Table Of ContentScience Unlimited?
Science Unlimited?
The Challenges of Scientism
Edited by
Maarten Boudry
and Massimo Pigliucci
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2017 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press,
1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2017
Printed in the United States of America
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 49800- 3 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 49814- 0 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 49828- 7 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226498287.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Boudry, Maarten, 1984– editor. | Pigliucci, Massimo, 1964– editor.
Title: Science unlimited? : the challenges of scientism / edited by Maarten Boudry and
Massimo Pigliucci.
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017535 | ISBN 9780226498003 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN
9780226498140 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226498287 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Scientism. | Science—Philosophy. | Pseudoscience.
Classification: LCC Q175 .S36235 2017 | DDC 501—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017535
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48– 1992 (Permanence of
Paper).
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1 The Sciences and Humanities in a Unity of Knowledge 11
Russell Blackford
2 Plus Ultra: Why Science Does Not Have Limits 31
Maarten Boudry
3 Scientism and the Argument from Supervenience of the Mental on
the Physical 53
Filip Buekens
4 Two Cheers for Scientism 73
Taner Edis
5 Scientism and the Is/Ought Gap 95
Justin Kalef
6 The Trouble with Scientism: Why History and the Humanities
Are Also a Form of Knowledge 109
Philip Kitcher
7 “Scientism!” 121
Stephen Law
8 Strong Realism as Scientism: Are We at the End of History? 145
Thomas Nickles
v
vi Contents
9 The Fundamental Argument against Scientism 165
Rik Peels
10 Scientism and Pseudoscience: In Defense of Demarcation
Projects 185
Massimo Pigliucci
11 Strong Scientism and Its Research Agenda 203
Alex Rosenberg
12 Economics and Allegations of Scientism 225
Don Ross
13 Why Really Good Science Doesn’t Have All the Answers 245
Michael Ruse
14 Scientism (and Other Problems) in Experimental Philosophy 263
Tom Sorell
15 Against Border Patrols 283
Mariam Thalos
List of Contributors 303
Index 307
INTRODUCTION
More than a century years ago, C. S. Peirce wrote that “a man must be down-
right crazy to deny that science had made many true discoveries” ([1903] 1997,
230). Nowadays, even more so than then, science is widely recognized as one
of the marvels of the human intellect. It is our most reliable source of knowl-
edge about the world. But what, if any, are the limits of science? Are there
questions that will forever elude our best scientific efforts? And what is this
thing we call science, anyway?
In discussions about the proper place of science, one often hears about an
alleged sin called scientism. Science is a good thing, so the argument goes,
but even good things can be pushed too far, beyond their proper limits. Can
science settle all interesting questions? Should we leave room for other ways
of knowing and understanding besides science, for example the methods em-
ployed in the humanities or in philosophy, or does science rule supreme in all
these domains?
The limits of science is a topic of public interest, as witnessed by a spate
of articles in popular magazines and blogs, such as the widely read discussion
between Steven Pinker (2013) and Leon Wieseltier (2013) in the New Repub-
lic, op- eds by Ross Douthat in the New York Times and Oliver Burkman in the
Guardian, or popular books by Alex Rosenberg (2011), Sam Harris (2011), and
1
2 Introduction
Susan Haack (2007). More academic discussions of scientism include book-
length treatments by Tom Sorell (2002) and Joseph Margolis (2003), and a
recent volume criticizing scientism as the “new orthodoxy” (Williams and
Robinson 2014).
All these authors use the concept of scientism in one way or another,
but there is little agreement on its definition. At a first approximation, cur-
rent usage suggests the following characteristics: (1) an excessive deference
toward the deliverances of science and anything to which the honorific label
scientific is attached; (2) brazen confidence in the future successes of scien-
tific investigation, for example in arriving at a Theory of Everything, or in
solving every interesting question about reality; (3) the conviction that the
methods of science are the only worthwhile modes of inquiry, and will even-
tually supplant all others; (4) the thesis that other disciplines should be either
subsumed under science or rejected as worthless; (5) the thesis that all ways
of acquiring knowledge and understanding are (or should be) scientific in
nature, and hence there is no interesting difference between science and other
forms of inquiry.
Given the ubiquitous usage of the term in a wide variety of contexts,
we think a frank philosophical discussion about the limits and proper place
of science is long overdue. This volume explores the relationship between
science and other ways of knowing, and the possible value of a concept like
scientism to describe various forms of (excessive) science enthusiasm. It pro-
vides a forum for philosophers and scientists, both detractors and enthusiasts
of Science Unlimited, to talk about the nature and scope of science.
Demarcation Problems
The question of the demarcation between science and nonscience has fas-
cinated philosophers ever since Karl Popper ([1959] 2002) proposed the
criterion of falsifiability as the distinguishing hallmark of good science. As it
is traditionally understood, the demarcation problem concerns the borders
between science and pseudoscience— that is, theories that pretend to be
scientific, but do not live up to the standards of good science. We have put
together a volume on this classical demarcation project, breathing new life
into an old chestnut that had been prematurely pronounced dead by some
philosophers of science (Pigliucci and Boudry 2013).
But there is another, related demarcation problem shimmering through
in Popper’s writing on the subject, even though he did not always keep the
Introduction 3
two demarcation jobs apart (Boudry 2013). This is the conceptual separation
between science and other epistemic endeavors that are valuable in their own
right. It concerns neighboring academic disciplines, such as history, philos-
ophy, and mathematics, but also metaphysics and everyday knowledge ac-
quisition. This volume deals with this second demarcation project: not the
one that tries to distinguish science from its phony contenders, but the one
of figuring out the limits of science itself. In this sense, the pages that follow
provide a suitable companion to our earlier collection, Philosophy of Pseudo-
science.
There is another way to spell out the link between the two demarcation
problems in philosophy of science. Pseudoscience is a form of fool’s gold: it
looks like the real thing, but on closer inspection it turns out to be worthless.
The problem with pseudosciences like astrology, homeopathy, and creation-
ism is that they are lacking in scientific rigor; they fail to gain the evidential
support we demand from science. The problem with scientism, by contrast,
can be seen as an excess of science. To be guilty of scientism is to be overly
deferential toward science, to unfairly disparage other disciplines like the
humanities or philosophy, or to have an inordinate confidence in the future
successes of science.
Still, how much of science is too much? And how far exactly can science
venture before it overreaches? In discussions about its proper purview, a
variety of authors have pronounced several domains and types of questions
off- limits to science: ethics, subjective experience, abstract entities, intuitive
knowledge, qualia, transcendence, metaphysics, and of course God. If it is
true that science cannot penetrate those realms, does that mean that there are
other ways of knowing, perhaps on an equal par with science, that can proffer
insight into them?
As should be clear by now, the common usage of scientism is derogatory.
Though originally the term simply denoted a scientific habit of thinking, or
the worldview of a scientist, over time its meaning has shifted, acquiring a
negative connotation, much like the evolution of the words fundamentalism
and reductionsim. Nowadays scientism is most commonly used as a term of
abuse in the same way as words such as pseudoscience and superstition. As
with all normative concepts, however, it is itself susceptible to abuse. Those
who stand accused of scientism typically dismiss the accusation as vacuous or
meaningless, or as a disguised expression of antiscience. Indeed, even those
who believe that scientism is a useful term to navigate our modern intellectual
landscape admit that it has been eagerly exploited in the service of antiscience
