Scientism: what it is, how it understands science, and limitations.

A summary of the philosophical position known as scientism, with examples.

Science is undoubtedly the most reliable way for human beings to obtain knowledge, since it tries to demonstrate it empirically. However, it is not the only one: there are countless "truths", such as human consciousness or possessing a soul that cannot be scientifically demonstrated, but must be there somewhere.

Well, there is a position that considers that anything that is not scientifically demonstrable is either an illusion or its existence is irrelevant: scientism. This position holds that only the scientific method is capable of providing us with pure and objective knowledge, and any other form must be ignored.

In the following we will go deeper into this position, its use as a pejorative term, its origins and some scientistic exponents.

What is scientism?

Scientism, also called scientism or scientism, is the belief that the scientific method can be applied to any problem of human knowledge, whether or not it is directly related to the positive sciences. This position is based on the idea that the scientific method is the only way to achieve pure and genuine knowledge.. It affirms that science is the only option available to obtain valid knowledge.

We cannot go on talking about scientism without talking a little in depth about what positive science is. Positive science is oriented to the study of an empirical reality, that is, based on experience, on facts. Experimentation makes it possible to confirm or refute a hypothesis and, on the basis of the results, to make interpretations of the phenomenon studied. Many natural sciences are considered to be positive, examples being biology, mathematics, physics and chemistry.

Due to its rather inflexible conception that science is the only way to obtain valid knowledge, scientism has been a very criticized current and has been the only way to obtain valid knowledge. has been a much criticized and debated current, being outlined as a radical and extremist line of thought.. In fact, the term "scientism" is often used as something pejorative, referring to an inappropriate use of scientific statements and using it as a criticism that there are aspects of science that interfere in religious, philosophical and metaphysical issues.

A derogatory example of the term is when, for example, the theory of evolution is explained and some of the doctrine of creation questions the facts demonstrated in this theory, saying that there are things that science cannot demonstrate and that affirming that the human being is the product of millions of years of evolutionary adaptations is a scientistic posture. It is quite common for the term to be used inappropriately, especially when science refutes the knowledge of some pseudoscience or fundamentalist doctrine.

It is important to note that scientism in itself is neither a science nor a branch of knowledge, much less a set of scientific statements or demonstration of facts, but a position, a philosophical position on how human knowledge should be obtained.but a position, a philosophical stance on how human knowledge should be obtained. Scientism consists of statements related to science and in favor of it as the only way of obtaining knowledge, being related to epistemology, that is, the search for and validation of knowledge.

Origins

The origins of scientism can be traced back to the times of the Enlightenment in the mid-16th century, with the scientific revolution in Europe in the mid-16th century. with the scientific revolution experienced in Europe. It was a time when new sciences were emerging, among them modern mathematics and physics, which used empirical methods, avoiding philosophical conceptions and metaphysical interpretations of reality.

This era was characterized as the time when hundreds of scientific discoveries were made, discoveries that overturned some of the most solid dogmas of religiosity and spirituality that until relatively recently, just a few centuries before during the Middle Ages, were understood as unquestionable truths. Since religion was mistaken in many matters, science began to impose itself as a new way of seeing the world, more grounded in facts.

As a result, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries science acquired a new way of being conceived. Nature, understood as the phenomena that occur in our reality, ceased to be seen under the vision that the Greeks had had, very mixed with philosophical conceptions, and gave rise to science understood in its most modern sense, which had a clear functionality in favor of the improvement of society.

Another aspect that contributed to changing the view of nature had much to do with changes at the educational level. Abstract reasoning began to be seen as a new form of common sense, and nature came to be seen more as a mechanical entity, a perfectly calibrated machine, rather than an organism with a soul.a perfectly calibrated machine, rather than an organism with a soul.

But the most important aspect of this era is the rise of experimentation and the consolidation of the scientific method. If one wondered about how a certain phenomenon was, the best thing to do was to check it empirically, to give an answer to the questions and theories that the scientist made by testing and obtaining facts. The new criterion for explaining the world was not centered on the why of things, a question typical of philosophical and Aristotelian thought up to that time, but on the how.

It was in this context that the ideas that would give rise to scientism arose. For example, it was claimed that mathematics, as the exact and positive science that it was, could serve as a model of science that could be used by the others to become sciences in their own right. It is also at this time that the idea arose that any conception of reality that is not accessible by means of the scientific method cannot be considered important, or is nothing more than a mirage, a meaningless abstraction.

But although the idea of scientism itself seems to have arisen in the midst of the Enlightenment, the popularization of the term is much more recent, specifically at the beginning of the 20th century. Many consider that the credit for having spread this term goes to the French philosopher of science and biologist Félix-Alexandre Le DantecHe was also the one who associated scientism with empiricism and positivism and used the scientific method as the only valid way to prove theories and find the truth.

Limitations

Although the idea that the scientific method is the preferable way to obtain new knowledge, it must be said that the radical and extremist stance implied by scientism has been diminishing since, in itself, it is nothing more than an arbitrary way of establishing that method as something that is above any other process of obtaining knowledge, even though those forms have also proved to be effective.

The curious thing is that scientism has run up against its greatest limitation in its own assertion that experimental and empirical science is the only way of obtaining objective knowledge. Based on this same argument, any idea or theory coming from a scientistic stance would have to be subject to scientific experimentation to find any validity. If it claims that science is the only way to obtain valid knowledge, then it would have to demonstrate it, which brings us into a paradox..

Another limitation of scientism is its argument that knowledge can only be attained through empiricism, that is, through "physical," factual experience. If a phenomenon or cause cannot be experienced then its existence should be denied according to this position. However, it might actually happen that experience tells us that there are certain matters that cannot be grasped by experimentation, but that does not mean that they do not exist.

For example, the idea of consciousness. Many thinkers with a scientistic vision consider living beings as machines whose functioning does not depend on any metaphysical entity such as the soul, since since it has not been possible to extract or analyze such a thing experimentally, this subjective experience could not exist. In this way, scientism "invalidates" the concept of mind understood as a subjective entity, a properly human idea.

Scientistic representatives

Basically, any scientist who says that only the scientific method is capable of demonstrating knowledge as true can be considered a scientismist. However, we can highlight two great thinkers who consider themselves scientistic and talk about their perspectives in particular.

Mario Bunge (1919-2020)

Mario Bunge was an Argentine philosopher, scientist and physicist whose perspectives could be considered scientistic.He was one of the best known advocates of these ideas in contemporary times. In his book "In Praise of Scientism" he affirmed that this position represents a preferable alternative to the humanist one, since science is capable of giving more results.

According to Bunge humanism grants alternatives based on tradition, hunches and trial and error, while the more purely empirical science allows objective truths to be obtained.. Furthermore, he emphasized that science has the capacity to grow exponentially by means of what he called "positive feedback", a process that allows the results of a scientific procedure to be reused for new experiments.

Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794)

Marie-Jean-Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, was a French mathematician and philosopher whose works were closely related to hotly debated issues of the Enlightenment, including politics, morality and economics.

In his writings he spoke of progress within the world of science and claimed that this contributed to progress in other sciences related to morality and politics, less empirical aspects. He considered that evil within a society was the result of ignorance..

Conclusions on scientism

Scientism is the philosophical stance on science that argues that the scientific method is the only way to bring valid knowledge. This position values the natural sciences above all other disciplines. Although it is in favor of the scientific method and is an advocate of science, its claims, in themselves, are not scientific.

Its purpose is to promote the scientific method as the only way to obtain knowledge, otherwise such knowledge should not be taken into account..

Its origin is related to the birth of modern and positive sciences between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, within the framework of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. Being a time when religion ceased to have so much weight as many beliefs were demonstrated as false, the idea that any explanation coming from the spiritual, metaphysical and religious, if it was not empirically demonstrable, should be rejected, began to prosper.

Bibliographical references:

• Agassi, Joseph and Robert S. Cohen (eds.) (1982). Scientific Philosophy Today: Essays in Honor of Mario Bunge. Dordrecht, D. Reidel. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-8462-2
• Bunge, Mario (2002). Diccionario de filosofía (2nd edition). Mexico: Siglo XXI. p. 75. ISBN 9682322766.
• Burnett T (2019). What is Scientism? Embodied Philosophy. Recuperado de embodiedphilosophy.com
• Mario Bunge. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Recuperado de en.wikipedia.org.
• Marquis de Condorcet. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Recuperado de en.wikipedia.org.
• Haack, Susan (2012). Six Signs of Scientism. Logos & Episteme. 3 (1): 75–95. doi:10.5840/logos-episteme20123151
• Mizrahi, Moti (July 2017). What's So Bad About Scientism?. Social Epistemology. 31 (4): 351–367. doi:10.1080/02691728.2017.1297505.