions above I have in mind when I use the term.
The way I use the term scientism, the scientific method is essentially
identical with methodological naturalism. For me, the epitome of
scientism is Richard Dawkins when he moves from a discussion of
evolution to a discussion of religion, with the implication that Darwin's
work on evolution enables Dawkins to be an intellectually fulfilled
atheist.
I have in mind Keith Ward's critique of Dawkins in Chapter 5 of his 1996
book God, Chance and Necessity . Ward does not use the term scientism, as
far as I recall, but I think that he could well have done so in this
context.
I use the term science in an inclusive sense, including applied as well
as pure science, social as well as physical science.
For me dogmatism has little to do with scientism. Dogmatism is the
making of statements that are forcibly asserted as if authoritative, or
statements based on assumption rather than observation
Don

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Received on Mon Aug 7 19:36:01 2006