Autor: Feser, Edward

Buch: Scholastic Metaphysics

Titel: Scholastic Metaphysics

Stichwort: Szientismus 1; Dilemma: S. entweder widerspruchsvoll o. trivial; S.: phil. Annahmen (externe Welt, Regelmäßigkeiten in d. Natur, Intellekt); S.: Unmöglichkeit d. Rechtfertigung seiner Voraussetzungen -- oder Umschlag in Philosophie

Kurzinhalt: First, scientism ... can avoid being self-defeating only at the cost of becoming trivial ... Since scientific method presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle. To break out of this circle requires “getting ou

Textausschnitt: 0.2 Against scientism

9b Of course, not every contemporary analytic philosopher welcomes the revival of old-fashioned metaphysics. There are those who decry it in the name of the scientistic or naturalist position that science alone plausibly gives us objective knowledge, and that any metaphysics worthy of consideration can only be that which is implicit in science (Ladyman, Ross, Spurrett and Collier 2007; Rosenberg 2011). Yet, the glib self-confidence of its advocates notwithstanding, there are in fact no good arguments whatsoever for scientism, and decisive arguments against it. (Fs)

10a We will in the course of the chapters to follow have reason to consider various specific scientism-based objections to traditional metaphysical theses and to see why the objections fail. For the moment, though, it is worthwhile noting four general problems with scientism. First, scientism is self-defeating, and can avoid being self-defeating only at the cost of becoming trivial and uninteresting. Second, the scientific method cannot even in principle provide us with a complete description of reality. Third, the “laws of nature” in terms of which science explains phenomena cannot in principle provide us with a complete explanation of reality. Fourth, what is probably the main argument in favor of scientism — the argument from the predictive and technological successes of modern physics and the other sciences — has no force. Let us examine each of these points in order. (Fs)

0.2.1 A dilemma for scientism

10b First, as I have said, scientism faces a dilemma: It is either self-refuting or trivial. Take the first horn of this dilemma. The claim that “the methods of science are the only reliable ways to secure knowledge of anything” (Rosenberg 2011, p. 6) is not itself a scientific claim, not something that can be established using scientific methods. Indeed, that science is even a rational form of inquiry (let alone the only rational form of inquiry) is not something that can be established scientifically. For scientific inquiry rests on a number of philosophical assumptions: the assumption that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; the assumption that this world is governed by regularities of the sort that might be captured in scientific laws; the assumption that the human intellect and perceptual apparatus can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and so forth. Since scientific method presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle. To break out of this circle requires “getting outside” of science altogether and discovering from that extra-scientific vantage point that science conveys an accurate picture of reality - and, if scientism is to be justified, that only science does so. But then the very existence of that extra-scientific vantage point would falsify the claim that science alone gives us a rational means of investigating objective reality. (Fs) (notabene)

11a The rational investigation of the philosophical presuppositions of science has, naturally, traditionally been regarded as the province of philosophy. Nor is it these presuppositions alone that philosophy examines. There is also the question of how to interpret what science tells us about the world. For example, is the world fundamentally comprised of substances or events? What is it to be a “cause”? What is the nature of the universals referred to in scientific laws - concepts like quark, electron, atom, and so on? Do they exist over and above the particular things that instantiate them? Do scientific theories really give us a description of objective reality in the first place or are they just useful tools for predicting the course of experience? Scientific findings can shed light on such metaphysical questions, but can never fully answer them. Yet if science depends upon philosophy both to justify its presuppositions and to interpret its results, the falsity of scientism is doubly assured. As John Kekes concludes: “Hence philosophy, and not science, is a stronger candidate for being the very paradigm of rationality” (1980, p. 158). (Fs)

11b Here we come to the second horn of the dilemma facing scientism. Its advocate may now insist: If philosophy has this status, it must really be a part of science, since (he continues to maintain, digging in his heels) all rational inquiry is scientific inquiry. The trouble now is that scientism becomes completely trivial, arbitrarily redefining “science” so that it includes anything that could be put forward as evidence against scientism. Worse, this move makes scientism consistent with views that are supposed to be incompatible with it. (Fs) (notabene)

11c For example, Aristotle argued that the very possibility of a world of changing things requires the existence of a divine Unmoved Mover which continuously keeps the world going. Aquinas argued that the very possibility of a world of causes and effects requires the existence of a divine Uncaused Cause which continuously imparts to things their causal power. But then, if they are correct, the existence of God follows from the very assumptions that also underlie science. (Fs)

12a Indeed, Aristotle and Aquinas took the view that since we can know a fair amount about the existence and nature of God through reason alone, philosophical theology itself constitutes a kind of science. For they would not agree with the narrow conception of “science” on which a discipline is only “scientific” to the extent that it approximates the mathematical modeling techniques and predictive methods of physics. For Aristotle and Aquinas, the truths of philosophical theology may not be expressible in mathematical language and are not based on specific predictions or experiments, but that does not make them less certain than the claims of physics. On the contrary, they are more certain, because they rest on strict demonstrations which begin from premises that any possible physical science must take for granted. (Fs) (notabene)

12b Obviously that is all highly controversial, but the point does not ride on the truth or falsity of Aristotelian-Thomistic natural theology. The point is rather that if the advocate of scientism defines “science” so broadly that anything for which we might give a rational philosophical argument counts as “scientific,” then he has no non-arbitrary reason for denying that a philosophically grounded theology or indeed any other aspect of traditional metaphysics could in principle count as a science. Yet the whole point of scientism — or so it would seem given the rhetoric of its adherents — was supposed to be to provide a weapon by which fields of inquiry like traditional metaphysics might be dismissed as unscientific. Hence if the advocate of scientism can avoid making his doctrine self-defeating only by defining “science” this broadly, then the view becomes completely vacuous. Certainly it is no longer available as a magic bullet by which to take down the rational credentials of traditional metaphysics. (Fs)