Scientism

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Scientism ( Latin scientia , “knowledge”, “science”), also scienticism or scientism , is a term originally intended by the French biologist Félix le Dantec (1869–1917) for the view that all meaningful questions can be answered with scientific methods . Scientism assumes a positivist understanding of these methods and is therefore often equated with positivism or with an extreme attitude of positivism. Statements that cannot be substantiated by scientific methods, such as B. in the areas of religion and metaphysics , are meaningless for scientism or talk about non-existent things.

Scientism theses

Scientism advocates the use of scientific methods for practices in almost all areas of society, especially politics . Scientism, then, is the view that there is nothing outside the realm of science, nor is there an area of ​​human activity to which scientific knowledge cannot be successfully applied.

Soon after the term was re-coined, however, it was also used disparagingly; Mainly because scientism was viewed as a special form of reductionism and viewed as a narrowed worldview. This criticism of scientism has in turn been seen as an attempt to immunize against scientific criticism. Joseph A. Schumpeter considers the transfer of methods of mathematical physics to economics to be harmless, provided that nothing physical is brought into the economy.

Scientism occurs primarily in the form of physicalism and biologism . Other forms of reductionism would be psychologism , sociologism or economism .

"The scientism thesis in the narrower sense exists in different variants:

  • The methodological scientism believes that the methods of the exact sciences (in the radical variant, only the natural sciences ) applicable to and sufficient for the development of the human sciences are.
  • The moral scientism represents the "technological imperative": What is, one should implement - can implies ought. A moral restriction in the application of scientific knowledge is therefore not justified.
  • The thesis of the scientocracy : Human relationships and societies can only be organized according to scientific criteria, ie, ethics can ultimately also be scientifically founded. "
- Stangl 2020 online encyclopedia for psychology and education

Examples

According to the biologist Ulrich Kutschera, “ultimately our entire reliable, technologically usable wealth of knowledge” is based on the work of natural scientists . In contrast, the humanities he dubbed “verbal science” would only produce “tertiary literature”. In a reply to critics, Kutschera points out that thinking is “a biological process and the understanding of its products is therefore a matter of biology”. In a book publication, Kutschera repeats his scientistic theses again: “In the real sciences there is [...] a verifiable progress in knowledge that is based on objective data or facts and the [...] formation of theories. In contrast, many 'humanities scholars' only make subjective speculations, which often lack a factual basis. "

An "artistic" approach, which is also shaped by traditional experiences, implicit knowledge and empathy , has been asserted for midwifery since the late 1960s . An exclusive commitment to scientific methods, understood as scientistic, is disputed.

Critical positions

Hegel

The first criticism of this understanding of science began in German idealism with Hegel . Here Hegel turns against the concept of objectivity developed by Kant in the “ Critique of Pure Reason ” with its transcendental and presuppositional logic (based on assumptions) justification. Hegel sees it as an anti-dogmatic (non-materialistic and non-metaphysical), but physicalistic, “mechanical” concept of objectivity.

Hegel opposes this with an empirical reflection on what there is and what there is to be explained. He gives the Aristotelian ontology and natural history a different direction that transcends this self-transcending, “transcendent”. Before every genetically deducible or causal explanation (“where does something come from?”) Is the definition of the form of what is to be explained. For Hegel there are as many forms as there are similarities, which in turn, as non-distinctions, always refer to a relevance (or meaning) and communication context. In this way, empiricism can be de-subjectivized and the transcendental-analytical program of Kant can be deformalized. Through Hegel's recourse to a newly placed “historia” of the forms of nature and culture, the reference to experience is introduced as the essential basis for objectivity. Only then does the insight into a methodical order in a complex structure of science and language develop. The presuppositions layered therein cannot simply be “refuted” by the “results” of the higher, explicative and explanatory levels. Hegel argues in “Logic” from top to bottom, not in a constructive way, but in a presuppositional analysis (examining the prerequisites). In this way the assumptions of the various concepts of truth, object and objectivity are made clear in detail.

His result is: No transcendental deduction of causality in a theory of the object of experience and certainly no causal explanatory theory can question the " empractical " objectivity of life, action and judgment. In this way, Hegel can systematically justify Fichte's insight and demand that the traditional forms of action and knowledge take precedence over any claim to objectivity of an explanatory science. Every physical (“mechanical” or “chemical”) explanation is seen as tied into the context of instrumental action and the interest in conditional prognoses.

This is the pragmatic side of German idealism that can also be found in Martin Heidegger's existential philosophy. Hegel's philosophy, due to its fundamental limitation of the claims to knowledge and explanation, was not only directed against a scientistic cosmology, but also for the individual empirical sciences, as well as for the belief in progress of the later 19th century and for the self-confidence of the scientific enlightenment of the 20th Offense.

Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer says: “They assume the usher's claim to power and fail to recognize her speculative endeavors to obtain a topographical or logical overview. This dispute is less about Hegel than about the concept of critical philosophy. Because one thing she can never be: the handmaid of a theological or scientistic cosmology or worldview. "

Friedrich A. von Hayek

In connection with his notion that “competition as a discovery process” offers a more appropriate description of market events than the neoclassical equilibrium models of the economy, Friedrich August von Hayek criticized social science methods inspired by the natural sciences as scientism. For sciences that deal with more complex biological, mental and social phenomena, a physicalistic model encounters inherent limits in terms of its explanatory and predictive possibilities.

Karl Popper

According to Karl Popper , the danger of scientism lies in its misunderstanding of the scientific method. Scientism therefore assumes that natural science is characterized by the use of an inductive method and that such a method must be used accordingly in other areas. According to Popper, however, there is no inductive method, and therefore it cannot be the method of the natural sciences. In his Critical Rationalism he takes the position that it is absolutely correct to start from a uniform method, but in the form of a falsification principle that is based on the active change of the research object in the experiment for the purpose of solving problems and not, as in the scientistic idea, in Form of passive observation.

Hermeneutics and Discourse Ethics

While Popper's criticism turned against a certain, positivist understanding of scientific methods, he was accused of " positivism " in the social-scientific method dispute by representatives of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School . This methodological dispute is ultimately about the difference between method monism, i.e. H. an application of scientific methods also in the humanities and social sciences, and a method dualism. The orientation towards the natural sciences on the basis of a hermeneutical understanding of science and with recourse to Wilhelm Dilthey's difference between explanatory and understanding approaches in science is criticized. Even Jürgen Habermas ' criticism of the Szientizismus in knowledge and interest is affected, among other things, on this tradition. In addition, Habermas also takes up the concept of the lifeworld introduced into philosophy by the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl , which was also the basis for Husserl's critique of the positive sciences.

Karl-Otto Apel criticizes Burrhus Frederic Skinner's behaviorism and "some sociological 'systems theorists'" (meaning Niklas Luhmann ). For him, scientism falls short because it "no longer considers its own conditions of possibility." should condition)? "

Apel sees a way out of the scientistic impasse only in a final justification , because all practical concepts have to end logically in a subjectivism and thus in an ethic of conviction , which Apel sees as fundamental in Immanuel Kant . “If one can show that even logical argumentation (and thus also science) presupposes an intersubjectively valid ethics as a condition of its possibility , then one is in a position to lift the scientistic blocking of ethical rationality in a rationally compelling form and one for all Indisputable principle of ethics willing to argue. ”Apel sees this in the mutual recognition in an ideal communication community.

See also

literature

  • Tom Sorell: Scientism , Routledge, London 1991.
  • Peter Schöttler: “Scientism. On the history of a difficult term ”, in: NTM. Science, technology, medicine. Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine , 20, 2012, pp. 245-269 (with further literature).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Félix le Dantec in La Grande Revue (1911): Je crois à l'avenir de la Science: je crois que la Science et la Science seule résoudra toutes les questions qui ont un sens; je crois qu'elle pénétrera jusqu'aux arcanes de notre vie sentimentale et qu'elle m'expliquera même l'origine et la structure du mysticisme héréditaire anti-scientifique qui cohabite chez moi avec le scientisme le plus absolu. Mais je suis convaincu aussi que les hommes se posent bien des questions qui ne significant rien. Ces questions, la Science montrera leur absurdité en n'y répondant pas, ce qui prouvera qu'elles ne comportent pas de réponse. ( Scientisme ).
  2. ↑ See also Françoise Balibar: “Le scientisme, Lacan, Freud et Le Dantec”, Alliage 52 (2002) [1] .
  3. ^ Robert Bannister: Behaviorism, Scientism and the Rise of The "Expert
  4. ^ Susan Haack (2003): Defending Science Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books
  5. ↑ Rey, Abel. "Review of La Philosophie Moderne ", The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 6.2 (1909): 51-53.
  6. ↑ cf. Abraham Maslow: "There are criticisms of orthodox, 19th Century scientism and I intend to continue with this enterprise." Toward a Psychology of Being , Preface to 1st edition
  7. ↑ Dirk Jörke: Democracy as experience: John Dewey and the political philosophy of the present , VS Verlag, 2003, p. 84.
  8. ↑ Mikael Stenmark: "What is Scientism?", Religious Studies , Vol. 33, No. 1 (March 1997), p. 15 ff.
  9. ↑ See also Jürgen Habermas' definition, according to which scienticism implies an understanding of science that excludes other, equally legitimate ways of generating knowledge, Jürgen Habermas : Knowledge and Interest , 1968, p. 13
  10. ↑ John Heil: "Levels of Reality", Ratio , Vol. 16, No. 3, September 2003, p. 205.
  11. ↑ So by the philosopher Daniel Dennett ; to criticism of his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon , he replied: "If someone advocates a scientific theory that [religious critics] does not like at all, they are quick to respond with accusations of 'scientism'."
  12. ↑ Byrnes, Sholto. When it comes to facts, and explanations of facts, science is the only game in town ( Memento from April 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) New Statesman April 10, 2006.
  13. ↑ Joseph A. Schumpeter, (Elizabeth B. Schumpeter, ed.): History of economic analysis. First part of the volume. Vandenhoeck Ruprecht Göttingen 1965, p. 48f. and footnote with reference to: FA von Hayek: Scientism and the Study of Society , Economica, August 1942, February 1943, February 1944.
  14. ↑ Stangl Online Lexicon for Psychology and Education , accessed June 7, 2020
  15. ↑ Ulrich Kutschera: “Nothing in the humanities makes sense except in the light of biology”, Laborjournal 15 (2008), p. 32 f. [2]
  16. ↑ See also Handelsblatt dated September 4, 2008: Where body and mind meet , [3]
  17. ↑ Ulrich Kutschera: The Real and Verbal in the Sciences [4]
  18. ↑ See also Alexander Kissler: "Germany's most important thought leaders", Cicero 2008, No. 10, pp. 120 ff., 124.
  19. ↑ U. Kutschera, Darwiniana Nova: Hidden Art Forms of Nature. LIT-Verlag, Münster 2011, p. 241/242.
  20. ↑ Cf. Marion Stadlober-Degwerth: (In) Heimliche Niederkunften: Obstetrics between midwifery and medical science, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna / Böhlau 2008.
  21. ↑ Lorraine Olszewski: "Is Scientism Destroying Nursing?", The American Journal of Nursing , Vol. 67, No. 5 (May 1967), p. 1052.
  22. ↑ a b Stekeler-Weithofer, Pirmin: Hegel's Analytical Philosophy. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1992, ISBN 3-506-78750-0 .
  23. ^ Viktor Vanberg: Mathematics mania and crisis of economics . Archived from the original on January 3, 2010. Retrieved October 21, 2013.
  24. ↑ FA Hayek: "Scientism and the Study of Society", in: Abuse and Decay of Reason , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004 [1952], p. 3 ff.
  25. ^ Karl Popper: The unity of the method. The misery of historicism. 7th edition, Mohr Siebeck, 2003, ISBN 3-16-148025-2 .
  26. ↑ See e.g. B. Karl-Otto Apel : "Communication and the Foundations of the Humanities", Acta Sociologica , Vol. 15, No. 1, Problems in the Philosophy of Social Science (1972), pp. 7 ff, 10.
  27. ^ Karl-Otto Apel: Discourse and responsibility. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1988, p. 29.
  28. ^ Karl-Otto Apel: Discourse and responsibility. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1988, p. 36.