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Science Unlimited?

The Challenges of Scientism

All too often in contemporary discourse, we hear about science overstepping its proper limits—about its brazenness, arrogance, and intellectual imperialism. The problem, critics say, is scientism: the privileging of science over all other ways of knowing. Science, they warn, cannot do or explain everything, no matter what some enthusiasts believe. In Science Unlimited?, noted philosophers of science Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci gather a diverse group of scientists, science communicators, and philosophers of science to explore the limits of science and this alleged threat of scientism.

In this wide-ranging collection, contributors ask whether the term scientism in fact (or in belief) captures an interesting and important intellectual stance, and whether it is something that should alarm us. Is scientism a well-developed position about the superiority of science over all other modes of human inquiry? Or is it more a form of excessive confidence, an uncritical attitude of glowing admiration? What, if any, are its dangers? Are fears that science will marginalize the humanities and eradicate the human subject—that it will explain away emotion, free will, consciousness, and the mystery of existence—justified? Does science need to be reined in before it drives out all other disciplines and ways of knowing? Both rigorous and balanced, Science Unlimited? interrogates our use of a term that is now all but ubiquitous in a wide variety of contexts and debates. Bringing together scientists and philosophers, both friends and foes of scientism, it is a conversation long overdue.

320 pages | 2 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2017

Biological Sciences: Evolutionary Biology

Philosophy of Science

Reviews

Science Unlimited? tries to establish a clarity to the debate over the scope and limits of scientific knowledge, and whether there are forms of knowledge other than the scientific. With breadth and topicality, the contributors’ arguments critical of and defending scientism ring true. This book will appeal to a wide range of scholars, including those working in the fields of (obviously) philosophy, but also the sciences themselves, religion-based specialties, and the humanities in general.”

John S. Wilkins, author of "Species: A History of the Idea"

"What is scientism? Can there be too much science? What are the limits in the pursues of science? Is there room for other valid ways of knowing? Can science address questions of religion, morality, philosophy, alternative medicine, and economics? What is the relation between science and the humanities or the social sciences? How does scientism affect politics,from education to health care? Science unlimited is a collection of chapters addressing all kinds of questions about all kinds of meanings of scientism."

Renia Gasparatou | Science & Education

Table of Contents

Introduction

1 The Sciences and Humanities in a Unity of Knowledge
Russell Blackford

2 Plus ultra: Why Science Does Not Have Limits
Maarten Boudry

3 Scientism and the Argument from Supervenience of the Mental on the Physical
Filip Buekens

4 Two Cheers for Scientism
Taner Edis

5 Scientism and the Is/Ought Gap
Justin Kalef

6 The Trouble with Scientism: Why History and the Humanities Are Also a Form of Knowledge
Philip Kitcher

7 “Scientism!”
Stephen Law

8 Strong Realism as Scientism: Are We at the End of History?
Thomas Nickles

9 The Fundamental Argument against Scientism
Rik Peels

10 Scientism and Pseudoscience: In Defense of Demarcation Projects
Massimo Pigliucci

11 Strong Scientism and Its Research Agenda
Alex Rosenberg

12 Economics and Allegations of Scientism
Don Ross

13 Why Really Good Science Doesn’t Have All the Answers
Michael Ruse

14 Scientism (and Other Problems) in Experimental Philosophy
Tom Sorell

15 Against Border Patrols
Mariam Thalos

List of Contributors
Index

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