[lit-ideas] Re: crucial test: replace scientism with dentism
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 06:12:25 -0700 (PDT)
Does Heidegger himself say that what he is opposed to is 'scientism' and not
science ? The passages below (from THE END OF PHILOSOPHY
AND THE TASK OF THINKING (1969)) do not mention the term 'scientism' bur rather
'sciences,' 'scientific attitude,' scientific- technological world' and so on.
O.K.
9. No prophecy is necessary to recognize that the sciences now establishing
themselves will soon be determined and steered by the new fundamental science
which is called cybernetics. This science corresponds to the determination of
man as an acting social being. For it is the theory of the steering of the
possible planning and arrangement of human labor. Cybernetics transforms
language into an exchange of news. The arts become regulated-regulating
instruments of information.
10. The development of philosophy into the independent sciences which, however,
interdependently communicate among themselves ever more markedly, is the
legitimate completion of philosophy. Philosophy is ending in the present age.
It
has found its place in the scientific attitude of socially active humanity. But
the fundamental characteristic of this scientific attitude is its cybernetic,
that is, technological character. The need to ask about modern technology is
presumably dying out to the same extent that technology more definitely
characterizes and regulates the appearance of the totality of the world and the
position of man in it.
11. The sciences will interpret everything which in their structure is still
reminiscent of the origin from philosophy in accordance with the rules of
science, that is, technologically. Every science understands the categories
upon
which it remains dependent for the articulation and delineation of its area of
investigation as working hypotheses. Their truth is measured not only in terms
of
the effect that their application brings about within the progress of research.
Scientific truth is equated with the efficiency of these effects.
12. The sciences are now taking over as their own task what philosophy in the
course of its history tried to present in certain places, and even there only
inadequately, that is, the ontologies of the various regions of beings (nature,
history, law, art). The interest of the sciences is directed toward the theory
of the necessary structural concepts of the coordinated areas of investigation.
"Theory" means now supposition of the categories, which are allowed only a
cybernetic function, but denied any ontological meaning. The operational and
model character of representational-calculative thinking becomes dominant.
13. However, the sciences still speak about the Being of beings in the
unavoidable supposition of their regional categories. They just don't say so.
They can deny their origin from philosophy, but never dispense with it. For in
the scientific attitude of the sciences, the document of their birth from
philosophy still speaks. The end of philosophy proves to be the triumph of the
manipulable arrangement of a scientific- technological world and of the social
order proper to this world. The end of philosophy means the beginning of the
world civilization based upon Western European thinking.
On Thursday, March 27, 2014 1:47 PM, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>'Anti-scientism' (i.e., rejection of the view that science 'provides the
primary and most significant access to ourselves and the world') is
most definitely not automatically 'anti-science'.>
May I suggest the explanation for this is because "scientism" is a false or
mistaken view (or understanding) of "science" (hence to be anti- this false
view is not to be anti- genuine science).
But there is a problem here: many who are anti-scientism, for example
Wittgenstein, may be considered on close examination not to see that
"scientism" is a false or mistaken view of "science" itself (I would be
certainly interested to see evidence that Wittgenstein recognises that
"scientism" is not a proper reflection of genuine science, as I am unaware that
he does clearly recognise this). This false equation of "scientism" with
genuine science leads to a misconceived hostility to science itself - in other
words, even if science is seen as valid within its domain, it is conceived as
giving rise to an inevitable and destructive "scientism" within wider culture.
The correct solution is not to mistake "scientism" for a genuine reflection of
"science".
For example, it is a kind of "scientism" to say that because "consciousness" is
not observable from any third-person perspective [we can say "He saw her car"
but not "He saw her consciousness"], and because "observation" of a scientific
sort must be more than mere "first-person" observation, so "science" must
dispense with "consciousness" because "consciousness" is an anti-scientific
notion. Such "scientism" is flawed: the most such reasoning might show is that
"consciousness" is a non-scientific phenomenon - but even whether that is shown
depends on whether we take mere "first-person" observation as being always
inadequate to constitute scientific observation, for it may be argued it is
adequate when there is no alternative "third-person" means to further test for
"consciousness" [i.e. we are entitled to accept our own conscious experience of
"consciousness" as an adequate test of our having consciousness when there is
no alternative "third-person"
perspective that can observe the existence or non-existence of our
consciousness].
"Scientism" does great harm to genuine science and its place in our culture:
but so does the false equation of "scientism" with genuine science. Despite
what Chris writes, I think it may be doubted that many of the philosophers who
oppose "scientism" see that they are merely opposing a fictional view of
"science" itself.
Donal
On Thursday, 27 March 2014, 9:18, palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
namely the access to dental science denies the humanity of having cavities deal
t with by reading pages of heidegger and his wife
On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 11:14 AM, <cblists@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Here's an indication of why some people bother at all about Heidegger and his
>philosophy (a paragraph from Simon Critchley's introduction to _A Companion to
>Continental Philosophy_):
>
>"From a Continental perspective, the adoption of scientism in philosophy fails
>to grasp the critical and cultural function of philosophy; that is, it fails
>to see the complicity between a scientific culture and what Nietzsche
>diagnosed as nihilism. What this means is that philosophical scientism fails
>to see the role that science and technology play in the alienation of human
>beings from the world through the latter's objectification into a causally
>determined realm of nature or, more aggregiously, into a reified realm of
>commodities manipulated by an instrumental rationality. In a Heideggerian
>register, scientism rests on the false assumption that the scientific or
>theoretical way of viewing things - what Heidegger calls the present-at-hand -
>provides the primary and most significant access to ourselves and the world.
>Heidegger shows that the scientific view of the world is derivative and
>parasitic upon a prior practical view of the
world as ready-to-hand, that is, the environing world that is closest, most
familiar, and most meaningful to us, the world that is always colored by our
cognitive, ethical and aesthetic values. That is to say, scientism or what
Husserl calls objectivism, overlooks the phenomenon of the *life-world* which
is the enabling condition for scientific practice. Although such an
anti-scientism *can* lead to obscurantism - which in many ways is the inverted
or perverted counter-concept to scientism - it *need* not do so. The critique
of scientism, at least within phenomenology, does not seek to refute or negate
the results of scientific research in the name of some mystical apprehension of
the unity of man and nature, or whatever; it rather simply insists that science
does not provide the primary and most significant access to a sense of
ourselves and the world. What is perhaps required here is what Heidegger
referred to in _Being and
Time_ as 'an existential conception of science' that would show how the
practices of the natural sciences arise out of life-world practices, and that
the latter are not simply reducible to the former."
>
>[Simon Critchley, "Introduction: what is Continental philosophy?", in Simon
>Critchley and William R Schrtoeder, eds. _A Companion to Continental
>Philosopy_, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998; p. 13]
>
>Of course, one does not have to side with either Heidegger or Husserl in order
>to be critical of 'scientism' - Adorno (with all of his antipathies,
>particularly to the former) immediately comes to (well, at least, *my*) mind.
>
>And one must be fair to the scientists themselves. Not all are (or were)
>'realists' when it comes to philosophizing about their endeavours; indeed some
>regard(ed) realism as an impediment to scientific progress (the
>'parenthetical' past tense of 'regard' is prompted by thoughts of the debate
>between the early developers of quantum theory and Einstein; the former
>thought that Einstein's commitment to realism was a serious hindrance).
>
>'Anti-scientism' (i.e., rejection of the view that science 'provides the
>primary and most significant access to ourselves and the world') is most
>definitely not automatically 'anti-science'.
>
>Chris Bruce,
>in Kiel, Germany
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