Abstract

Mizrahi (2017a) advances an argument in support of Weak Scientism, which is the view that scientific knowledge is the best (but not the only) knowledge we have, according to which Weak Scientism follows from the premises that scientific knowledge is quantitatively and qualitatively better than non-scientific knowledge. In this paper, I develop a different argument for Weak Scientism. This latter argument for Weak Scientism proceeds from the premise that academic disciplines that make progress are superior to academic disciplines that do not make progress. In other words, other things being equal, it is generally better for an academic discipline to make progress than to make little or no progress, given that an academic discipline that is making little or no progress is an academic discipline that is failing to achieve its epistemic goals. Now, if there is no question among academic philosophers that science makes progress, and significantly so, but there is an open question among academic philosophers as to whether academic philosophy makes progress (and if so, how much), then academic philosophers would have to agree that science is superior to academic philosophy in terms of making progress. I develop this argument in this paper and provide empirical evidence suggesting that the premises would be acceptable to academic philosophers. … [please read below the rest of the article].

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1. Introduction

The mere mention of scientism tends to evoke negative sentiments among academic philosophers in general. For many academic philosophers tend to associate scientism with an excessive admiration for science at the expense of non-scientific areas of inquiry. For example, according to Boudry and Pigliucci (2017, 2), the term ‘scientism’ is used in the following ways:

1) An excessive deference toward the deliverances of science and anything to which the honorific label scientific is attached;

2) Brazen confidence in the future successes of scientific investigation, for example in arriving at a Theory of Everything, or in solving every interesting question about reality;

3) The conviction that the methods of science are the only worthwhile modes of inquiry, and will eventually supplant all others;

4) The thesis that other disciplines should be either subsumed under science or rejected as worthless;

5) The thesis that all ways of acquiring knowledge and understanding are (or should be) scientific in nature, and hence there is no interesting difference between science and other forms of inquiry (emphasis added).

Notice the negative sentiments expressed in definitions (1) and (2) in particular. As Mizrahi (2017a, 352) points out, no one who is inclined to think that scientific fields are superior to non-scientific academic fields would accept (1) or (2), for both (1) and (2) make scientism a mistake by definition. Van Woudenberg et al. (2018, 2) agree. As they put it, “no one will accept this notion of ‘scientism’ as an adequate characterization of their own views, as no one will think that their deference to science is exaggerated, or their readiness to accept claims made by the sciences is excessive” (emphasis in original), or their confidence in the success of science is brazen. In argumentation studies, definitions like (1) and (2) are known as “persuasive definitions.” As Zarefsky (2014, 133) explains:

[A] persuasive definition is a non-neutral characterization that conveys a positive or negative attitude about something in the course of naming it. The name is, in effect, an implicit argument that one should view the thing in a particular way. But the argument is never actually advanced. Rather, the definition is put forward as if it was uncontroversial and could be easily stipulated. The argument in behalf of the proposed definition is simply “smuggled in” through the use of the definition itself (emphasis added).

Accordingly, when Haack (2007, 17-18) defines scientism as “an exaggerated kind of deference towards science, an excessive readiness to accept as authoritative any claim made by the sciences, and to dismiss every kind of criticism of science or its practitioners as anti-scientific prejudice” (emphasis added), she puts forward a non-neutral definition of scientism as if it were uncontroversial and smuggles in an implicit argument that conveys a negative attitude about scientism, namely, that scientism is misguided because it is an exaggerated and excessive attitude toward science. But, of course, this non-neutral characterization of scientism is controversial. Haack cannot simply assume that deference to science is exaggerated and excessive. Rather, she needs to make an explicit argument for this claim, without smuggling it in through persuasive definitions designed to elicit negative sentiments about scientism.

Similarly, when Boudry and Pigliucci (2017, 2) define scientism as “brazen confidence in the future successes of scientific investigation, for example in arriving at a Theory of Everything, or in solving every interesting question about reality” (emphasis added), they make an implicit argument that conveys a negative attitude about scientism, namely, that scientism is misguided because any confidence in the continued success of science is bold, shameless, and unwarranted. But, again, Boudry and Pigliucci (2017) cannot simply help themselves to the assumption that confidence in the continued success of science is bold, shameless, and unwarranted. Rather, they need to make an explicit argument for this claim, without smuggling it in through persuasive definitions designed to elicit negative sentiments toward scientism.

Thankfully, it appears that the philosophical debate over scientism has moved past persuasive definitions of scientism recently and is now focused on evaluating scientism on its merits. For the term ‘scientism’ actually encompasses a set of theses that can be argued for or against. Construed as an epistemological thesis, scientism can be broadly understood as either the view that scientific knowledge (or some other epistemic good, such as justified belief) is the only form of knowledge (or some other epistemic good, such as justified belief) or the view that scientific knowledge (or some other epistemic good, such as justified belief) is the best form of knowledge (or some other epistemic good, such as justified belief).^[1] Construed as a methodological thesis, scientism can be broadly understood as either the view that scientific methods are the only ways of knowing about reality or the view that scientific methods are the best ways of knowing about reality.^[2] Construed as a metaphysical thesis, scientism can be broadly understood as either the view that science is the only guide to what exists or the view that science is the best guide to what exists.^[3]

Mizrahi (2017a) defends a version of epistemological scientism he calls “Weak Scientism.” Weak Scientism is the view that scientific knowledge is the best knowledge we have. Weak Scientism is a weaker version of epistemological scientism than Strong Scientism, which is the view that scientific knowledge is the only knowledge we have.^[4] According to Weak Scientism, while non-scientific disciplines do produce knowledge, scientific disciplines produce knowledge that is superior—both quantitatively and qualitatively—to non-scientific knowledge.

Mizrahi’s (2017a) argument for Weak Scientism runs as follows. One thing can be said to be better than another thing either quantitatively or qualitatively. Accordingly, if scientific knowledge can be said to be better than non-scientific knowledge both quantitatively and qualitatively, then scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge, which is what Weak Scientism states. Now, scientific knowledge can be said to be quantitatively better than non-scientific knowledge because scientific disciplines produce more knowledge and the knowledge they produce has more impact than the knowledge produced by non-scientific disciplines.

This claim is supported by data on the research output (that is, number of publications) and research impact (that is, number of citations) of scientific and non-scientific academic disciplines. These data show that scientific disciplines produce more publications and those publications get cited more than the publications of non-scientific disciplines. Scientific knowledge can be said to be qualitatively better than non-scientific knowledge because scientific knowledge is explanatorily, predictively, and instrumentally more successful than non-scientific knowledge (Mizrahi 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c).

In this paper, I develop a different argument for Weak Scientism. This argument for Weak Scientism proceeds from the premise that academic disciplines that make progress are superior to academic disciplines that do not make progress. In other words, other things being equal, it is generally better for an academic discipline to make progress than to make little or no progress, given that an academic discipline that is making little or no progress is an academic discipline that is failing to achieve its epistemic goals. Now, if there is no question among academic philosophers that science makes progress, and significantly so, but there is an open question among academic philosophers as to whether academic philosophy makes progress (and if so, how much), then academic philosophers would have to agree that science is superior to academic philosophy in terms of making progress. In what follows, I develop this argument in detail and provide empirical evidence suggesting that the premises would be acceptable to academic philosophers.

At the outset, then, it is important to note that, in this paper, I use academic philosophy as an example of a non-scientific academic discipline, which is why the conclusion of the overall argument of this paper is that science is superior to academic philosophy in terms of making progress. I do so for two reasons.

First, I focus on academic philosophy in order to make my empirical task in this paper more manageable.

Second, I focus on academic philosophy because I am concerned with the philosophical debate over scientism.

Some academic philosophers level the charge of scientism against scientists who are critical of academic philosophy. Philosophers who level the charge of scientism against those who are critical of philosophy typically identify famous scientists, such as Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson, as exhibiting this kind of allegedly misguided attitude toward science. For example, Kidd (2016, 11) refers to scientists like Hawking and deGrasse Tyson, who are guilty of scientism in his view, with apparent contempt as “cheerleaders for science.”^[5] Arguments for and against scientism (in one or more of its varieties), then, could help us assess the scientism charge and determine if it is warranted.

2. Progress in Science and in Academic Philosophy

For the most part, philosophers of science agree that science makes progress but they construe scientific progress in different terms. According to some philosophers of science, science is in the business of accumulating truths or approximating truth. According to the semantic view of scientific progress, science makes progress when more true scientific beliefs are accumulated or when there is greater approximation to scientific truth (see, for example, Niiniluoto 2014; cf. Bird 2007). For other philosophers of science, science is in the business of producing knowledge. According to the epistemic view of scientific progress, science makes progress when there is accumulation of scientific knowledge (see, for example, Bird 2007; cf. Rowbottom 2008).^[6]

Still other philosophers of science argue that science is in the business of increasing understanding. According to the noetic view of scientific progress, science makes progress when there is an increase in scientific understanding (see, for example, Dellsén 2016; cf. Park 2017). Finally, some philosophers of science argue that science is in the business of solving scientific problems, and so science makes progress when there are more solutions to scientific problems (see, for example, Shan 2019; cf. Bird 2007).^[7]

For present purposes, the important point is that philosophers of science generally agree that science makes progress. They disagree about what science is in the business of producing, accumulating, or increasing, and so they define scientific progress in different terms, such as truth, knowledge, understanding, or solutions to problems. However, they tend to agree that, whatever the goal of science is, scientists are often successful in attaining it. As Niiniluoto (2019, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-progress/) puts it:

Science is often distinguished from other domains of human culture by its progressive nature: in contrast to art, religion, philosophy, morality, and politics, there exist clear standards or normative criteria for identifying improvements and advances in science. […] The task of philosophical analysis is to consider alternative answers to the question: What is meant by progress in science? (emphasis added).

In other words, for most philosophers of science, there is no question that science makes progress. Instead, the question for philosophers of science is “How should we understand scientific progress?” (Douglas 2014, 55).

Indeed, the fact that science is often successful in attaining its goals is also taken for granted among philosophers of science. For example, according to Okasha (2016, 36), “Quite often, modern science is successful in its aim of supplying explanations.” Philosophers of science who are scientific realists tend to take the success of science as evidence for scientific realism. For example, Putnam (1975, 73) famously argued that scientific realism “is the only philosophy that doesn’t make the success of science a miracle.”^[8] Even anti-realists do not deny the success of science. Instead, they try to offer alternative explanations for the success of science. For example, constructive empiricists argue that the success of science can be explained by positing a selection process akin to natural selection. Like the claim that science makes progress, then, the claim that science is successful is generally accepted among philosophers of science.^[9]

According to Peels (2017), that “Science is highly successful” (14) is a reason but “not a good reason to embrace scientism” (15). It is important to note that Peels (2017, 12) defines scientism along strong (rather than weak) and narrow (rather than broad) lines.^[10] In particular, Peels (2017, 12) takes scientism to be “the claim that only natural science provides rational belief or knowledge” (emphasis in original). Construed as the claim that only natural science provides knowledge, then, the success of natural science is not a good reason to embrace scientism because the fact that natural science is successful does not necessarily mean that non-scientific areas of inquiry cannot be successful as well (Peels 2017, 14). This seems to be correct, but it is not a good argument against embracing Weak Scientism. This is because Weak Scientism is the thesis that scientific knowledge is the best, but not the only, knowledge we have. On this view, non-scientific disciplines can be successful; it’s just that scientific disciplines are more successful than non-scientific disciplines.

As Hietanen et al. (2022, 527) point out, as a particular conception of epistemological scientism, Weak Scientism, too, comes in narrow and broad varieties. In Turunen et al. (2022, 90), they put it this way:

The narrow type [of Weak Scientism] states that the natural sciences are the best sources of knowledge, justification, and the like. On the other hand, the broad variety [of Weak Scientism] claims that not only the natural sciences but sciences in general are the best sources for the mentioned epistemic goods or something akin to them (emphasis in original).

In that respect, the variety of Weak Scientism I seek to argue for in this paper is board insofar as it is an epistemological scientism (of the weak variety) about sciences in general, which I take to include the natural and the social sciences, but exclude the arts and the humanities. For the purposes of this paper, I take it that academic philosophy, at least as it is currently practiced in academia, is among the academic disciplines that fall under the humanities.^[11]

For present purposes, then, the important point is that even critics of scientism like Peels do not deny that science is highly successful. As Peels (2017, 14) puts it:

Unnecessary to say, science has been highly successful in that it has unearthed countless truths about the world—at least, that is what (most) scientists and non-scientists alike believe. Science is epistemically speaking an enormous achievement (emphasis added).

Likewise, Gordon (2018, 96) criticizes “the ‘science is successful’ argument for scientism,” not by denying the fact that science is successful, but by claiming that it is not sufficient to establish the conclusion that science is “the ultimate source of knowledge about reality.” Note that, like Peels (2017), Gordon (2018, 96) also defines scientism strongly as the thesis that science is “the ultimate source of knowledge about reality” (emphasis added), which she calls “unrestricted scientism,” rather than the best source of knowledge about reality. Gordon (2018, 96) “grant[s] unrestricted scientism the success aspect of the claim” (emphasis added), but she goes on to argue that it is not enough to support unrestricted scientism. Again, this seems to be correct, but it is not a good argument against Weak Scientism. This is because Weak Scientism is the thesis that science is the best, but not the ultimate, source of knowledge about reality. On this view, non-scientific disciplines can be good sources of knowledge; it’s just that scientific disciplines are better sources of knowledge than non-scientific disciplines.

While academic philosophers generally agree that there is significant progress in science, and that science is successful, there is no general agreement among academic philosophers that the same can be said about academic philosophy.^[12] In other words, philosophers of science generally agree that there is significant progress in science, and so there is no question about whether science makes progress or not, but rather the question is what is meant by progress in science (Niiniluoto 2019).

As far as philosophical progress is concerned, however, it is an open question whether academic philosophy makes any progress at all. For example, Shand (2017, 284) argues that “[p]hilosophy makes no progress” because “[p]hilosophical problems never seem to get finally solved” (285), the “range of disagreement in philosophy is as wide as it possibly could be” (287), the “range of approaches to philosophy is” even wider than that (288), and there “is no commonly agreed method for settling philosophical problems or criteria setting out the conditions of their being settled” (288). Similarly, Nielsen (1987, 1) argues that, as an academic discipline, philosophy has not made any progress because there is nothing “that counts as philosophical knowledge.”^[13] In fact, some academic philosophers even go so far as to claim that “philosophy does not need a concept of progress” (Shan 2022, 177). Clearly, if academic philosophy does not need a concept of progress, then it cannot be said to make progress.^[14]

On the other hand, there are some academic philosophers that have an optimistic view of philosophical progress. For example, Stoljar (2017) defends what he calls “reasonable optimism” about progress in academic philosophy. He thinks that, like practitioners of other academic disciplines, academic philosophers sometimes manage to find answers to their questions and he provides a few examples of what he takes to be solutions to philosophical problems. Likewise, Rapaport (1982, 296) argues that there “can be (and is) progress in philosophy, for the central stumbling block—viz., the apparent unsolvability of philosophical problems—is illusory” (emphasis in original).

Even if it is granted that academic philosophy does make some progress, however, academic philosophers tend to think that it is not comparable to the sort of progress that science makes. As Cohen (2007, 267) puts it, “Admittedly, science is successful, while philosophy has failed to resolve the problems on its agenda.” Likewise, according to Chalmers (2014, 3), “there is some progress in philosophy” but “not as much as we would like.” In comparison to science, there isn’t as much progress in academic philosophy as there is in science (Chalmers 2014, 3). Why? Because “there has not been large collective convergence on the big questions of philosophy,” according to Chalmers (2014, 7).

Chalmers provides empirical evidence for this claim, which comes from the 2009 PhilPapers Survey. The results of the 2009 PhilPapers Survey (Bourget and Chalmers 2014) reveal a “striking” degree of disagreement among philosophers about big philosophical questions (Chalmers 2014, 9). This empirical evidence suggests that there is “a significant difference in the collective knowledge that we have attained [in academic philosophy and in science].” Unlike science, in academic philosophy, “collective knowledge of the answers to [big] questions eludes [academic philosophers]” because of the absence of agreement among academic philosophers.

More recently, Bourget and Chalmers (2021) conducted another survey, following up on the 2009 PhilPapers Survey (Bourget and Chalmers 2014). In the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, Bourget and Chalmers asked academic philosophers to give their responses to the following question: “Philosophical progress (is there any?): none, a little, or a lot?” (Bourget and Chalmers 2021, 10). Of the 1775 academic philosophers who answered this question, 68 said “none” (3.8%), 827 said “a little” (46.5%), 740 said “a lot” (41.6%), and 149 said “other” (8.3%). According to the results of the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, academic philosophers disagree about whether, and to what extent, academic philosophy makes progress (Bourget and Chalmers 2021, 40).

Now, if academic philosophers generally agree that there is significant progress in science, but they do not agree that the same can be said about academic philosophy, then that suggests that academic philosophers would probably agree that science makes more progress than academic philosophy does. To use Chalmers’ (2014, 3) terminology, the results of the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, specifically, the responses to the question about philosophical progress, suggest that most academic philosophers would give a negative answer to “the Comparison Question” (namely, “is there as much progress in philosophy as in science?”), just as Chalmers (2014, 4) does. If so, that is, if there is more progress in science than in academic philosophy, as most academic philosophers seem to think, then it follows that science is better than academic philosophy in terms of making progress.

As Bourget and Chalmers (2021, 36) point out, however, drawing general conclusions from the results of their 2020 PhilPapers Survey would be premature because of selection bias. That is, the sample of academic philosophers who responded to the survey was not randomly selected, and thus it might not be a representative sample of the general population of academic philosophers. Bourget and Chalmers (2021, 36) attempt to correct for a version of selection bias they call “respondent bias,” which they distinguish from “enthusiast bias,” by controlling for Area of Specialty (AOS), institutional affiliation, and Ph.D. granting institution. After correcting for AOS and region of affiliation, as well as gender, Bourget and Chalmers (2021, 40) report that the results of the question about philosophical progress are as follows: “none” 4.88%, “a little” 46.76%, and “a lot” 38.28%. According to these corrected results, too, academic philosophers disagree about whether, and to what extent, academic philosophy makes progress (Bourget and Chalmers 2021, 40).

Again, if academic philosophers generally agree that there is significant progress in science, but they do not agree that the same can be said about academic philosophy, then that suggests that academic philosophers would probably agree that science makes much more progress than academic philosophy does. To use Chalmers’ (2014, 3) terminology again, the corrected results of the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, specifically, the responses to the question about philosophical progress, suggest that most academic philosophers would give a negative answer to “the Comparison Question” (namely, “is there as much progress in philosophy as in science?”), just as Chalmers (2014, 4) does. But if there is much more progress in science than in academic philosophy, as most academic philosophers seem to think, then it follows that science is better than academic philosophy in terms of making progress.

❧ Please refer to Part II of “Scientism and Sentiments about Progress in Science and Academic Philosophy.”

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^[1] For a classification of types of epistemological scientism, see Hietanen et al. (2020) and Mizrahi (2022, 1-24).

^[2] For a classification of types of methodological scientism, see Mizrahi (2022b, 1-24). According to Bunge (2012, 24), scientism “is the methodological thesis that the best way of exploring reality is to adopt the scientific methods.”

^[3] For a classification of types of metaphysical scientism, see Mizrahi (2022b, 1-24).

^[4] According to Rosenberg (2020, 48), “the methods of science [are] the only way to secure knowledge” (emphasis added).

^[5] For more on the scientism charge, see Mizrahi (2022b, 1-24).

^[6] For an empirical investigation of the semantic and epistemic accounts of scientific progress, see Mizrahi and Buckwalter (2014). For corpus-based studies of philosophical accounts of scientific progress, see Mizrahi (2021) and (2022a).

^[7] For an overview of these accounts of scientific progress, see Dellsén (2018). Shan (2019) develops a functional account that defines scientific progress in terms of usefulness of problem-defining and problem-solving.

^[8] For a recent defense of this argument (the so-called “no-miracles” argument), see Park (2022, 1-21). Cf. Mizrahi (2020, 52-62).

^[9] See also Kitcher (2002, 285), “Almost everybody seems to agree that the sciences constitute the richest and most extensive body of human knowledge.”

^[10] According to Hietanen et al. (2020, 525), “epistemological scientism can be sorted into narrow and broad varieties. The narrow versions state that only the natural sciences function as  proper sources of knowledge, justification, rational beliefs, and the like. […] The broad version, on the other hand, endorses a wider conception of science that encompasses both the natural and the human sciences. The term ‘human sciences’ includes the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences. One does not have to accept all of the human sciences as proper sources of  knowledge in order to be a proponent of broad scientism, only a subsection will do” (emphasis in original).

^[11] This is not to say that academic philosophy cannot become more like the sciences, especially, the social sciences. See, e.g., Buckwalter and Turri (2018).

^[12] In this paper, I use the phrase ‘academic philosophy’ to refer to the academic discipline of philosophy. According to Schwitzgebel et al. (2018, 22), “Mainstream Anglophone philosophy is vague-boundaried and nebulous. However, it can be characterized well enough to permit sociological examination. Participants in this group are philosophers who write primarily in English (regardless of their native language); publish in English-language academic journals that are widely regarded as prestigious by other English-language philosophers, such as Philosophical Review and Ethics; belong to PhD-granting departments that are ranked in the Philosophical Gourmet Report, or have close scholarly ties to people in those departments; and are highly cited in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and in prestigious English-language journals.”

^[13] See Chapter 1 of Stoljar (2017, 2-6) for more examples of what he calls “near pessimism,” which is the view that academic philosophy does not make progress.

^[14] This is not to say that philosophy does not need a concept of success. In other words, even if philosophy does not need a concept of progress, and so it cannot be said to make progress, it can still be successful. See Shan (2022, 182-183) for the distinction between the concepts of success and progress as applied to philosophy. See also Frances (2017, 56).

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Tags: acquiring knowledge, acquiring knowledge and understanding, deference to science, future successes of science, Moti Mizrahi, progress in philosophy, scientism, scientism debate, SERRC 6/23/2023