(FB 1549335218 Timestamp)
by Bill Joslin
Scientism simply holds the notion that:
1) the scientific method can eventually explain anything and
2) any scientific explanation obtains certainty.
No person seriously immersed in science has held these two positions since the logical positivists.
1) certainty remains a unicorn. The pedestrian understanding of knowledge distinguishes knowledge as dichotomous to belief because knowledge has the quality of certainty.
It doesnt – knowledge remains a type of belief, a subset of belief in that knowledge exists as a belief which has enough warrant to suspend uncertainty to act without doubt….
(Certainty being the absence of uncertainty – it exists in the negative and remains impossible in the positive)
(For some fun with this and to see how disingenuous Thaddeus Russel is, see his interview with Moly, where he says that he doesn’t “know that planes can fly (and nobody can claim they do)” but he chooses to “act as if” he does…. Or when Peterson is asked if he believes in god, he says “I act as though I do”
Both use the definition of knowledge (which you better bet that they are aware of the definition), in place of the word SO THEY CAN AVOID BEING ACCOUNTABLE FOR HOLDING THE BELIEF! – lying f#ckers!?)
2) science today no longer exists as a singular method, but rather as a criteria which can be achieved via many methods.
This criteria, or considering the criteria separately from the methodologies reveals that it remains an epistemic innovation.
Epistemology being the study of how we know what we know… Thus knowing anything requires meeting the criteria of what knowledge is, meeting this criteria.
In other words, “the scientific method” can not explain all facets of that we can “know” but to be “knowledge” the notion must meet the criteria.
Meeting the criteria doesn’t provide explanation (in the positive) but rather vets for that which IS NOT knowledge. It tests for knowledge candidates and thus can be applied to any claim of knowledge.
So… Next time someone comes at you with the 60 year old, long dead accusation of “scientism” just say “you don’t know what knowledge is.”
