Critique of "Why Not Scientism?"
In this essay https://aeon.co/essays/science-is-not-the-only-form-of-knowledge-but-it-is-the-best Professor Moti Mizrahi does a good job of distinguishing various versions of scientism and of critiquing the weaponization of scientism by the mavens of ignorance and cynicism. However, he does not seem to realize that his entire piece is a philosophical exercise starting with the title, but if he does then he should know that philosophy does not compete with science for the mantle of "best form of knowledge." I argue here that his defense of 'Weak Scientism' fails because of mistaken conceptions of what knowledge is and how the aims and methods of science are different from those of philosophy.
MM's first questionable move is to assume a sharp distinction between science and philosophy. As I have argued in the past, the distinction is arbitrary and probably harmful to both science and philosophy. However, even granting the distinction, MM's analysis is seriously flawed.
MM sensibly begins with some definitions. He distinguishes Weak Scientism from Strong Scientism and proclaims his position as the former. Weak Scientism, he argues, says that science is not the only source of knowledge, but "scientific knowledge is the best form of knowledge we have." 'Knowledge' has to be defined as well, but MM's definition is odd, to say the least, to wit: knowledge, he says, is research, the various kinds of published outputs of academic disciplines. He explicitly denies the widely accepted definition of knowledge as justified true belief. But then we are left wondering how to evaluate the published outputs of the academic disciplines. Consider, for example, the claim by the CDC that the Covid-19 MRNA vaccine is 100% effective in preventing COVID-19 in children ages 12 through 15. How do we decide whether the claim is knowledge or not? Surely by examining the evidence to see whether it supports the claim. But this is precisely to inquire whether the claim is true and justified, exactly the truth test that MM rules out. Without it we are left with no way to distinguish valid research from flawed research, bogus scientific claims from scientific knowledge.
It gets worse. Defining 'knowledge' in this way allows MM to carry out a quantitative comparison of the respective outputs of science departments with those of humanities disciplines as partial proof that scientific knowledge is better than knowledge produced by non-scientific studies. That's like arguing that because Mickey Spillane published more stories than Shakespeare did that MS is a better writer than the Bard.
The philosopher David Hume distinguished two types of knowledge claims that are relevant to this discussion: Matters of Fact and Relations of Ideas. Physics and the other sciences deal with the former—empirical claims about the world. When successful, science produces what everyone understands to be knowledge, i.e. justified true beliefs about the world. Philosophy does not pursue that kind of knowledge. Philosophy's aim, properly understood as distinct from science, is to achieve understanding, not knowledge—understanding of the relationships among the concepts of science itself, of values, and of art.
Scientific knowledge can rightly be compared only to non-scientific knowledge claims that are made within science's domain, i.e. Matters of Fact, claims about empirical reality. Well-known examples include young earth theories and phrenology. Geology and psychology are better sources of knowledge in those fields. But comparisons of science and philosophy as to their relative value are wrongheaded; they operate in different conceptual spaces — relations of ideas, not matters of fact—with different methods—logical, not empirical—and in asymmetrical logical orders—philosophers study science, but scientists do not study philosophy.
MM concludes with a demand to abolish the weaponization of scientism: "This would allow us to keep the following question open and up for debate: what sort of attitude or stance should we have toward science?" Fair enough, but that issue can do without debates about what academic disciplines science is better than.
