2017/04/11 by Moti Mizrahi · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics #Philosophy and History of Science #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #Scientism #Mistake #Epistemology #Philosophy #Law #Political science
paper · doi:10.1080/02691728.2017.1297505
openalex publication_date 2017/04/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In their attempt to defend philosophy from accusations of uselessness made by prominent scientists, such as Stephen Hawking, some philosophers respond with the charge of ‘scientism.’ This charge makes endorsing a scientistic stance, a mistake by definition. For this reason, it begs the question against these critics of philosophy, or anyone who is inclined to endorse a scientistic stance, and turns the scientism debate into a verbal dispute. In this paper, I propose a different definition of scientism, and thus a new way of looking at the scientism debate. Those philosophers who seek to defend philosophy against accusations of uselessness would do philosophy a much better service, I submit, if they were to engage with the definition of scientism put forth in this paper, rather than simply make it analytic that scientism is a mistake.