Related Terms

Scientific expansionism; Scientific naturalism

Description

Some people seem to think that there are no real limits to the competence of science, no limits to what can be achieved in the name of science. There is no area of human life to which science cannot successfully be applied. A scientific account of anything and everything constitutes the full story of the universe and its inhabitants. Or, if there are limits to the scientific enterprise, the idea is that, at least, science sets the boundaries for what we human beings can ever know about reality. This is the view of scientism.

From a historical perspective, perhaps the most well-known proponent of scientism is the French social philosopher Auguste Comte, with his attempt to create a religion based on science – the “Religion of Humanity” 1852. Another interesting and far-reaching attempt to have science take over many of the functions of religion, and thus itself become a religion, was undertaken by the German chemist and Nobel prize-winner Wilhelm Ostwald (1912: 94–112). He argued for science as an “Ersatzreligion” – a substitute religion. Yet, many different forms of scientism have emerged over the last three centuries, and during the most recent decades, a number of distinguished natural scientists, for instance Peter Atkins, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, and Edward O. Wilson (1978), as well as philosophers such as Daniel C. Dennett and Patricia Churchland have advocated scientism in one form or another (Atkins 1995: 132).

But what, more precisely, is scientism? Though it is not at all easy to define, we might say that someone is a proponent of scientism if he or she believes that everything (or at least as much as possible) could and should be understood in terms of science. Be aware here that the notion of science is used in the restricted way that is common in English usage, though not in the German or Swedish tradition. Thus, the term covers only the natural sciences and those areas of the social sciences that are highly similar in methodology to the natural sciences.

Another concept that could be invoked in this context is “scientific expansionism,” and this explains quite well what the project is all about. Namely this: the proponents believe that the boundaries of science (that is, of the natural sciences) can and should be expanded in such a way that what has not previously been understood as amenable to scientific methodology can now be brought within the scope of science. Science can answer many more questions than we have previously thought possible.

In its most ambitious form, scientism can be defined as the view that science has no real boundaries; that is to say, eventually it will answer all empirical, theoretical, practical, moral, and existential questions. Science will in due time solve all genuine problems that humankind encounters. How, exactly, the boundaries of science should be expanded and what, more precisely, it is that is to be included within science are issues on which there is disagreement. Some proponents of scientism are more ambitious than others in their extension of the boundaries of science. That is to say, they are all scientific expansionists but in different ways and to different extents.

Perhaps the most well-known form of scientism, epistemic scientism, expresses a particular idea about the boundaries of knowledge, saying that the only genuine knowledge about reality is to be found through science and science alone. The only kind of knowledge we can have is scientific knowledge. Everything outside of science is taken as a matter of mere belief and subjective opinion. Consequently, the agenda is to strive to incorporate as many other areas of human life as possible within the sciences so that rational consideration and acquisition of knowledge can be made possible in these fields as well. If one holds this epistemological view, then it is of course not difficult to understand that one would believe that everything (or at least as much as possible) could and should be understood in terms of science – because what we cannot understand and explain in terms of science is something that we cannot know anything about at all. This is not the view that science is the paradigm example of knowledge or rationality, but the view that the only genuine knowledge about reality is to be found through science and science alone.

Epistemic scientism raises an obvious challenge to the religions of the world. For example, Christianity could only give us knowledge about God, human beings, and the world if those knowledge claims could be confirmed by the methods of the natural sciences, because genuine knowledge – according to this version of scientism – could only be obtained by such methods.

Scientism has been criticized by many scholars who have taken part of the science-religion dialogue, such as Ian Barbour, John Haught, Mikael Stenmark (2001), and Keith Ward (1996) and in culture in general by people such as Bryan Appleyard, Mary Midgley (1992) and Huston Smith. Smith even think that “the greatest problem the human spirit faces in our time is having to live in the procrustean, scientistic worldview that dominates our culture” (2001: 202). Depending on what form of scientism analyzed and what understanding of religion defended, the critical responses have looked differently. The main criticism, however, is that the advocates of scientism in their attempt to expand the boundaries of science rely in their argument not merely on scientific but also on philosophical premises and that scientism therefore is not science proper, but naturalism or atheism disguised.

Perhaps the most embarrassing problem for spokespersons for scientism is that one of its central claims seems to be self-refuting. The difficulty is that the scientistic belief that we can only know what science can tell us (epistemic scientism) seems to be something that science cannot tell us. How can one set up a scientific experiment to demonstrate the truth of that claim? It seems not to be possible. But we cannot know that scientific knowledge is the only mode of knowledge unless we are able to determine this by scientific means. This is so, simply because science – according to epistemic scientism – sets the limits for what we can possibly know. Hence, the claim that we can only know what science can tell us falsifies itself. If it is true, then it is false.

Cross-References

Epistemology

Naturalism

Truth