Social Epistemology 31 (4):351-367 (2017)
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Abstract |
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.
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Keywords | inference to the best explanation epistemological scientism scientistic stance success of science |
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DOI | 10.1080/02691728.2017.1297505 |
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References found in this work BETA
What Do Philosophers Believe?David Bourget & David J. Chalmers - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 170 (3):465-500.
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Citations of this work BETA
Ten Reasons to Embrace Scientism.Rik Peels - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 63:11-21.
How Not to Criticise Scientism.Johan Hietanen, Petri Turunen, Ilmari Hirvonen, Janne Karisto, Ilkka Pättiniemi & Henrik Saarinen - 2020 - Metaphilosophy 51 (4):522-547.
Paulin Hountondji, Knowledge as Science, and the Sovereignty of African Intellection.M. John Lamola - 2020 - Social Epistemology 35 (3):270-284.
“Neoliberalism, Technocracy and Higher Education” Editors’ Introduction.Justin Cruickshank & Ross Abbinnett - 2019 - Social Epistemology 33 (4):273-279.
View all 8 citations / Add more citations
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