64 thoughts on “On the Strangely Beguiling Notion of Scientism”

1. Philosophy as a discipline does have problems. Luke Muehlhauser from LessWrong outlines a few here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/frp/train_philosophers_with_pearl_and_kahneman_not/ I don’t fully subscribe to his recommendations, but he’s not entirely wrong.

2. David, would picking out examples of “useless” science show that science, as a discipline, has problems? How extensive would such examples have to be? Sure, anyone can pick out nonsense in philosophy, much of it due to present tendencies in university departments which take research science and publication as evidence of excellence. The philosophical journals, as Haack points out in the essay referred to, are stuffed full of empty verbiage which seems to be necessary for academic advancement and tenure. So, yes, just a glance through the journals will show how pointless much of it is. This, however, only proves that certain models for competence simply do not apply to certain fields. A recent study of articles in medicine demonstrated the same trend.

   But it has to be said that, without a philosophical grasp of the issues involved — and Darwin is a classic case of someone who did his conceptual homework carefully — inquiry will often simply go astray. Indeed, it is hard to think of the progress of science without also being aware of the philosophical trail which it followed. Science and philosophy (of science, inquiry, truth, etc.) have been, over the last three or four hundred years, parts of a single cultural conversation. While scientific findings are not cultural, and science can be as successful in Japan as it is in Germany or the US, science itself is a cultural product, primarily of the West, and of Enlightenment European culture and its colonial extensions. And while both Kahneman and Pearl might be helpful to both scientists and philosophers in understanding certain types of reasoning, it scarcely does to ignore that philosophy is involved (amongst other things) with conceptual clarification, which has little to do, for example, with rationality in situations of uncertainty. And this doesn’t even begin to touch areas like moral philosophy, aesthetics, even many aspects of the philosophy of science itself. Luke Muehlhauser seems to be suggesting that what is wrong with philosophy is that it is not science. No, it’s not.

3. I should perhaps add here that the purpose of conceptual clarification is not necessarily progress. Keeping our concepts sharp and clear is a continuing necessity, and some of the conceptual work done by Kant and Plato, Aristotle and even Aquinas, is still important and useful. It is a continuing conversation, and cultures which do not possess a philosophical tradition are often hamstrung by conceptual unclarity. Islamic societies are a case in point. Conceptual clarification is inevitably individualistic and heretical, and societies without a strong philosophical tradition will be threatened by it. That, I suggest, is why the medieval period ended, at the beginning of modernity, with the witchcraze. What Charles Freeman calls the closing of the Western mind had the effect, in the end, of blunting sensitivity to concepts of truth, evidence and inquiry. Philosophy carried out without any grounding in human reality, whether that relates to the varied processes of inquiry, or the making moral judgements, is clearly just a matter of words spinning their wheels. Kant’s saying that “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions [perceptions] without concepts are blind” is apt here.

4. Eric, the point, I think if I got Jerry’s piece is there is only one ‘way of knowing’ and that is through science. I don’t know if you dispute this or to this point you concede. From your post, correct me if am wrong, philosophy helps us to know what we know as true. Or that through philosophy we can answer questions of aesthetics, morals, ethics etc.
   While I think philosophy is relevant, I don’t think it provides us with any answers but helps us to have sound arguments about a particular issue. Take for instance, the question of assisted dying that you have so ably discussed in several posts, I don’t think philosophy answers the question why we should allow a person to die in dignity but that you have shown us new ways to think about it.

5. I don’t think that talking about “ways of knowing” is particularly helpful. That’s why I called it a parody of 18th century philosophy. We can know different things in different ways, but we are not talking about ways of knowing. We can know, for example, that 2+2=4, but that is not something we know empirically. We can know, in a perfectly legitimate sense of knowing, something about the scientific method, how it functions, and how it provides evidence for the truth of certain claims about the nature of reality, and even what it means to speak about reality in this sense, without this being, itself, scientific knowledge. And it seems to me pointless to dispute about “ways of knowing,” because there are simply too many different “kinds” of knowledge to make this a reasonable kind of locution to use. Just so, it seems to me, we can give good reasons for believing that our moral beliefs are true, even though this knowledge is neither scientific nor analytic. I just don’t understand what is meant by “ways of knowing” and that is my problem with this whole line of thought.

6. I get you clearly now. I think it doesn’t help anyone to talk about ways of knowing then.

7. I’m going to have to disagree with what you argue, in part, Eric. It seems to me that Philosophy (in the West, at least) struggles to find absolutes; absolute morals, absolute truths, absolute meaning.Yet after thousands of years there is no sign of One True Philosophy emerging. Religions struggle likewise – after thousands of years there is no sign of One True Religion emerging. If Absolutes existed it is surprising that none have become ‘known’, so it seems incoherent to claim that the amount of argument is evidence that ‘absolute morals’ must therefore exist.

   On the other hand Science works away to find many small provisional truths, and these seem to converge on sets of values and theories that are consistent and of use in practical matters. Some of those provisional truths suggest that morals are relative, what is true in one frame of reference is not true in another frame of reference, and that truth is only dependable as a mathematical or logical function (which depends in turn on your axioms).

   Now if I were to argue that Science was the only way of dealing with human experience, ie Scientism, that would be an absolutist claim, and therefore highly suspect.

   My view is that Philosophy needs to stop sneering at people ‘doing Philosophy’ without realising it and start justifying what it ‘produces’. Otherwise it is just a chat shop for academics – when the world needs clear philosophical thinking more than ever.

   Your views may vary, of course.

8. So the solution is more philosophical investigation, in order to determine whether philosophical investigation is of any value? This sounds rather like the government departments who appoint committees of inquiry to investigate whether there are too many committees of inquiry.

9. It seems to me that Philosophy (in the West, at least) struggles to find absolutes; absolute morals, absolute truths, absolute meaning.

   Plato, maybe, but Philosophy in the West — definitely not.

   Sorry, got interrupted by something on the stove and hit submit instead of just leaving it be.

   My view is that Philosophy needs to stop sneering at people ‘doing Philosophy’ without realising it and start justifying what it ‘produces’. Otherwise it is just a chat shop for academics – when the world needs clear philosophical thinking more than ever.

   Whoever said anything about philosophy sneering. I mentioned that, as a matter of fact, we all philosophise, and philosophy is just a more systematic and ordered way of doing it. This is not sneering, but an attempt to explain and justify what philosophy is and does, and why it is important.

10. Corio, that is simply mockery, and not an implication of anything that I said. Philosophy is something that we all do, in some measure or other. Often it is not done well, as you show, but you can do better, I’m sure.

11. One argument against the idea that science is the only way of knowing, is that since we know, eg, how to write literature, how is it we knew every bit as well how to do this before science ever really existed. Moreover, if we were to enquire (nay, demand) of science an answer to the question of how to write good literature, the answers, where not obvious nonsense, would be obviously non-scientific. And this example, I think, tells us one of the things that is wrong with scientism and also a bit about the confusion and narrowness of view of those who advocate it: we do not live exclusively in a world of facts. We live in a world where we do things – lots of things – and while science may be the best way we have of finding out facts about the natural world, the world of facts-about-the-natural-world is only one small aspect of our lives. And it is in the other areas of our lives, and in the actual living of it, that other modes of enquiry find their place. So if you want to know how to write good literature; or how to paint; or how to play football, or how to play the trombone; or how to live a good life; or how we should live as a society; or a million and one other things, a physics book isn’t really going to help you.

    Thus attending to the actual world we live in, as we live in it, can break the strangely beguiling spell of notions such as scientism. As Wittgenstein nearly said: a main cause of scientistic disease – a one sided diet: one nourishes one’s thinking with examples of only one kind.

12. Let me try to be a bit more systematic. It seems to me that with regard to any proposition a person might assert, there are two issues to be examined: 1. Whether it’s meaningful and 2. Whether it’s true. Establishing 2 of course depends on establishing 1. The techniques of philosophy — specifically linguistic analysis and applied logic — can help us with 1, but they don’t have any value with respect to 2 — unless, of course, the proposition is about philosophical techniques.

    But having said that, even claims relating to 1 are ultimately empirical claims. What I have to say about the meaning of the word ‘chat’, for instance, depends on whether I am referencing an English or a French linguistic community. The structure of logic is determined by its success in establishing conclusions about the real world. And all of that ultimately boils down to a single necessity: somebody, somewhere, some time, has to actually go and have a look. The claim that mere thought can somehow establish the truth of meaningful propositions is simply wrong.

13. And as for the mantra that ‘knowledge’ is the fruit of science and nothing else, what about knowing a language, knowing a skill (eg how to play the piano), knowing how to behave in certain situations, knowing a culure (not merely as an anthropologist might but so as to function within it), knowing a piece of music (so as to perform it, or as a listener to it), knowing a poem because it means something to you and moves you (say, Ben Jonson’s ‘On my first Sonne’), knowing a person, a sheep’s knowing its young by its voice, a child knowing how to suckle? You may certainly, in your sphere, define knowledge so as to exckude knowledge not arrived at by scientific methods, but to dismiss all kinds of knowledge outside that sphere as being not true knowledge or not knowledge tout court is, well, I leave people their adjective of choice.

14. I’ll clarify. I hope your soup did not boil over.

    I did not mean you to think that I thought you were sneering Eric. I was carrying over the comments from many blogs and comment threads where people with academic qualifications in philosophy appear to sneer at others who denigrate philosophy yet are debating issues.

    On the questions of absolutes my mind was running along the lines of ‘Philosophy: How ought we to live?’ Many philosophers have proposed a single answer, most of them different from each other. The Categorical Imperative, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Utilitarianism(s), Objectivism, all set out a way in which we should live (or the way the world ‘works’). It is true that some schools of Philosophy are a little more circumspect in their ‘answers’ (Existentialism, Post-modernism), but I think my point still stands – philosophy (the activity) hasn’t yet converged on a generally satisfactory philosophy (how we should live, how the world works).

15. Jerry compares and contrast different ways of knowing quite on purpose (and in response to the silliness of NOMA), and I think Ben picks up on this theme very clearly: which method – science or philosophy – produces knowledge? In Jerry’s mind, knowledge has to relate to reality in a way that remains accessible and constant for everyone everywhere all the time, which is why Ben talks about the only method that has produced just this, important insights into reality similarly constant for everyone everywhere all the time. The products of philosophy in this context of knowledge is clearly the pauper.

16. Tildeb, I do not understand why we should respond to the silliness of NOMA by further silliness. Besides, to suppose that knowledge is something that is “accessible and constant for everyone everywhere all the time” is, not to put too fine a point on it, nonsense. To know something, insofar as we may be said to know, is to have justified true belief. But many justified true beliefs turn out to be, at some time or another, either inaccessible — e.g. very often, for any time before the present — or, in fact, in need of qualification and revision, as any history of science will show. One of the things that philosophy can show us, as Thomas Kuhn knew, was simply that it can point this out, and someone who has an unrealistic conception of knowledge is simply wrong (philosophically speaking, which is then not the pauper after all).

    DiscoveredJoys. While it is true that some philosophers have tried to discover the one truth that would provide what we need to know in order to live our lives fully and purposefully, this is really quite uncommon, and philosophy is more a continuing discourse on the best way to live, not a conclusive demonstration of the one way that is the best way. Utilitarianism, for example, is quite clearly a basis for moral thinking that assumes that there is no one answer, and that different people respond in different ways, and so will need to find a way of living that suits their own temperament and possibilities. Hence Bentham’s famous saying that pushpin is as valuable as poetry, provided the pleasure is as great. That may be an oversimplification (I think it is), but the point of saying it is clear. Philosophical conclusions, while reasonably held, I believe, to provide knowledge, are tentative and exploratory, for the simple reason that the human scene is so complex and our lives are so short. We must not ask for more certainty than the subject matter allows. Mathematics is more certain, on the whole, than the conclusions of evolutionary biology, but that leaves neither of them in a privileged position to claim knowledge. The point that Tim Harris makes about the complexity of our knowing is, I think, important, because in addition to propositional types of knowledge there are all sorts of practical dimensions of knowledge as well. The point that I am trying to make is that talking about knowledge, and what it means to know, is not as simple as seems to be being presupposed.

    Corio, you misunderstand the idea of conceptual analysis. A dictionary is not particularly useful in this process, since we are talking about the relationship of concepts in fairly complex situations that are pertinent to questions such as what constitutes scientific knowledge, or what determines an action’s being a right action in particular circumstances. And this is not so simple a task as you might think. Read Susan Haack’s seminal work Evidence and Inquiry to get a taste of the complexities involved, or any number of books of moral philosophy, but, say, Derek Parfit’s On What Matters, which is perhaps the most sustained piece of moral conceptual analysis ever written. But, once you have done this, it seems pointless to deny that this kind of analysis of concepts does not itself produce knowledge, even though it is different from so-called knowledge of the “real world” (which is itself in need of conceptual clarification). As to your claim that

    The structure of logic is determined by its success in establishing conclusions about the real world.

    Are you suggesting that logic itself is not a domain of knowledge? If so, what are you going to do with different systems of logic and how they pertain to correct argumentation? Is it not knowing something to know that {“If p, then q,” “p”, “therefore q”} is a valid form of reasoning (modus ponens), and {“If p, then q”, “q”, “therefore p”} is not (the fallacy of affirming the consequent)? But, then, of course, this is to establish a conclusion about the “real” world, though not in the sense in which you used the word ‘real’ (I suspect).

17. Eric, the notion of conceptual analysis ultimately boils down to what ‘people’ mean when they say something; and this is only obtainable from empirical observation. Shakespeare meant something else when he wrote ‘shambles’ than I do when I write it, but no amount of profound philosophical thought is going to make that clear. At some point someone has to have access to material written in the sixteenth century, and contemporary material, and make a straightforward, honest-to-goodness empirical comparison.

    You have, I think, a vaguely Platonic notion of language, a belief that words and phrases mean things independently of how they are actually used; but usage is just the generalised outcome of an ongoing opinion poll, and it can and does change at any time. In fact language is an extremely practical tool that we can adapt — within limits — to whatever situation we find ourselves in. If it works in that situation we call it meaningful; otherwise we call it meaningless. Linguistic analysis can tell us what a particular usage can achieve in a particular situation, but it can’t tell us what is ‘right’, or ‘factual’. And philosophy, all too often, is the sound of language breaking under strains it was never meant to take.

    You can speculate endlessly about what the real world might be like from examining the language used in it, but these are all just speculations, because the link between the two is contingent and ultimately arbitrary. Anyone trying to establish what is actually the case eventually has to go and look.

    Similar considerations apply to logic — and maths, for that matter. There are a vast range of different ‘logics’ we could have chosen to use. We chose the one that (generally) works. How do we know it works? By looking at the real world. What makes our current logic valid is that it produces results which tally with those we observe actually happening around us. If and when that ceases to be the case, we will necessarily discard our current logic, and establish a new one if possible. Again, the ultimate touchstone has to be empirical investigation.

18. Eric, your knowledge and erudition leave my head spinning. I’m just trying to think through this issue of scientism and how we know what is true.

    You say: “it seems to me, we can give good reasons for believing that our moral beliefs are true, even though this knowledge is neither scientific nor analytic.”

    This is not how I understand the word “true”. Morals can be good or bad, but not true or false, unless you regard them as coming from higher authority, which clearly you don’t.

    The purpose of ethics, politics, law, and the arts is not to determine truth in the sense of factual reality. These activities establish standards for human behavior. Science establishes a framework of “facts” which these disciplines should build on, but does not dictate the conclusions.

    Such disciplines as psychology, sociology, anthropology apply the methods of science to human society. They have been notably less successful then the physical or natural sciences in establishing facts, but they reveal tendencies and trends that can guide ethics, law, etc.

    Science by its nature is reductionist. It seeks methods to reduce or control the complexity of the world so it can observe more clearly the relationships between particular qualities. The more complex the context, the less success science has in establishing facts. Science aspires to explain everything by its methods, but limits its claims to truth to those things it has demonstrated reliably.

    Religion claims an alternative way of establishing truth: revelation from a superior being. This, you and I would say, contributes false facts and opens a Pandora’s box of delusion, deception, and manipulation. But the primary aim of religion is not to establish facts, but to organize and control human behavior (as you so lucidly discussed in your Ottawa speech). In this it is similar to and seeks to subsume ethics, politics, law, the arts etc.

    What other discipline claims to be a method to establish truth? Philosophy, like science proceeds largely by falsification: of demonstrating what is not true, either because it doesn’t conform to empirical evidence (science), or because it is logically inconsistent or lacks conceptual clarity (philosophy). Does philosophy claim to discover truth, in the sense of facts, or does it seek to reveal higher understandings, and conceptual clarity? It would seem that science and philosophy (and other humanities such as the general category of literature) have different roles and goals, and to say that science is the only source of fundamental facts about the world, is hardly to deny the value of other disciplines in imposing order and understanding on those facts.

    I guess it comes down to what is truth? Is it verified facts that can be counted on? That is provided by science. Is it higher understanding and insights, wisdom even? Science would not claim to deliver wisdom. Religion would and does. Philosophy? Maybe it once sought to, but has assumed the more modest role of punching holes in human folly trying to masquerade as wisdom?

    Sorry if this is hopelessly naïve. You also say: “while ethics, politics, the law, and so on, certainly do engage in rational analysis of data, there is only a Pickwickian sense in which that data can be thought to be empirical.” I don’t understand this. It seems to me that the data are all empirical. It’s the concepts the data are fitted into that is not.

19. corio37 said:
    

    Eric, the notion of conceptual analysis ultimately boils down to what ‘people’ mean when they say something; and this is only obtainable from empirical observation.

    This is simply mistaken. What you describe here is not conceptual analysis at all, it is mere descriptive definition. Conceptual analysis and clarification is, among other things, an attempt to clear away the clutter of mere usage — which is almost always multifaceted and ambiguous for any given word or phrase in ordinary language — and formulate precise definitions of key terms in arguments to avoid fallacies of equivocation. Sometimes, this involves no more than offering a stipulative definition: for example, precisely defining a key term for use in a particular argument, with no pretense that this usage is particularly representative of ordinary usage. Still, even this limited form of conceptual clarification is obviously quite different from descriptive definition; it’s very nearly the exact opposite.

    Often, though, what needs to be done is substantially more. A lot of the day-to-day grunt work of philosophy is teasing out how a word is being used in limited contexts — in particular arguments, or closely related sets of arguments — to determine whether and how the meaning of the term is vague, ambiguous, or even inconsistent. Using the same word to represent mutually inconsistent concepts over the course of a supposedly continuous argument or exchange of arguments makes it impossible to arrive at valid conclusions, which is why equivocation is identified as a fallacy.

20. TPP, perhaps in an ideal world this is true, but the kind of ‘philosophy’ that Eric is talking about is irremovably embedded in ordinary language, and as such it can’t in practice be translated into a form where everybody can agree on what’s being said, or the implications of what’s being said. I remember philosophy classes at University where an enormous intellectual effort was being put into trying to reconcile what Descartes wrote at 25 with what he wrote at 50. The notion that he might have changed his mind, or forgotten, or simply didn’t remember or care what he said all those years ago was ruled out; it wasn’t a permissible move in the game. The object was simply to torture those writings until they yielded up a consistent ‘viewpoint’.

    Language is a tool we developed to help us catch food, find shelter and get laid. The fact that it copes so well with so many new and diverse situations that have arisen after it developed is remarkable and wonderful, but that shouldn’t mislead us into thinking it can or should cope with every situation. Attempts to treat it as a map or simulation of the real world are ultimately doomed to failure — and this is exactly what philosophy tries to do. It assumes that if we squint really hard at the regions that say ‘Here be Dragons’ we will see the outline of islands underneath. But ignorance is still ignorance, no matter how much we say about it.

21. Get over it people, philosophy is useful to scientists – and everyone for that matter. Stop trying to say it isn’t. The problem with many complaining about scientism is that they are using it as cover for religion, but this doesn’t mean that science is the only path to understanding. Just because theists see the world in black in white doesn’t mean everyone else should.

22. Corio, has it occurred to you that your philosophy classes at university, wherever and whenever those were, might not inform you as well about the workings of the entire field of inquiry as you think? As a professional working philosopher, I think Eric’s descriptions are a lot more accurate and intelligible than anything you’ve contributed here. You are displaying ignorance and bias. Stop digging.

23. It seems to me that Dawkins was making the sort of joke that, on the surface seems simple, but which points to a deeper meaning. It seems to me that Dawkins is acknowledging the value of philosophy, and acknowledges Dennett as his guru and mentor in this area.

    Putting it another way, I don’t think he was laughing at philosophy or philosophers, but with them.

24. DiscoveredJ,

    On the other hand Science works away to find many small provisional truths, and these seem to converge on sets of values and theories that are consistent and of use in practical matters. Some of those provisional truths suggest that morals are relative, what is true in one frame of reference is not true in another frame of reference, and that truth is only dependable as a mathematical or logical function (which depends in turn on your axioms).

    I think right here you demonstrate what is causing the frustration that boils over into the “scientism” charges: all of these “theories” have been proposed in philosophy. Suggestions that morals might be relative started as far back as Socrates. We’ve already had discussions with respect to truth being contextual (indexicals and the like) for a long time now, as well as discussions of truths as mathematical and logical functions.

    So, it looks to philosophy like this:

    Scientist: Look at this wonderful new theory I’ve found to solve what used to be a philosophical problem using science. Viva la science!

    Philosopher: Well, we already thought of that one. Here are the things that are problematic about it, and here are the cases it can’t handle.

    Scientist: You just don’t like science encroaching on your field, and so are just dismissing it out of hand. We’re still right!

    Philosopher: Sigh.

    Philosophy does not reject science. Philosophy rather likes science. It’s had entire philosophical movements dedicated to doing philosophy more like the way science is done. When philosophers, in general, say that you can’t do something the way science is doing it, they generally have lots and lots and lots of reasons for saying that; they aren’t just saying “Science … ick!”. But scientists have a tendency to claim that they do it for the latter and not the former reasons. Yes, there are some philosophers that ARE too attached to not doing things scientifically, but there are reasons for that.

25. Eric, ‘justified true belief’ sounds like a fine metaphysical phrase to describe what we call knowledge but I think it favours the wrong emphasis, namely, on what supports a belief rather than on Jerry’s much more democratic approach, which is an emphasis on insight into reality itself – regardless of who is doing the looking and what beliefs accompany the looker. Jerry insists that knowledge is about how reality works, and the kinds of belief-independent explanations that produce a reliable and practical understanding into it for any and all. When we move away from what it is we’re talking about – this common reality – we are moving away from knowledge.

    It is against this backdrop of reality-as-arbitrator-of-claims-made-about-it that Coyne and Goren have the effrontery to shine a light on these supposedly ‘other ways of knowing’ that are believed to be equivalent in merit yet clearly produce no equivalently meaningful products that verify, that justify, that establish mind-independent ‘truths’ to qualify as equivalent knowledge, equivalent insight into this shared reality which is shown by being parlayed into applications, therapies, and technologies that work independent of the people using them… independent of beliefs altogether.

    If we want our claims to knowledge, a claim of knowing, to be realistic rather than metaphysical, then it makes pretty good sense to me that we have to emphasize its relationship and arbitration not to our beliefs but to reality itself. There is no ‘other way’ to realistic knowledge than by the adjudication of this final realistic arbiter.

26. Tildeb, do you not realise that “reality itself” is in need of clarification, and by talking of “ways of knowing,” and then arbitrarily reducing them to one, things are being prejudiced by prejudgement? We cannot talk about reality-as-arbitrator-of-claims until we have some idea of what we are talking about when we mention reality, and this is not to be settled merely by decree, which is what I see happening here. Again, I insist that this is ideological rather than critical, and that is why I think it is unhelpful. Besides, by doing ontology with a hammer in this way we lose the opportunity to discern whether other claims to know (and there are arguably many, as I have suggested) are valid claims or not. In this respect, we do not exclude religious knowledge by decree, but we explore the possibilities regarding what the religious consider knowledge, and judge whether there is any reasonable sense in which they do have access to it. But merely declaring (ideologically) that the only truth available is scientific truth, we have simply defined religion out of existence, and it is not much wonder that the religious respond with a certain amount of determination not to be defined out of existence; whereas, by recognising that the scope of knowledge is broader — as, in all reason, it is — we at once open a space where the religious can at least attempt to make good their claims, while at the same time, we can counter those claims with something more than mere de haut en bas assertion.

    And when you say:

    If we want our claims to knowledge, a claim of knowing, to be realistic rather than metaphysical, then it makes pretty good sense to me that we have to emphasize its relationship and arbitration not to our beliefs but to reality itself.

    This is quite simply a misunderstanding. People think of metaphysics as somehow identical to the making of supernatural claims, but metaphysics is fairly thought of as the study of what constitutes the real, or reality. And in what you are saying ‘reality’ remains undefined and unanalysed, and so is functioning in a purely ideological way. This is scarcely an acceptable way of coming to conclusion as to what is real. Philosophy, like science, must include a readiness to accept that there are no final, comprehensive answers, and is always subject to revision, and that includes our understanding of what can be thought to be real, and in what sense. These are all questions that simply remain unanswered in your proposal, which is precisely why I am saying that the whole project of scientism is an attempt to do metaphysics (or ontology, if you prefer) by pronouncement rather than by argument.

    Corio, this claim:

    TPP, perhaps in an ideal world this is true, but the kind of ‘philosophy’ that Eric is talking about is irremovably embedded in ordinary language, and as such it can’t in practice be translated into a form where everybody can agree on what’s being said, or the implications of what’s being said.

    is simply false. There is not one place where you can find that I have confined what I consider to be conceptual analysis to ordinary language philosophical analysis, which I find, and found in the sixties, to be woefully inadequate to the philosophical task, and I can see no reason for you having made this claim. I referred you to two books in particular where I see conceptual analysis being done at a very high standard, and neither of them could be thought to stand within the tradition of the ordinary language philosophy.

27. Eric, I don’t think you are being unfair here when you write that we need a better idea of what we are talking about when we mention reality, and this is not to be settled merely by decree, which is what I see happening here. Again, I insist that this is ideological rather than critical, and that is why I think it is unhelpful.

    I specifically outlined how this arbitration by reality of our claims to knowledge can be shown to work independent of our beliefs. That is not “by decree” nor does it fall into the category of ideology but is reflected in reality by what works… regardless of our beliefs, intuitions, biases, preferences… and metaphysical musings.

    Metaphysics as a method, as an epistemology, comes to us with a long history that can be historically shown to be disconnected from the reality it attempts to describe. Metaphysics is nothing more than claims about cause and effect without any consistent, demonstrable, and verifiable linking mechanism, which is why it has powered and continues to power faith-based beliefs of all kinds. Metaphysics as a method of inquiry into the reality we share is a failed one for this reason, not because I decree it so but because it has no means, no mechanism, no link, with verifiability BY reality for the ontology it produces. This leads people into believing that (as you write), it is “the study of what constitutes the real.”

    !!!

    You have placed the cart before the horse here, Eric, and endowed this failed epistemology with a respect for its ontology that is unearned, unwarranted, and unrelated to reality! This is clearly demonstrated by the Aristotelian metaphysical underpinnings of the church that claims to ‘know’ about the ‘nature’ of things… as if ‘heaviness’ was an expression of a rock’s ‘nature’, the mind an expression of the consciousness’s ‘nature’, images the expression of an eye’s ‘nature’, and so on, all the while claiming that insight into these ‘natures’ was (and remains) based on justified true beliefs! Again, belief justifies nothing about reality: reality justifies beliefs about it.

    If one is going to make a claim about ‘another way of knowing’ that doesn’t allow for reality to be the final arbiter for claims made about it, then it’s doomed to be untrustworthy of the term ‘knowledge’. Metaphysics falls squarely into this category.

28. I risk being repetitive (since I have not read every comment), but I think that the value of philosophy is dependent upon what kind of information or understanding which we are considering. I might say that analytic knowledge is more appropriate for philosophy and synthetic knowledge borrows its probabilistic validity from empirical verification (skepticism/science), but I have not thought through all of the implications of using Kantian terminology (and thus older epistemological and metaphysical baggage) so I will lean away from that in the interest on being at least somewhat obvious in displaying my personal familiarity (and thus bias) towards philosophy.

    When it comes to facts about the world, skepticism is the methodology we need to use to have any reliable understanding. That is, we need to empirically verify the ideas which we come up with via rational analysis (which is often based upon empirical experience, etc). And we need to check our methods with the same rational analysis, a tool created and shaped by the history of philosophy.

    Scienticism is either defined such that it is eliminative (that is, similar to the positivism of old) or inclusive (in which case it is likened to the whole of the skeptical toolbox), When it is akin to positivism, I understand those who oppose scientism as a kind of worshiping of empiricism while simultaneously snickering at the ponderings of those with an elbow (or two) firmly affixed to the arm of one’s chair. But when scientism is more closely aligned with skepticism more generally, then those analytically enterprising chair-sitters and their philosophy are part and parcel of the best of scientific endeavors.

    In short, I think that SOME of this conversation is a cross-talking exercise in concept-bending semantics. There is the real, empirical methodology which bangs away at the real world to get probabilistic answers which help each become a better master and comprehender (terrible play on words much intended) of the world. That, and there exists its accompaniment of rational analysis.

    The rub here is that this rational analysis is historically presented to many via the history of philosophy, and by others merely by the conscious or unconscious rational analysis which offers its reflection between moments of empirical testing. Those whose moments between pure science offer reflection are, indeed, recreating something akin to philosophy (without much of the historical baggage, but also without much of the context and experience which those familiar with such history could point to). They may not be aware that those moments of rational reflection is coterminous with philosophy because their experience with the history of philosophy has exposed them to a limited frame of what the discipline consists of, namely some aspects of non or anti-science in philosophy.

    But the more one is familiar with philosophy, the more one realizes that the superior method is not science or philosophy (which may end up being a nonsensical distinction anyway), but science AND philosophy. Or, more simply, skepticism.

29. An interesting commentary on what philosophy does:
    http://www.richardprice.io/post/35542139118/one-hypothesis-about-the-role-of-philosophy

30. Tildeb, I have no idea what I could say that would convince you that nothing that you say in your last comment is relevant to anything that I said. I have not presented any elements of an epistemology or ontology. All I have said is that talking about “ways of knowing” (and then usually claiming that there is only one way of knowing that fits the bill) and “reality” without explaining either of these terms is helpful. It’s almost as though you want to say that I am wrong because you are right, because your entire comment is concerned with things that I do not say. You speak about a metaphysics which is “nothing more than claims about cause and effect without any consistent, demonstrable, and verifiable linking mechanism,” but where do you read this in anything that I have said? You speak about a “failed epistemology” without noticing that I have not provided an epistemology that could be so described. You are attributing to me claims that I have not made. You end up by speaking about claims about “another” way of knowing, and I have specifically said that speaking about “ways of knowing” does not seem to be at all helpful in understanding what it is to know something. In other words, you are fighting with a paper tiger of your own manufacture. Let’s at least try harder to stay on topic.

31. Shaunphilly. I think you are largely correct. Scepticism is the underlying motive force of philosophy, it seems to me, just as it is, to a certain extent, of science. Indeed, the quest for knowledge, in any sphere, is to address it with sceptical reservation in mind. That, it seems to me, is why philosophy is so important, for it is, at heart, a sceptical enterprise, and is seldom content with achieved solutions. One problem with this, of course, is that it then seems to achieve little. But this is short-sighted. In its progress through history, philosophy has thrown off disciplines, as more well-founded speculations have achieved the status of “sciences”, remembering here that scientia, means, primarily, knowledge in Latin. But even then philosophy continues working the same turf, but in a conceptual way — and of course, many scientists are themselves philosophers in this respect, and clear up the conceptual ground, as Locke says, as underlabourers. Recall that Einstein’s greatest discoveries were not made by means of observation, but by means of thought experiments, which in their turn threw off predictions which could be verified. But the conceptual work underlying relativity theory is really quite fascinating, and is, to a certain extent, a model of what philosophers try to do. It seems to me that Einstein recognised that dimension of his work, which is why he is so fascinating a figure in the history of science. The same, I might say, applies to Darwin. He was so aware of the conceptual changes that his theory would require, and why, indeed, many would find this an obstacle to understanding. Reading Janet Browne’s biography of Darwin is rich in material for a philosopher, because you can actually witness the conceptual transformations that were in progress, for example, during Darwin’s Beagle voyage. A fascinating account of paradigm shift (to use Kuhn’s term), which Darwin himself did not fully recognise at the time.

32. I fear I may have missed the conversation, much like the first paragraph of this post describes.

    Since I have much more training in sciences than philosophy, I feel a certain need to defend scientific claims to knowledge. Scientific theories gain acceptance in the callous battlefield of testability and repeatability. Scientific knowledge always produces results, because it is created with a process that makes this inevitable. Theories without results are discarded. This kind of knowledge is as close as we come to absolute knowledge. When done correctly such knowledge is immune from bias, demonstrable in any language, and accessible to any who would put in enough effort. Final answers to questions can definitively be reached, even if only theoretically at times. The limits and unknowns in good science are also clearly defined.

    Philosophy, in comparison, cannot lay a claim to anything remotely as robust in terms of knowledge. It is indeed a step to far to suggest that anything that does not measure up to the gold standard of scientific knowledge be removed from being labeled knowledge at all, but the comparison makes philosophical knowledge seem diminished indeed. I suspect that scientist like Dr. Coyne are considering knowledge as it applies to their trade, and their trade demands empirical experimental backing. To someone who is practiced in pursuing theories with very clear victory and loss conditions, the murky realms of philosophy can be maddening.

    Scientists who often find themselves up against fundamentalism tend to plant their flag on what knowledge is ever more firmly as they are rightfully unwilling to let revelation based claims gain any traction, they correctly demand proper standards of evidence and testing. When pressed, I would concede that understanding poetry or arts certainly count as knowledge, but they glimpse scientific knowledge only distantly in terms of utility. Of course logic and other philosophies are an integral part of what science is, but they just do not answer questions in the same ways that science as a whole does.

    I enjoy philosophy immensely, but I must always yield to the conclusions of good science. I find that the “important questions” science is unable to answer usually suffer from concepts that have unquantifiable components. In those unquantifiable cases I must severely limit what I consider to be knowledge, least I compromise the solid answers science actually provides.

33. I think Verbosestoic makes an excellent point, here:

    Scientist: You just don’t like science encroaching on your field, and so are just dismissing it out of hand. We’re still right!
    Philosopher: Sigh.”

    One additional point being the sigh might suggest is that, for good or bad, philosophers have spent an awful lot of time thinking about things and have often thought about, in provisional terms, what difference it might make if things turned out this way or that way. And in that respect, for a lot of subjects, philosophers have pre-empted scientific discoveries and have thought through the implications long before scientists found evidence that such-and-such was indeed the case. Thus often times the actual findings of science simply verify scenarios that have already been part of the philosophical discussion for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Little wonder, then, that philosophers think it is much harder for scientists to end a debate than scientists themselves, in awe of some new discovery, do.

    There are also some aspects to philosophical inquiry that seem to have no obvious counterpart in science and yet are vital for all scientific findings. One concerns the meaning of words. Take, for example, the claim that when we discovered the earth was round we discovered the earth was round and we did not discover that the earth didn’t exist because the concept “earth” has as part of it’s definition, “flat thing”. Thus, whether the earth exists or not is in part a linguistic decision – not taken by any single person but made on the basis of a whole load of factors which are very far from straightforward and not at all the same in every case.

    Free will is a good example of where this kind of decision might be needed. There is a lot of talk about science showing we don’t have free will. But could scientists discover this? That is, might not humans have free will inasmuch as free will is whatever it is that humans have, in exactly the same way the earth is whatever this thing is. (What could possibly show the earth doesn’t exist? A lot more than finding out we were wrong about its shape.) And I think philosophers would therefore be more inclined to listen to scientists if they showed any sign at all of at least understanding this type of point, even if only to disagree with it. But they (almost) never do, and this is why many scientific attempts to answer philosophical problems look to anyone who has studied philosophy like exactly the kind of thing first-year students blurt out on the basis of a very perfunctory assessment of the problem.

34. Thank you John K… Not late, exactly, just late to the conversation. Two things need to be said. Nothing I say about scientism or knowledge is intended in any way to challenge the priority of science as a way of knowing. (I just realised that I used the term ‘way of knowing’ in a way that I would like to avoid. Science is one of our primary kinds of knowledge. It is not so much a way of knowing, for this really doesn’t distinguish science from, say, history, but it is a kind of knowing that relies upon a more definitive type of confirmation than any that history can normally provide. Not only that, but science issues in what are often called “laws” or “theories”, that are not found in many other departments of knowledge. This, obviously, was added later.) That would be too foolish for words. However, it is important to understand that there are different kinds of knowledge (not ways of knowing, which is a red herring). Every kind of knowledge must have some kind of decision procedure, in terms of which something can be assessed as either true or not, or, where there is no determinate way of distinguishing truth from falsity without qualification, as it sometimes the case in history, for example, or literary criticism, what is considered to be more or less reliable or apt. Take the interpretation of a poem. While it is true that there may be no final hermeneutic which will silence further interpretive approaches to a poem, it seems a bit odd to say that we cannot “know” something about the poem, the poet’s intentions, the kinds of uses of language employed, the character of the imagery, etc. These are all things that we can, in a reasonable sense of the very “to know”, know. Granted, they do not live up to scientific standards of proof or verification, but that is not a criticism, but an observation of the difference between science and literary studies. The same goes for all sorts of other kinds of knowledge. And each field, as I think Aristotle says, will have the kind of certainty which is appropriate to that field. Mathematics has even stricter criteria than science, and it is not based on empirical evidence, but it seems odd to say that there is no mathematical knowledge. This is why I keep saying that speaking about “ways of knowing” has limited usefulness. Now, if we were to move on from science, mathematics, literary studies, history, etc. to theology, we begin to notice something very important, and the important difference, I think, indicates why we should not be too quick to grant that theology has anything that can be called knowledge, at least of the principal object of theology, namely, a god or gods. Of course, we can have knowledge of what theologians have said, although even here it is not the kind of knowledge that is simply open to empirical confirmation, for theology, like literary criticism, depends to a great degree on interpretation…. And so we could go on. The point that I am trying to make by saying all this is that scientism, as a programme, an attempt to restrict knowledge merely to the propositions of science, is not only clearly mistaken, it is also a red herring. It was introduced, in the first place, I think, to deny the claims of the theologians to posses knowledge of a transcendent or supernatural realm. But by claiming too much, it actually detracts from its own purpose. Certainly, some kinds of knowledge claim are not nearly so robust as those of science — though even those, remember, are subject to revision — but this does not mean that what we have in philosophy or literary criticism or history, etc., are not knowledge, but knowledge that provides only the measure of certainty that is appropriate for the kinds of knowledge in question. We demand greater certainty in mathematics than in science, and greater certainty in science than in history, but none of this shows that there is no historical knowledge, because it does not measure up to the standards of science. And so on, if you catch my drift. Instead of making exaggerated claims, we would be far better off making only such claims as we can with reason support. That would be, in my view, much more reasonable, and for that reason, much more effective. Claiming too much is simply a gift to theologians, because they can simply dismiss it as a form of scientistic ideological decree. Far better to recognise the degree of certainty appropriate to different kinds of knowledge, and then notice that theology is a real outlier, whose claim to confirmation is very weak indeed. Of course, it will still leave theologians with a little bit of wiggle room, but not very much, and they will be on notice that any of the claims that they make must be made with important qualifications, most of which will make responsible belief in them very tentative indeed, in my view. From a strictly conceptual point of view this makes more sense than scientism, and from a strategic point of view a great deal more sense.

35. Yes, Luther Flint, I agree, and I should apologise to Verbosestoic for not mentioning this yesterday, though I thought what he said could stand on its own. The philosopher’s sigh is indeed very pregnant, as I thought when I read it. It has the sense of: “How many times to I have to repeat myself?” And I also agree that the issue of free will is not being dealt with entirely seriously. The determinist’s argument seems to be that the world is a deterministic system. Particle A hits B which hits C,D,F, which produces G,H,I,J,K etc. We are made up of particles and are part of the same causal stream. But this does not take into consideration a whole lot of other factors that may be involved at increasing levels of complexity. I tend to be a compatibablist in this respect, but I think the complexity of neural networks, for example, and the reason for their evolution can reasonably be thought to have to do with the increasing control that this gave organisms over their environment, and therefore that, indeed, within that field, complex neural systems provided for choice. Dennett shows this, it seems to me, very cleverly, by starting with simply on/off systems, and then increasing complexity until we get to the position that allows for a field of choices from amongst which one out of a number of alternative choices is possible, and none is absolutely determined, though the mechanism, and the field of choices themselves are determined. That’s a bit rough and ready, but I think it provides a basis for think in terms of free choice (amongst alternatives), which is compatible with a deterministic system.

36. Eric: “Take the interpretation of a poem. While it is true that there may be no final hermeneutic which will silence further interpretive approaches to a poem, it seems a bit odd to say that we cannot “know” something about the poem, the poet’s intentions, the kinds of uses of language employed, the character of the imagery, etc.”

    You have conflated several very different kinds of inferences here. Imagine a situation in which the poem is written by a computer; and let’s assume that the computer is not self-aware but just very good at seeking out and matching words and phrases to form similar patterns to other human-created poems it has in its database. The poem is presented to you as having been written by ‘Henrietta Smith’, and you go on to make inferences about ‘Henrietta’s’ intentions, her use of language, and so on.

    Your inferences that rely on the existence of ‘a (human) poet’ with intensions and desires — are going to be simply wrong. Just wrong. Full stop. You could say ‘IF this had been written by a human then these are the intensions I would assume she had’, but so what? That’s not knowledge, that’s speculation. And like any other speculation it could be proven right or wrong by science, i.e. by asking or studying what was actually the case.

    Your inferences about the imagery are consensual inferences; they rely on other people you can consult to see whether they say the same thing. Robinson Crusoe on an island reading a poem for the first time would have no way of knowing whether his inferences about the imagery were ‘right’ or not. And again, you can check whether a consensus exists about your inferences by scientific investigation — i.e. by asking other people whether they do in fact agree.

    Inferences about ‘Henrietta’s’ use of language — depending on what you mean by that — may be purely empirical. You may hypothesise that ‘she’ often starts sentences with ‘And’, for instance. But that’s a classic example of a testable scientific hypothesis.

    So the ‘information’ you claim to have come by from reading the poem is EMPIRICAL information; it’s about something out there, whether it’s a real poet, or the real opinions of other people, or the real structure of the words and lines on the page. And as empirical information, it falls within the province of science to test it. Your opinions and your speculations have to be about something; and if they’re about something real, they’re fair game for science. If they’re not — then maybe they’re Sophisticated Theology (TM).

37. Let me add, to forestall a possible criticism, that observations like ‘my brain reacts in a certain way when I read these words’ is also an empirical observation; and can also be checked by scientific investigation.

38. Corio, you’re trying much too hard. I’m not altogether sure why you want to insist that everything that constitutes knowledge is subsumed under science, but I suppose there is a motive, perhaps even a hidden motive, behind that. I see no point in it myself, and it seems to me that you do not make your case. You speak about a poem, and then suggest that it is somehow a repository of simply empirical “information”.

    So the ‘information’ you claim to have come by from reading the poem is EMPIRICAL information; it’s about something out there, whether it’s a real poet, or the real opinions of other people, or the real structure of the words and lines on the page.

    If we really were talking about simply empirical information, in the way you seem to be thinking about it, it is something, I assume, that could be simply recorded by some device. However, meaning — a complicated idea in itself, as a brief look at some philosophical logic might show you — is not “empirical information,” but something in addition to the recording of black marks, let us suppose, on a page. Even the word ‘page’ takes us beyond the merely empirical into a world of cultural meaning. And all of this is not simply conveyed without the multiple relationships that are immediately set up when meaning is invoked, which immediately takes us beyond the page, even the context in which the reading takes place. Take your poetry writing computer. It may, in fact, be possible for computers to write verse that has genuine power to move human emotions, to erect fabrics of literary allusion and imagery. I don’t know. I’m not quite sure what your computer is doing here, but even supposing this were true, either computers have been developed to a point where their “state” is correlative, in some sense, with human emotion, or they are able to be programmed by human beings to express human emotion — in any case, the linkage to culture, meaning, experience, reflection — all these things — will have been made, and the relation of all this to the marks on the page will simply take us beyond the “empirical” into a world of cultural signification. So the point that you try to make by saying that

    Your inferences that rely on the existence of ‘a (human) poet’ with intensions and desires — are going to be simply wrong. Just wrong. Full stop.

    There is no fullstop about it at all. If your poem is successful in engaging human emotions and experiences, then there is no clear sense in which such inferences would be wrong, fullstop. It is impossible, I suggest, to devise an experiment which depended in this way upon linkages of meaning and feeling, of cultural allusion and meaningful imagery, without introducing this at some stage in the programming process. At least, you would have to provide a good reason for supposing that a person accustomed to reading poetry within a cultural tradition could be hoodwinked in such a fashion. Poems themselves are instinct with cultural meaning in such a way, very often, that the differing experiences of their readers or reciters will take from them different, though related, complexes of meaning. Why would you want to subsume all this under the rubric “empirical”? I don’t understand.

    Why is it, I wonder, that you find the need to reduce everything to empirical data, given that, as you know yourself, data itself can be translated into very different media.

39. Eric, I don’t feel the need to ‘reduce everything to empirical data’, as you well know. I have commented before that I have no trouble accommodating opinions, beliefs, speculations, fantasies and the like. But there is an epistemological gulf between all these and knowledge, which is precisely why we have such terms as ‘opinion’ and ‘belief’ in the first place. I’m delighted for you to speculate as often and as long as you like, provided you don’t claim or assume that your speculation is giving you genuine information about anything but the contents of your own mind.

    You seem to be saying that if I claim that a poem, say, reminds me of Mary Queen of Scots, this is non-empirical knowledge; but why should that be? As I pointed out earlier, it’s just an empirical observation of my own mind, and presumably represented in some physical brain state which — at some point in the future — may possibly be accessible to science. The fact that right now it’s private information doesn’t stop it from being empirical. At the moment, some of what goes on in brains can be best observed from ‘inside’, as it were, but that doesn’t make it a non-physical process, or inaccessible in principle to empirical observation.

    My point about the computer was precisely that it is ‘mindlessly’ following orders and assembling fragments of text to match a predetermined pattern. It has no ‘intensions’ by even the most generous of interpretations, and any assertions about its intensions are just plain wrong. If the computer analogy bothers you, then let’s change it to a robot randomly drawing words out of a hat and gluing them on to a page. It would take a lot longer, but do you really think that it couldn’t eventually assemble something that would pass for a human ‘poem’? Why?

    As I have pointed out before, however, you could conclusively bring this whole discussion to a triumphal conclusion in a few sentences, just by providing an unequivocal and unambiguous example of a true proposition — universally agreed to be such — which is not derived from empirical observation. Until you can do that, though, I’m going to continue to insist that you’re backing a losing horse.

40. I think we have to distinguish between empirical and scientific. Humans and other animals have always based their behaviors largely on empirical evidence. Had we not we would not have survived. The sun rises in the east each morning and sets in the west every evening. This has been confirmed empirically by people through thousands of years and around the earth. Science later revealed that we only perceive that, because the earth is actually rotating west to east.

    What do we mean by knowledge? Most of what we as individuals know depends on empirical observation but not on science. I know it rained here today. I saw it and felt it. That knowledge is not based on science. You may doubt it because you were not here and don’t trust my testimony. I could have used a rain guage to determine how much rain fell per unit area. Would that be science? Measurement is certainly an essential component of science. And yet we can measure nothing with 100% accuracy. So even our most scientific knowledge is contingent and approximate. But for most purposes, like our confidence that the sun will rise in the east in the morning, it is good enough.

    What is knowledge? It may be helpful to think of a hierarchy of data, information, knowledge, understanding, wisdom. All of these are sometimes lumped together as knowledge and this cause confusion. As we go up the scale different tools are required. Observation and measurement generate data. Categorization creates information. Science creates knowledge. Understanding and wisdom are higher order activities exclusive to humans. How to obtain these should be the highest goal of our highest discipline. Theology and philosophy have laid claim to this position, but both have been severely constrained, and often contradicted by science.

    So what is scientism anyway?

41. Corio

    When you say there is an epistemological gulf between ‘empirical data’ and opinions, beliefs, speculations, fantasies and the like: you miss out many things; you forget what is involved in understanding empirical data; and you appear to believe that there is only one take on such data.. But there is much more to the world than empirical data; there is an epistemological gulf between empirical data and knowing how to interpret it; and the same data can yield many other points of view. If you don’t believe me, get all the empirical data you can muster and set it before a rock, or a dog, or a three year old. There is nothing in science as clear as you think. All of it – ALL of it – comes through filter after filter after filter. And Newton showed how far we can go with completely the wrong end of the fundamental stick. What makes you so sure you have the right end now?

42. Luther — I’m afraid none of this deals with my basic point, which is that for a proposition to have a truth-value at all, it must relate to the real observable-in-principle world, which includes such things as the contents of books and the contents of brains; and for anyone to establish the value of that truth-value, they must look at that real world. That’s all that I understand by ‘scientism’, and it doesn’t have anything good or bad to say about ‘viewpoints’ and ‘filters’. Yes, obviously we’re all getting a different ‘picture’ of the world from our experiences, and yes, obviously nobody’s getting a complete ‘picture’ or anything like it. But so what? If I want to determine whether or not something’s true, I still need to look at that ‘picture’, because I simply don’t have anything else to look at — nothing else that works at all, that is.

43. That may well be so. But the truth values of your propositions look considerably different from where I’m sitting. From here it’s not even clear they have any – and certainly none in anything like the way you seem to think.

    On a related point, what do you make of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations?

44. I haven’t read any Wittgenstein for a long time, but I remember thinking that his earlier work was actually more on track than his later change of heart; and I certainly think he dealt a death-blow to the classical notion of philosophy, after which Ryle, Popper and Austin disposed of the body. His major insight, it seems to me, is that philosophical arguments are not about fact, but about usage: and I would go on from that to argue that philosophical arguments only arise in areas about which there is so little scientific interest that a consistent usage for them has not yet been developed.

    What’s particularly interesting to me — and amusing, from a certain point of view — is that having more or less agreed that Wittgenstein had killed off their discipline, English-speaking philosophers then apparently entered into a mutual agreement to ignore it, and keep going as if it had all never happened. But perhaps the public is getting wise to this by now.

45. I think there are a lot of conflations here, or at the least, some assumptions that people are using behind the words that they mean and others are not really aware of those assumptions but going by what their “surface” words mean to themselves.

    When I hear charges of “scientism” – as in, critiques of scientism – I’m hearing that people think that men who only wear labcoats or use scientific jargon are the gatekeepers of knowledge. This is obviously incorrect, and probably what critics of “scientism” have in mind. What Jerry Coyne, et al. probably mean in truth is methodological naturalism. Of course, I’m not significantly sure that this is what they mean, but I think using that term instead of “science” would probably help clear things up.

    No one that I know of thinks that knowledge gleaned from law, ethics, art, etc. is mediated by some supernatural force. Art, for example, implicitly follows a methodology that assumes the natural. I’m not sure there are any law professors who assume supernatural agents manipulate lawbooks or evidence in courtrooms. This is why Jerry Coyne can say a plumber or a historian uses “science”. He probably really means methodological naturalism; the plumber doesn’t start fixing pipes by assuming some supernatural force is causing the leak.

    This natural methodology is counterpointed by methodological supernaturalism. This is where people who wear their scientism badges with pride are coming from. There’s no secure knowledge that I know of that was acquired by assuming the supernatural. Historians don’t assume the supernatural to explain how and when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon; law students aren’t taught that the Constitution is a supernatural document; art students aren’t taught that the Venus de Milo is kept intact by supernatural beings. We have natural explanations for all of our “justified true beliefs”.

    This is my take on the whole thing anyway, I could still be wrong about what people mean by “scientism”.

46. tildeb,

    You have placed the cart before the horse here, Eric, and endowed this failed epistemology with a respect for its ontology that is unearned, unwarranted, and unrelated to reality! This is clearly demonstrated by the Aristotelian metaphysical underpinnings of the church that claims to ‘know’ about the ‘nature’ of things… as if ‘heaviness’ was an expression of a rock’s ‘nature’, the mind an expression of the consciousness’s ‘nature’, images the expression of an eye’s ‘nature’, and so on, all the while claiming that insight into these ‘natures’ was (and remains) based on justified true beliefs! Again, belief justifies nothing about reality: reality justifies beliefs about it.

    I think you don’t really understand what “justified true belief” means. It means nothing more than this:

    S knows that p iff:

    1) S believes that p.

    2) S is justified in believing that p.

    3) p is true.

    ALL of these conditions must be met in order to have knowledge, and no criteria is more important than the others. Thus, “justified true belief” does NOT claim that belief justifies, but in fact insists that beliefs MUST be justified in order to get knowledge. Now, we can, of course, think we know things and be wrong, because we thought we were justified and we weren’t. But none of this reflects on the notion of knowledge as defined by justified true beliefs.

    You also have some issues when you talk about “reality”, because you don’t really define what you mean by that. I think that propositions about fictional worlds and about subjective feelings can be true, but they may not align that well to “objective reality”, and we certainly wouldn’t leap to doing science on them to figure that out (it’s the long and hard way around). At which point, we open up the possibility of having other ways of knowing, even if science can produce all interesting knowledge. And that, then, is all that the opponent of scientism needs.

47. I think there is a big difference in ‘kinds of knowledge’ here, camouflaged by different meanings (philosophy, I know!) for ‘knowledge’.

    Science leads to knowledge that we know . How do we know ? By being able to independently test, confirm, or falsify the knowledge and see how it fits into other we knowledge .

    Art (for instance) leads to knowledge that only I know. Now there may be many other people that also only I know , some might agree with me, and some might not. Think of differing book reviews or film ctitics. Although I might convince another person to adopt my only I knowledge , I might not, and there is little extra that I could argue to change their own only I knowledge knowledge – there is no sure way of falsifying it. However this type of knowledge carries the feelings of extra reality and meaning because they arise from my personal experience.

    Religions (for instance) are only I knowledge , although my knowledge includes other people’s only I knowledge . You either experience God(s) directly (very powerful and convincing) or believe others who claim they have, but it can’t be confirmed.

    It seems to me that Philosophy has been struggling with these different kinds of knowledge for a long time. Trying to derive we knowledge from only I knowledge. Or ‘is’ from ‘ought’ and vice versa. The struggle has produced many fine by products, but I don’t think it is the type of endeavour that can produce we knowledge. Similarly I don’t think Science can produce only I knowledge; it is not that type of process.

    Perhaps we could say that Philosophy is thinking about thought experiments, while Science is about using thought experiments to find out stuff? An oversimplification perhaps.

    I hope the bold type isn’t too oppressive, I tried using scare quotes and they were too … scary.

48. Corio

    It’s interesting that you think Wittgenstein killed off philosophy in his earlier work. That would be an amazing intellectual achievement – must have been been a pretty smart guy, huh. And so here’s this really smart guy who pretty much invented what you think, and invented the way you think it (logical positivism in one form or another) – even though, it should be noted, he thought that what you think about what he said in his earlier work (you think logical positivism) was a crude, mangled version of what he actually said. And then, even worse, he realised that he’d got it wrong in his earlier philosophy in any event, completely changed his view, and produced a devastating critique of that whole way of thinking, including, obviously, the mangled version you subscribe to. (Which, incidentally, has been shown to be nonsense for a whole variety of other reasons.)

    And so here’s you, still trotting out demonstrably wrong stuff that’s not even the right wrong stuff by the lights of the guy who invented, and rejected, the right wrong stuff your wrong wrong stuff is a butchered version of. So even if you could get past your own butchered version of that way of thinking you’d still only be thinking something that was utterly rejected by the guy who invented it. Does that fact not shake your faith in what your saying at all?

49. I think I’m going to have to leave off on this thread for now. It’s consuming too much time. However, it seems to me that some of the later comments are really grasping at straws. DiscoveredJoys distinction between “I” and “We” knowledge is, I am afraid, ill thought through. Knowledge is, inevitably, for purposes of discussion, about things that are objectively known (knowledge is inescapbably “we”). Knowledge supposedly confined to one subject alone is really not knowledge in any reasonable sense. I can say “I know” all I like, but unless I give you some reason for believing this, then it runs into the problems which Wittgenstein saw afflicting private languages. There is then no way of sorting out whether X is the same thing a t1 and at t2 and at tn, if there are no checks except my memory. We can all have our beetles in our boxes, but if we can’t see each other’s beetles, there is no way of determining what we mean by “the same beetle”. Objectivity demands some kind of intersubjective accessibility. How could you prove it either to yourself or others?

    Corio wants me to state something that can be known without empirical data. Well, 2+2=4 will probably do as well as anything.

    J.Quinton, nothing that I have said supposes that there is a methodological supernaturalism, but I think that is a clue as to why everyone is so all-fired keen to show that methodological naturalism is the only way to achieve knowledge. But there are so many other kinds of knowledge for which methodological naturalism would be pointless. I simply see no reason why scientific knowledge should be privileged by calling it the only form of knowledge available to us.

    Speaking of methodological supernaturalism — what could this be, I wonder? — seems to be key here. People are looking for a way to define religion out of existence. Some people claim that there is religious knowledge. I think they are wrong, but I don’t think defining religious knowledge out of existence is the right way to go about showing this. If we want to show that there is no knowledge of god we are going to have to try harder. You might even have to learn some modal logic in order to demonstrate that some forms of the ontological argument do not give you knowledge. But it seems to me to be hopeless to say: The only kind of knowledge there is is scientific knowledge, therefore, clearly religious knowledge is impossible, for theologians and philosophers of religion have for centuries appealed to other ways to demonstrate (they imagine) the existence of god which do not conform to the standards of scientific proof. In order to show that these do not work — which I don’t think they do — you must actually do some work. And defining something out of existence is a shortcut to nowhere. Read a few books by people like Michael Martin or Nicholas Everett, who go into these arguments in detail.

    All I am trying to say is that the scientistic project is a hopeless way of determining what is false and what is true, for truth applies to propositions of textual study, hermeneutics, and propositions dealing with other domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, philosophy, anthropology (which seems to have decided that it is a hermeneutic and not a scientific discipline) as well as to scientific propositions. I simply cannot see how all these different forms of knowledge are to be assimilated to the propositions of science.

    But now, as I say, I must go on and do something different. Let me just add, Corio, that your assessment of philosophy is noted. It does not surprise me that you find the Tractatus more copasetic, since it is, after all, positivistic in its notion of meaning, which Wittgenstein later showed, quite decisively, did not adequately account for meaning. And while his “ordinary language philosophy” took hold for awhile, that too has not been thought to be as useful as it was once considered to be, and philosophy has gone on to other things. As for philosophy dealing with this in which there is little scientific interest — well, now you are showing your ignorance of philosophy. It is a bit remarkable how this discussion has prompted a lot of smoke but so little fire.

50. Only two comments, then, to finish off: firstly, Luther, if you think I am ‘demonstrably wrong’ then the obvious thing to do would be to demonstrate it. I’ve already challenged Eric to do so, with no result, but if you think you can then go ahead.

    And Eric: ’2+2=4′ is true because it (generally) tallies with what we observe in the real world. This is not a coincidence, of course; it’s the reason we selected and developed this particular system of mathematics over all of the other potential systems which meet all the other requirements (infinite extensibility, internal consistency) but which don’t happen to describe the real world. If for some reason the current mathematical system ceased to do so, then we would have to find or develop another one which did, and (assuming we could find one) that would then become ‘true’, where it is now ‘false’.

    There is, as you probably know, a intricate, highly developed and perfectly consistent version of geometry based on the assumption that parallel lines DO meet at an infinite distance. As far as I know this passes all the tests required to be a ‘complete’ geometry. Is it ‘true’?. How could one tell? Surely nobody could know this one way or the other without actually experiencing parallel lines — i.e. empirical investigation.

51. Well, as regards positivism being not what the early Wittgenstein was saying – the man himself says it wasn’t, and thus that your reading of him is wrong – and he should know. Positivism has also been rejected by the academic community at large for any number of reasons. But my main point was more that we have Wittgenstein’s critique of his earlier views, including the mangled version you subscribe to. Thus my question was more whether the FACT the man who invented what you think, and how you think it, says you’re wrong, makes you at least stop and think. Obviously not.

52. Much of this discussion seems more like philosophical one-upsmanship than an attempt to address the question of what is scientism and is science the only source of knowledge?

53. I’m sorry to drop in so late, but I have a couple of observations.

    I think it’s best to construe “science” and “philosophy” as broadly as possible; when we do, they overlap and support each other.

    There are those who argue that math and logic are the province of philosophy (again, rather broadly construed), and science obviously requires each to create certain kinds of testable predictions. There are plenty of others who argue that creating scientific models to test is in the first place is “doing philosophy.” All observations are indeed “theory-laden” at some level, and even if we manage to get that to a very low level, the data still have to be interpreted.

    Likewise it’s hard to imagine 20th- and 21st-century Western philosophy without the knowledge and methodological contributions. Just consider, for instance, how the logic of counterfactuals is influenced by what science has discovered about determinism/indeterminism; properly posing and interpreting counterfactuals is how inductive empiricism works, but it’s an extraordinarily hard philosophical problem to get any purchase on without being able to point to the pragmatic advances of science. Modern science has also made it impossible (pace Feser) to entertain essentialist models of nature. And as corio37 points out, empirical results constrain the utility of some forms of math and influence the relevant mathematical work.

    One of the biggest problems seems to arise in trying to separate philosophy from science outright (I think this is just more misplaced essentialism). Philosophers have sometimes pointed out (I’m trying to remember who) that justifying science by saying “science works” is circular because that’s an empirical observation about the past utility of science, where the real task is to justify empiricism itself, which is a philosophical task (keeps the philosophers in work). But surely science doesn’t need a fully fledged theory of empiricism to get off the ground, and one could even argue that the scientific method is itself honed by the findings of science (e.g. the need for double-blind trials in light of psychological theories of expectation).

    The point is, it’s a problem to think of science as an edifice that sits alone spewing knowledge, and it’s just as bad think of it as an edifice that sits atop a justifying philosophical foundation. To my mind they’re both bootstrap pursuits, and the structure of knowledge they generate together is far more like an intricately ramified web that we have to be content to just muddle through with. “Foundation” metaphors and claims about which one generates “real knowledge” just get in the way, IMO.

54. I sometimes feel that these discussions are fruitless. For example, I did not say, Luther, that the Tractatus was positivistic, for in some respects it is not. One can, after all, see some continuity between this early work and Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. However, all I said was that the Tractatus has a positivistic understanding of meaning, a picture theory, in which each locution (in a logical notation, presumably, since Tractarian objects are simples) coordinating with an object, and the whole forming a picture of reality. It was a bit like Carnap’s logical structure of the world. Wittgenstein then went on to overthrow this as a reliable account of meaning.

    As for Corio’s desperate attempts to reduce everything to observation statements. Different types of geometry are not the outcome of observation, but are based on derivations from axioms. You don’t find out about parallel lines by observing them. You posit at the beginning that parallel lines do or do not meet at infinity, and then derive conclusions from these axioms and others. Nothing to do with observation. That’s why you can have so many different geometries. Riemannian geometry, for instance, posits parallel lines that intersect, and you don’t have to observe this. It is a fundamental postulate with which you begin. So, I don’t know what you mean when you say that you have challenged me and I have not met the challenge. You have assumed that you are right and that I am wrong, but that is a different claim.

    As for Another Matt. I cannot at this time apply myself to your whole comment. But take this for instance:

    The point is, it’s a problem to think of science as an edifice that sits alone spewing knowledge, and it’s just as bad think of it as an edifice that sits atop a justifying philosophical foundation.

    Nothing I said should have suggested to you that science sits atop a justifying philosophical foundation. All I am saying is that reducing all knowledge to scientific knowledge is a claim that is not borne out by the facts. There are other kinds of knowledge. Some of it is analytic, for instance, but some of it concerns things which do not concern science at all, like some interpretive studies like history or literary criticism or ethics. It seems pointless to suggest that there is no knowledge in such domains, though it does not share characteristic scientific lineaments, nor does it provide the kinds of certainty that science does. Of course, science itself does not produce certain knowledge, as Hume was perhaps the first to notice, and Popper went on to systematise. Scientific confirmation takes the form of a logical fallacy, as Popper said, the fallacy of affirming the consequent. So, the important scientific task is to try to falsify conclusions, which can, by modus tollens, be shown to be false. Iterated applications of this procedure makes scientific conclusions more and more certain, but never absolutely.

    I really don’t know what more I can say that will convince people wedded to the idea that science is the only possible form of knowledge that it is not, but it seems to be an ideological conclusion. Why it is thought that reducing everything in this ideological way to science is necessary is anyone’s guess, but I suspect in this way that it is to rule out supernatural explanations. But ruling out knowledge claims by definition is a hazardous occupation. Much better to show rather than define. Oh, and as for separating science from philosophy: this is not so hard. After all, philosophy deals with more than just science.

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56. Dear Eric,

    Very little of my post was directed at you, but now I am interested in the argument over geometries. It seems to me that the various geometries are self-consistent with regard to their axioms, but the “truth” of those axioms could in fact be tested empirically; another way to say this is that different sets of axioms will turn out to be a better model of empirical data than others – and it may even turn out that different geometries operate in different domains or on different scales. There is a lot to know about different possible geometries, and there is a lot to know about how they comport with reality. I’m perfectly happy to consider both of these overlapping domains part of our “knowledge” — the geometries that don’t happen to be a good model for anything in our world are still “true” in the usual counterfactual way (viz. if physics had been different in these ways, a space with the following geometry would have emerged).

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58. The law of non-contradiction is necessarily true, and is not derived from empirical observation. It is not derived from anything, but rather stands as as necessary and prerequisite truth of any form of reasoning and knowledge.

59. All I am trying to say is that the scientistic project is a hopeless way of determining what is false and what is true, for truth applies to propositions of textual study, hermeneutics, and propositions dealing with other domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, philosophy, anthropology (which seems to have decided that it is a hermeneutic and not a scientific discipline) as well as to scientific propositions. I simply cannot see how all these different forms of knowledge are to be assimilated to the propositions of science.

    That’s actually what I’m trying to say. When I say that most of our knowledge comes from methodological naturalism, I’m not saying that most of our knowledge comes from science. That’s the distinction I’m trying to make. Sure, science follows methodolocial naturalism, but methodological naturalism isn’t science; it’s the “all apples are fruit therefore all fruit are apples” fallacy. I don’t know anyone who assumes the supernatural to do textual criticism, or who assumes the supernatural to prove a mathematical theorem.

    Methodological supernaturalism would be doing things like using prayer to heal, or going to a witch doctor, or holding a lucky marble to ward off sickness, or things like remote viewing. Things that you would do if you assumed the supernatural worked (I think I have to note that by “supernatural” I’m using Richard Carrier’s definition; i.e. certain beings reduce to the mental).

    Another distinction to be made is between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. Methodological naturalism is “I assume the natural to learn about or do xyz subject”. Baking pie follows methodological naturalism. Philosophical naturalism is assuming that the natural is all that exists. Again, two different things. The vast majority of Christians are not philosophical naturalists, but still are following methodological naturalism when they do their math homework.

60. Jerry Coyne has now bought into this debate, and as usual says all the things I want to say but so much better:

    http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/uncle-eric-on-scientism/#comment-339093

61. Corio,

    Have you observed a perfect circle? Or the indefinite integral?

    Suppose you are given two functions and told to verify algebraically that they are inverses of each other. How would you do that? What empirical investigation are you going to utilize to prove algebraically that functions are inverses of each other?

    Additionally, let me pose another question: can you square a number and get a negative result? For instance, how can x^2=-1? Using real numbers there is no solution but using imaginary numbers you can get a negative number. How would you have discovered imaginary numbers through empirical investigation? In fact, imaginary numbers were once thought to be impossible hence the description imaginary, but they are useful and important because they fill gaps in mathematics. Are they not knowledge?

    Are you going to say imaginary numbers are not knowledge or that perfect circles are not valuable or that proving algebraically two functions are inverses of each other is empirical? I dare say you would not. Mathematics is a branch of logic. And it can be derived from logic because all the concepts of mathematics, i.e., of arithmetic, algebra, and analysis, can be defined in terms of four concepts of pure logic and all the theorems of mathematics can be deduced from those definitions by means of the principles of logic (including the axioms of infinity and choice).

    In your last comment you said that 2+2=4 is true because it comports with what we have observed in the natural world. Fair enough. But do you think the mathematical discovery 2+2=4 was the work of observation or experience rather than of theory or pure logic? Of course, we slightly elevated primates can count to four using our fingers and counting on our fingers works to a point, but in math counting on one’s fingers ends where serious questions and complex issues begin. So, let us up the ante. Was Descartes’ the Folium of Descartes the result of observation and counting on fingers or theory and logic?

    Also, your overall suggestion that everything must be empirically verified does very little to dispute the claim that non-empirical methods have delivered knowledge. I will agree that proposed evidence must be, if it can, empirically verified, but that does not mean that all evidence and ideas come about as a result of empirical investigation. In fact, Democritus’ philosophical postulation on atoms was initiated by a simple observation, but that rudimentary observation–that a larger object could be cut or broken into two smaller pieces–was and is incredibly obvious to any rational person. The initial observation of Democritus’ postulation is quite unimportant. It is Democritus’ philosophical prediction–that did not involve verification, by the way–and his willingness to follow the logic as far as possible that we find valuable: that some size must be reached at which further subdivision is not possible; objects of that size are atoms–no actual experiment or observation was performed to see if he was correct, once again, by the way, which he wasn’t. Of course, there are many problems with speculative philosophy, but was Democritus’ postulation not knowledge?

    I will admit experimentation reveals truth, but that does not make everything not involved in experimentation untrue nor does it indicate that every bit of knowledge is and was the result of empirical investigation.

    Science is my passion and, hopefully, one day my livelihood, but I will, certainly, not display an inordinate amount of hubris by declaring all areas of study not involved in experimentation to be useless and without knowledge. What truth has art given us, some ask? This makes me laugh, I must admit. It shows a shocking level of ignorance among those who perpetuate this question. Art does not concern itself with objective truth, but lies, as Picasso reminded us. Art is about creating one’s own truth. A personal truth and not a universal truth. I dare say art is knowledge though. Is the Parthenon not an example of knowledge? Is Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major not an example of knowledge? Or Raphael’s The Judgement of Paris? Or Shelley’s Mont Blanc? By any standard of knowledge these would fit, but if it is universal truth you are searching for you will not find it in these. I must say, I will rebuke people who use art to project universal truths and I will rebuke people who ridicule art for not possessing universal truths.

    As for philosophy, which areas of philosophy do you think are useless? Or is all philosophy dead? Do you think logic is dead? Aesthetics? Political philosophy? Ethics? Epistemology–you will find your position in this area I believe? Metaphysics–don’t forget what Darwin said about metaphysics? You do realize there are as many sub-disciplines of philosophy as there are disciplines, more or less. Of course, not every philosophical treatment is as good as any other. Some are rich, useful, suggestive; some are arid, fantastic, tasteless. They are treatments for questions we cannot answer. But in our dilemma as human beings, I think they are questions we cannot avoid. Perhaps, you feel differently, but if you did then you would not be making a philosophical argument concerning those questions, would you?

    Regards

62. This is brilliant Persto, lucid, illustrated by clear examples, and largely jargon-free. Your respect for science will lead you to give up tobacco.

63. Paxton,

    Thank you. I do not think it was brilliant, but, for all its flaws, I believe it has substance. Regarding tobacco, I should give it up, but I am emotional as well as rational. And, alas, I enjoy it.

    Regards

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