A view of scientism: inconsistent philosophy (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 22, 2018, 20:21 (2315 days ago) @ dhw

It is a self defeating philosophic view because it is inconsistent:

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html#more

"Scientism is simply not a coherent position. You cannot avoid having distinctively philosophical and extra-scientific theoretical commitments, because the very attempt to do so entails having distinctively philosophical and extra-scientific theoretical commitments. And if you think that these commitments are rationally justifiable ones – and of course, anyone beholden to scientism thinks his view is paradigmatically rational – then you are implicitly admitting that there can be such a thing as a rationally justifiable thesis which is not a scientific thesis. Which is, of course, what scientism denies. Thus scientism is unavoidably self-defeating.

"The fallacy is simple, and blindingly obvious once you see it. So why is it so common? Why do so many otherwise genuinely smart people (as well as people who merely like to think they are smart, like combox trolls) fall into it?

***

"though the fallacy is pretty simple, you have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of certain philosophical concepts – realism, instrumentalism, self-contradiction, etc. – and a basic willingness to think philosophically, in order to be able to see it. Now, suppose you not only don’t know much about philosophy, but are positively contemptuous of it (as those beholden to scientism often are). Then you are not going to know very much about it, and you are not likely to be able to think very clearly about even the little bit you do know. Your prejudices keep getting in the way. You are bound to be blind even to obvious fallacies like the one in question.

'The bottom line is that if you cannot help doing philosophy – for again, the very act of denying that one needs to do it itself involves one in a philosophical commitment – but at the same time also refuse to do it, then you are inevitably both going to do it and do it badly.

***

"Scientism is, by the way, self-defeating in more than just the way already identified. Consider that scientific methodology involves both the construction of mathematical representations of nature, and the experimental testing of those representations. If you think carefully about either of these components – including even the second one – you will see that it cannot be correct to say that we can have no rationally justifiable belief in what cannot be experimentally tested.

"This is most obvious in the case of mathematics. Even those beholden to scientism will typically admit that even those parts of mathematics that do not have application within empirical science constitute genuine bodies of knowledge. And even the parts of mathematics that do have application within science operate in part by distinctively mathematical rules of reasoning rather than being evaluated solely by experimental testing."

Comment: At least we can recognize this philosophy as we discuss the untestable. Feser is my favorite Thomist philosopher.