Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[LuckyR]

In the posts above there was some discussion of the pros and cons of proportional representation compared to a first past the post system. We recently had an election in my state and, because of the complex Hare-Clarke system of proportional representation, it took two weeks to get a final result. However, the overall outcome was more or less clear on the night of the election. The conservative government was returned but, again, without a majority in its own right. It has needed to do deals with independents to ensure confidence and supply. But that does not mean the government will be able to push all of their legislative agenda through the parliament. The Greens and the independents will demand modifications to legislation to take account of their own environmental and social concerns. Otherwise legislation won't pass. And that's good. That's what the people wanted. So, I would say that proportional representation takes the hard edges of what might otherwise be a government drunk on its own power. It means we avoid the extremes of the hard right or a hard left, but we still get good, effective government.

Congrats. I'm jealous.

[Fried Egg]

In the posts above there was some discussion of the pros and cons of proportional representation compared to a first past the post system. We recently had an election in my state and, because of the complex Hare-Clarke system of proportional representation, it took two weeks to get a final result. However, the overall outcome was more or less clear on the night of the election. The conservative government was returned but, again, without a majority in its own right. It has needed to do deals with independents to ensure confidence and supply. But that does not mean the government will be able to push all of their legislative agenda through the parliament. The Greens and the independents will demand modifications to legislation to take account of their own environmental and social concerns. Otherwise legislation won't pass. And that's good. That's what the people wanted. So, I would say that proportional representation takes the hard edges of what might otherwise be a government drunk on its own power. It means we avoid the extremes of the hard right or a hard left, but we still get good, effective government.

Not that I wish to continue the derailment of this topic by continuing the digression about voting systems but I think that a lot of people would say that First Past the Post (FPtP) voting systems, by supressing the smaller parties, are therefore better protected from the extremes. This is because with proportional voting systems, the smaller, more extreme parties often hold the balance of power and can leverage greater influence than they would otherwise have in FPtP where the major, more mainstream parties tend to get a majority without their support. I don't know anything about the recent election you speak of in Australia, but one might say that the Greens and independents that are presumably part of this coalition hold an undue amount of power.

One of the things I've always liked about FPtP (and would lose if we switched to PR) is that the representatives are attached to (and directly represent) a particular locality. That connection is completely severed with PR whereby the parties have complete control over which of their candidates get elected.

My thoughts on the subject have also led me to conclude one of the main differences between PR and FPtP is that with PR, the coalitions get formed after the election (behind closed doors with backroom deals where the voter has only decided the amount of bargaining power each party will have), whereas with FPtP, the coalitions are formed before the election (and the voter votes directly for the coalition they prefer). It could be argued that the latter is actually more democratic.

I just finished reading "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch (which was a great read by the way) in which he talks a little about voting systems. He is in favour of FPtP (as opposed to PR) because he argues that the most important thing in democracy is not selecting representatives that most closely represent the people's views, but rather the ability to kick out and remove people (and their bad ideas) out of office. He thinks this is more difficult in PR as small shifts in the voting behaviour of the population are unlikely to lead to significant changes in the end result (as it does in FPtP). Just look at the massive massive change in MP distributions in the recent British election (a result that shifted far more significantly than the actual voting behaviour of the population would have suggested).

I think there is actually something to this view. Just look at the recent European Union elections in which there was a shift to the right overall (in terms of the voting behaviour of the public) yet that did not result in any significant change those in positions of power, there was simply a shifting of alliances between the parties that essentially kept the same people in charge.

Ultimately, one must guard against simply defending a particular system because it happens to benefit your political orientation and hamper your opponents. Would you feel the same about the Australian result if the Conservatives had formed a coalition with a far right party instead of the Greens? Consider how much leverage 'Reform' might have had in the British election if the number of MP's they had were representative of the proportion of the population that voted for them.

[Lagayascienza]

There are pros and cons . As always.

The most interesting thing you said above was that "one must guard against simply defending a particular system because it happens to benefit your political orientation and hamper your opponents". The reason that admonition is interestng is because that is precisely what everyone - left, right and center - does when they are in power, but they change their tune once they are voted out of office.

The other thing I would say is that voters have very little control over their electoral systems which are extremely hard to change because they are prescribed in the consitiutions of most democracies. Changing the electoral system would mean first changing the constitution, which is itself hard to achieve because we tend to see constituions as quasi-sacred documents.

Proposed amendments to the Australian Constitution, for example, must be put to the people in a referendum and, to be successful, a proposed change needs a nationwide majority of overall votes as well as a majority of votes in a majority of states. This is very difficult ot achieve. All but eight of the 45 proposed amendments put to a referendum so far in Australia have failed to achieve this double majority. So, without a change to the constitution, all we can do is to work within the limits of the constitution.

I've read both of David Deutsch's books. He's something of a hero of mine even though I don't agree with him politically. What I do agree with him about is that problems are inevitable and that, in order to solve them, we need good explanations, not magical thinking.

[Sculptor1]

PM has been a vital and much needed body of critique that has sought to undermine the sorts of power structures that led to the ideological conflicts inherent in World War Two.

It is no surprise that many identified as PM emerged from the 1940s, and helped unpack the assumptions of endemic racism, and overwrought scientism.
It is only true, in part that it unpacks scientific objectivity.
People Like Dawkins, whose "selfish gene" and "cultural meme" theory are absurdist consequences of banal reductionism might attack PM but he in particular is one example of why we need PM to continually challenge the excesses of reductionist science.
He reduces all human action to a series of determined autonomic actions. In his autistic way fails to see the richness of the human experience. I'm not sure if this is any different from the science of the late victorian period up to 1945 (and beyond) chosing to categorise all humans by their "race".

I respect Dennett somewhat more than Dawkins. But I think his own critique is overwrought and is based on a worry that PM would sweep aside all science. He is confusing a useful set of methods for critiique with a sort of dogma that can come from extreme views. He has build , in this critique a strawman, which does him no favours. Paradoxically the sort of discourse he, himself, persues would have been characterised as radical, and PM 50 years ago.
I submit that PM has enabled to the sort of critical analysis that he enjoys. Had he been working in the 1930 he would have been dismissed and disappeared into obscurity.

Now the big thing about PM is that it is not a bounded movement with fixed parameters. It can be anything from a set of literary theory tools; a licence to make uncraftsmanly art; a rabid and vociferous anti-science movement; a philosophical method for reassessing endemic assumptions from standard authorities; and a hermeneitic theology.
In short the attribution "PM" is used more like an insult. Like "atheism" was once used to attack people whose god was slightly different from yours, PM has emerged as an insult which has been adopted or "colonised" (as a PM person might say) by those who would seek to form a community to build their method and normalise it.

[Lagayascienza]

Sculptor1, I'm interested to know what you mean by "the excesses of reductionistic science". Could you give us some examples?

I can think or lots of examples of pseudoscience (such as phrenology) that have have made claims that have been "excessive" because their claims were unspported by evidence. But, when it comes to real science, I cannot think of any that have been "excessive" because they are overly reductionistic. So I'm wondering what you are referring to.

[Pattern-chaser]

PM has been a vital and much needed body of critique that has sought to undermine the sorts of power structures that led to the ideological conflicts inherent in World War Two.

It is no surprise that many identified as PM emerged from the 1940s, and helped unpack the assumptions of endemic racism, and overwrought scientism.
It is only true, in part that it unpacks scientific objectivity.
People Like Dawkins, whose "selfish gene" and "cultural meme" theory are absurdist consequences of banal reductionism might attack PM but he in particular is one example of why we need PM to continually challenge the excesses of reductionist science.
He reduces all human action to a series of determined autonomic actions. In his autistic way fails to see the richness of the human experience. I'm not sure if this is any different from the science of the late victorian period up to 1945 (and beyond) chosing to categorise all humans by their "race".

I respect Dennett somewhat more than Dawkins. But I think his own critique is overwrought and is based on a worry that PM would sweep aside all science. He is confusing a useful set of methods for critiique with a sort of dogma that can come from extreme views. He has build , in this critique a strawman, which does him no favours. Paradoxically the sort of discourse he, himself, persues would have been characterised as radical, and PM 50 years ago.
I submit that PM has enabled to the sort of critical analysis that he enjoys. Had he been working in the 1930 he would have been dismissed and disappeared into obscurity.

Now the big thing about PM is that it is not a bounded movement with fixed parameters. It can be anything from a set of literary theory tools; a licence to make uncraftsmanly art; a rabid and vociferous anti-science movement; a philosophical method for reassessing endemic assumptions from standard authorities; and a hermeneitic theology.
In short the attribution "PM" is used more like an insult. Like "atheism" was once used to attack people whose god was slightly different from yours, PM has emerged as an insult which has been adopted or "colonised" (as a PM person might say) by those who would seek to form a community to build their method and normalise it.

Yes, I think PM has been unreasonably demonised in recent years. PM sought (AIUI) only to look again at accepted wisdom, aiming to do little more than confirm it is wisdom, not misunderstanding. And in a few cases, it proved to be misunderstanding. Mostly, it did what we all expected and hoped for, and found no issue with much of our thinking.

In your examples, above, the obvious successes of PM are the exposure of inappropriately-applied reductionism, and all forms of Sciencism.

[Lagayascienza]

I wonder whether reductionism and scientism have been unreasonably demonised. What is it that some find objectional about reductionsim and scientism? Isn't reductionism just how science works?

[Gertie]

I wonder whether reductionism and scientism have been unreasonably demonised. What is it that some find objectional about reductionsim and scientism? Isn't reductionism just how science works?

This s just me spit-balling, not answering as an expert on PM.

I'd say that PM values the nature of perspectives in a way which clashes with the scientific quest for reducing the world into a set of objective and falsifiable facts. I'd say horses for courses applies there.

There's also the issue that the deeper science investigates, the less certain reality looks. In its way the discovery of Einsteinian Relativity, Uncertainty, action at a distance, observer effect and the like, undermine the reductive notion of scientism. They have a post-modern flavour to me.

But more-so that knowing how to split an atom turns out to be potentially disastrous from a human perspective. Hiroshima and the mechanised mass horror of the holocaust, and machine mass warfare targetting civilian populations, played a role in putting Modernism into the spotlight for critique.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, Gertie, that's probably a reasonable asessment of the values many postmodernist aspire to. But I don't think it's fair to berate science for being interested in objectivity and falsifiability. That's just what science is and how it works.

Many postmodernists and New Agers say that they recognise the usefulness of science, but that they don’t like “scientism”. And they lob the terms “reductionism” and “scientism” as insults at anyone who calls postmodernist and New Age excesses into question.

But what do such people mean by the terms “reductionism” and “scientism”? If they take scientism to be the view that science is the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values, then I, too, would reject scientism. But that is not what scientism means. Science cannot prescribe values or goals. Science is not the place to go for normativity – that can only come from within us, from our own subjective values. Scientism does not argue otherwise. So I don’t think the postmodernist crowd and New Age mysterians can hit scientismists like me over the head with that accusation.

So what about the accusations of reductionism? What I’d say about that is that if we want objective knowledge, then science is the tool we need. And science, of necessity, is reductive – that’s how it works. It finds explanations for things by studying their parts and how they all fit and operate together holistically. That is reductionism. How can a galaxy, an ecosystem, the human body, a climate, a bacterium or an atom be understood as a whole without studying the parts and the interrelations and govern the parts and which, together, result in the whole?

As mentioned, whilst science cannot determine values or goals, it can, however, provide explanations for how subjective values and normativity, and perhaps even religion, arose in us and what purpose they might serve. Science can study anything. Scientism is just the view that there is a unity to all knowledge. Science is certainly reductionistic but, overall, it is a unifying view of the world.

The unity of knowledge thesis is, IMO, the defining feature of scientism. It sees the real world as a seamless, self-consistent whole, and argues that the best description of it will also be a seamless, self-consistent whole. That is, there should be a "consilience”, or self-consistent meshing of different areas of knowledge and of ways of attaining that knowledge. That is all scientism is about.

Scientism rejects the idea that knowledge is granular and to be gleaned here and there from various "non-overlapping magisteria", as Stephen Jay Gould put it. The idea that there are distinct and different “ways of knowing”, each appropriate to distinct, walled off, “domains”, is rejected by scientism.

All areas are open to science. When it comes to acquiring objective knowledge, science is the universal solvent. And if that is what scientism means, as I believe it does, then I am an unashamed scientismist who wears the label as a badge of honor.

Perhaps those who think there are “other ways of knowing” could tell us what those ways are, and point to an area of inquiry which they think cannot be investigated by science. Some may want to say that science cannot tell us anything about love, or art or morality. But I think that science can tell us a lot about these. Science can study any and all phenomena. And I think that it is this universality which the postmodernists and mysterians don't like. They don't want science impinging on what they see as their turf. That is a problem they have. It does not indicate that there is anything inherently wrong with science or a scientistic worldview or that there really are "other ways of knowing".

[Gertie]

lagaya

Yes, Gertie, that's probably a reasonable asessment of the values many postmodernist aspire to. But I don't think it's fair to berate science for being interested in objectivity and falsifiability. That's just what science is and how it works.

If you consider PM as some alternative world view with competing values and assertions, it fails. What it does well imo, is ask us to question our inherited assumptions and norms. What are they, who created them, why, what are the consequences. And how does our inherited language frame and limit how we think about the world and our selves - our world view. our abilities and limitations, our role in the world. (Think how feminism challenged how patriarchy is built into the language). That's all good.

What PM doesn't do is offer a different set of norms and assumptions which can escape the need for those questions. It's a question without a solution in that way I think, and we're left in something of a limbo. There is no PM value system as such. It leaves us to find a way to come to a post PM consensus if we choose, in the knowledge of the ways that the previous religious and Modernist ones were flawed.

Many postmodernists and New Agers say that they recognise the usefulness of science, but that they don’t like “scientism”. And they lob the terms “reductionism” and “scientism” as insults at anyone who calls postmodernist and New Age excesses into question.

But what do such people mean by the terms “reductionism” and “scientism”? If they take scientism to be the view that science is the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values, then I, too, would reject scientism. But that is not what scientism means. Science cannot prescribe values or goals. Science is not the place to go for normativity – that can only come from within us, from our own subjective values. Scientism does not argue otherwise. So I don’t think the postmodernist crowd and New Age mysterians can hit scientismists like me over the head with that accusation.

I agree. But if we think about the nature of perspective, then scientific observation reveals inter-subjectively agreed truths, not 'objective reality as it is'. Flawed and limited humans can agree about what we observe, and the implications/theories arising from our observations, but that rests on the similarity of human flaws and limitations. It's the best we can do, and it's incredibly useful, but none of us have direct access to 'objective' reality, because we are all flawed and limited beings with similarly limited perspectives.

So what about the accusations of reductionism? What I’d say about that is that if we want objective knowledge, then science is the tool we need. And science, of necessity, is reductive – that’s how it works. It finds explanations for things by studying their parts and how they all fit and operate together holistically. That is reductionism. How can a galaxy, an ecosystem, the human body, a climate, a bacterium or an atom be understood as a whole without studying the parts and the interrelations and govern the parts and which, together, result in the whole?

Yep. Horses for courses innit. And when Harris tries to say morality is scientifically reducible in that way he finds he misses something meaningful, THE thing which makes morality meaningful. And effectively has to sneak in as axiomatic that the unobservable, and scientifically inacessible qualiative nature of being an experiencing Subject grounds his entire thesis.

As mentioned, whilst science cannot determine values or goals, it can, however, provide explanations for how subjective values and normativity, and perhaps even religion, arose in us and what purpose they might serve. Science can study anything. Scientism is just the view that there is a unity to all knowledge. Science is certainly reductionistic but, overall, it is a unifying view of the world.

Right, we forget that there was no knowing what might have been found when we use the scientific method to look. What seems to be the case is that everything does hang together in an inter-connected way we call 'laws'. We might have discovered chaos, there might have been a zillion clashing laws, we might have found a god-like command and control centre, anything really. The caveat being, we are flawed and limited observers who experientially create the model of the world we see in our heads on the basis of utility to us, and certain levels of resolution. And as our instruments expand that level of resolution, the implications suggest underlying unlawlike, illogical relationships which we're not kitted to notice. Who knows what else we're not kitted out to notice from our human pov...

The unity of knowledge thesis is, IMO, the defining feature of scientism. It sees the real world as a seamless, self-consistent whole, and argues that the best description of it will also be a seamless, self-consistent whole. That is, there should be a "consilience”, or self-consistent meshing of different areas of knowledge and of ways of attaining that knowledge. That is all scientism is about.

Personally I think 'unity' is too big a word for a universe which down to its fingertips is so dynamic and often destructive. I prefer inter-connectedness.

Scientism rejects the idea that knowledge is granular and to be gleaned here and there from various "non-overlapping magisteria", as Stephen Jay Gould put it. The idea that there are distinct and different “ways of knowing”, each appropriate to distinct, walled off, “domains”, is rejected by scientism.

Yes, but he's taking a religious pov, PM sees perspective in a different way.

All areas are open to science. When it comes to acquiring objective knowledge, science is the universal solvent. And if that is what scientism means, as I believe it does, then I am an unashamed scientismist who wears the label as a badge of honor.

Alrighty!

Perhaps those who think there are “other ways of knowing” could tell us what those ways are, and point to an area of inquiry which they think cannot be investigated by science. Some may want to say that science cannot tell us anything about love, or art or morality. But I think that science can tell us a lot about these. Science can study any and all phenomena. And I think that it is this universality which the postmodernists and mysterians don't like. They don't want science impinging on what they see as their turf. That is a problem they have. It does not indicate that there is anything inherently wrong with science or a scientistic worldview or that there really are "other ways of knowing"

Well all knowing is in the form of a unique subject's experience, from a particular pov. Sometimes that particularity will matter, and sometimes it won't. The scientific method works in areas where it doesn't matter who's looking or reasoning from their observations, because the next typical person will see and reason the same. But areas like art,love and morality can't be observed and reasoned about in that way. Science can tell us how to split an atom, but not whether to drop a bomb.

Philosophically I think we have to take on the issues PM addresses, and as a social concern we need to get onto it fast. Because the globalised post-uni-religion and post-modernism limbo we're in is being exploited by powerful dubious chancers right now.

[Pattern-chaser]

If you consider PM as some alternative world view with competing values and assertions, it fails. What it does well imo, is ask us to question our inherited assumptions and norms. What are they, who created them, why, what are the consequences. And how does our inherited language frame and limit how we think about the world and our selves - our world view. our abilities and limitations, our role in the world. (Think how feminism challenged how patriarchy is built into the language). That's all good.

What PM doesn't do is offer a different set of norms and assumptions which can escape the need for those questions. It's a question without a solution in that way I think, and we're left in something of a limbo. There is no PM value system as such. It leaves us to find a way to come to a post PM consensus if we choose, in the knowledge of the ways that the previous religious and Modernist ones were flawed.

It is, and has been, my understanding that post-modernism does exactly what you say: it asks us to question axioms, assumptions, and long-held beliefs, to see if they hold up to scrutiny. If I am right in this, then why would anyone criticise PM? I imagine there must be more to it, that I am not immediately aware of...?

[Gertie]

If you consider PM as some alternative world view with competing values and assertions, it fails. What it does well imo, is ask us to question our inherited assumptions and norms. What are they, who created them, why, what are the consequences. And how does our inherited language frame and limit how we think about the world and our selves - our world view. our abilities and limitations, our role in the world. (Think how feminism challenged how patriarchy is built into the language). That's all good.

What PM doesn't do is offer a different set of norms and assumptions which can escape the need for those questions. It's a question without a solution in that way I think, and we're left in something of a limbo. There is no PM value system as such. It leaves us to find a way to come to a post PM consensus if we choose, in the knowledge of the ways that the previous religious and Modernist ones were flawed.

It is, and has been, my understanding that post-modernism does exactly what you say: it asks us to question axioms, assumptions, and long-held beliefs, to see if they hold up to scrutiny. If I am right in this, then why would anyone criticise PM? I imagine there must be more to it, that I am not immediately aware of...?

Yeah.

I think we struggle with a critique which knocks down the old certainties and inherited values but doesn't offer a different way to find consensus on new certainties and norms. PM is like an uncomfortable and de-stabilising wrecking ball, and leaves us in the rubble to work out how to rebuild. It's easy to mock. And if the old ways are working nicely for you, it can feel threatening.

[Pattern-chaser]

It is, and has been, my understanding that post-modernism does exactly what you say: it asks us to question axioms, assumptions, and long-held beliefs, to see if they hold up to scrutiny. If I am right in this, then why would anyone criticise PM? I imagine there must be more to it, that I am not immediately aware of...?

Yeah.

I think we struggle with a critique which knocks down the old certainties and inherited values but doesn't offer a different way to find consensus on new certainties and norms. PM is like an uncomfortable and de-stabilising wrecking ball, and leaves us in the rubble to work out how to rebuild. It's easy to mock. And if the old ways are working nicely for you, it can feel threatening.

PM "doesn't offer a different way to find consensus on new certainties and norms"? Agreed, sometimes it doesn't. And maybe sometimes, that is because PM has discovered unsafe past "certainties" that are not certain; that in the situation concerned, there *are* no certainties?

I think one of the problems people have with PM is that it can take their certainties away, and it leaves them feeling vulnerable, and they don't like that feeling? Certainties are reassuring, even when we only *pretend* they're certain...

Life — real life, in the real world — is filled with apparent uncertainties. To deny this is ... what's the word I'm looking for?

[Lagayascienza]

lagaya

Yes, Gertie, that's probably a reasonable asessment of the values many postmodernist aspire to. But I don't think it's fair to berate science for being interested in objectivity and falsifiability. That's just what science is and how it works.

If you consider PM as some alternative world view with competing values and assertions, it fails. What it does well imo, is ask us to question our inherited assumptions and norms. What are they, who created them, why, what are the consequences. And how does our inherited language frame and limit how we think about the world and our selves - our world view. our abilities and limitations, our role in the world. (Think how feminism challenged how patriarchy is built into the language). That's all good.

What PM doesn't do is offer a different set of norms and assumptions which can escape the need for those questions. It's a question without a solution in that way I think, and we're left in something of a limbo. There is no PM value system as such. It leaves us to find a way to come to a post PM consensus if we choose, in the knowledge of the ways that the previous religious and Modernist ones were flawed.

Many postmodernists and New Agers say that they recognise the usefulness of science, but that they don’t like “scientism”. And they lob the terms “reductionism” and “scientism” as insults at anyone who calls postmodernist and New Age excesses into question.

But what do such people mean by the terms “reductionism” and “scientism”? If they take scientism to be the view that science is the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values, then I, too, would reject scientism. But that is not what scientism means. Science cannot prescribe values or goals. Science is not the place to go for normativity – that can only come from within us, from our own subjective values. Scientism does not argue otherwise. So I don’t think the postmodernist crowd and New Age mysterians can hit scientismists like me over the head with that accusation.

I agree. But if we think about the nature of perspective, then scientific observation reveals inter-subjectively agreed truths, not 'objective reality as it is'. Flawed and limited humans can agree about what we observe, and the implications/theories arising from our observations, but that rests on the similarity of human flaws and limitations. It's the best we can do, and it's incredibly useful, but none of us have direct access to 'objective' reality, because we are all flawed and limited beings with similarly limited perspectives.

So what about the accusations of reductionism? What I’d say about that is that if we want objective knowledge, then science is the tool we need. And science, of necessity, is reductive – that’s how it works. It finds explanations for things by studying their parts and how they all fit and operate together holistically. That is reductionism. How can a galaxy, an ecosystem, the human body, a climate, a bacterium or an atom be understood as a whole without studying the parts and the interrelations and govern the parts and which, together, result in the whole?

Yep. Horses for courses innit. And when Harris tries to say morality is scientifically reducible in that way he finds he misses something meaningful, THE thing which makes morality meaningful. And effectively has to sneak in as axiomatic that the unobservable, and scientifically inacessible qualiative nature of being an experiencing Subject grounds his entire thesis.

As mentioned, whilst science cannot determine values or goals, it can, however, provide explanations for how subjective values and normativity, and perhaps even religion, arose in us and what purpose they might serve. Science can study anything. Scientism is just the view that there is a unity to all knowledge. Science is certainly reductionistic but, overall, it is a unifying view of the world.

Right, we forget that there was no knowing what might have been found when we use the scientific method to look. What seems to be the case is that everything does hang together in an inter-connected way we call 'laws'. We might have discovered chaos, there might have been a zillion clashing laws, we might have found a god-like command and control centre, anything really. The caveat being, we are flawed and limited observers who experientially create the model of the world we see in our heads on the basis of utility to us, and certain levels of resolution. And as our instruments expand that level of resolution, the implications suggest underlying unlawlike, illogical relationships which we're not kitted to notice. Who knows what else we're not kitted out to notice from our human pov...

The unity of knowledge thesis is, IMO, the defining feature of scientism. It sees the real world as a seamless, self-consistent whole, and argues that the best description of it will also be a seamless, self-consistent whole. That is, there should be a "consilience”, or self-consistent meshing of different areas of knowledge and of ways of attaining that knowledge. That is all scientism is about.

Personally I think 'unity' is too big a word for a universe which down to its fingertips is so dynamic and often destructive. I prefer inter-connectedness.

Scientism rejects the idea that knowledge is granular and to be gleaned here and there from various "non-overlapping magisteria", as Stephen Jay Gould put it. The idea that there are distinct and different “ways of knowing”, each appropriate to distinct, walled off, “domains”, is rejected by scientism.

Yes, but he's taking a religious pov, PM sees perspective in a different way.

All areas are open to science. When it comes to acquiring objective knowledge, science is the universal solvent. And if that is what scientism means, as I believe it does, then I am an unashamed scientismist who wears the label as a badge of honor.

Alrighty!

Perhaps those who think there are “other ways of knowing” could tell us what those ways are, and point to an area of inquiry which they think cannot be investigated by science. Some may want to say that science cannot tell us anything about love, or art or morality. But I think that science can tell us a lot about these. Science can study any and all phenomena. And I think that it is this universality which the postmodernists and mysterians don't like. They don't want science impinging on what they see as their turf. That is a problem they have. It does not indicate that there is anything inherently wrong with science or a scientistic worldview or that there really are "other ways of knowing"

Well all knowing is in the form of a unique subject's experience, from a particular pov. Sometimes that particularity will matter, and sometimes it won't. The scientific method works in areas where it doesn't matter who's looking or reasoning from their observations, because the next typical person will see and reason the same. But areas like art,love and morality can't be observed and reasoned about in that way. Science can tell us how to split an atom, but not whether to drop a bomb.

Philosophically I think we have to take on the issues PM addresses, and as a social concern we need to get onto it fast. Because the globalised post-uni-religion and post-modernism limbo we're in is being exploited by powerful dubious chancers right now.

Gertie, you mentioned feminism. I agree that, insofar as postmodernism similarly prompts us to question assumptions and prejudices, it has been useful.

In respect of science’s inability to show us reality “as it is in itself” I would make three points. The first is that I’m not sure that it matters. The second is that nothing else can show us what reality “is in itself” either. And, thirdly, I think science does offer a good measure of objectivity.

In respect of my first point, just because we can never know entirely what things are “in themselves" that is no reason to despair. What we can know is reliable and useful. Whilst science will never be finished, each discovery brings greater understanding. It doesn’t matter that we will never get to an end of scientific understanding, only that we get more of it.

My second point is that, whatever science cannot show us, nothing else can either. PM or religion or mysticism tell us nothing about the universe “as it is in itself”. In fact, it’s hard to know what “in itself” actually means here. What we know is that PM and mysticism and religion give us only unfalsifiable claims. I can start a religion today and no one will be able to prove that it is not true. But my religion will not be knowledge of reality “as it is in itself”. It will just be bullsh#t. Science can only deal with what can be falsified and not with any old unfalsifiable claims. Science deals with the physical stuff and forces of the natural universe and the laws that govern their interactions. Scientism says that we have no evidence to suggest that there is anything else. As for "intuition", which the mysterian crowd are wont to resort to, sientism says that intuition is just the outcome of physical brains and minds operating in accordance with the same laws that govern the rest of the physical universe. There is nothing else to see there.

In respect of my third point about objectivity, if you do a repeatable experiment that purports to show that X = n, then, if I and a heap of other people repeat your experiment, and if we all get the same value for X, we can be confident that the value for X is, objectively, n. That is the type of objective knowledge that science provides.

Evolution gave us rationality, but it is true that it gave us only a “dashboard” from which to read off information about the world outside our heads. However this is enough to enable us to move around and survive in and explore the universe. Augmented by science, it show us that there is something objectively real out there which we can study and manipulate and which behaves in a predictable and law-like manner. And the more we probe with science the more we understand about the stuff that’s out there. And, again, there are no other ways of acquiring such knowledge about anything.

Science provides useful, and to some extent, objective knowledge about the stuff that is actually out there. And, importantly, it can be a reliable guide to (if not absolute proof of) what’s most likely not out there – ghosts, spirits, gods, demons and the like.

That said, I think people like Harris seriously over-reach when they claim that science can determine moral values. Science cannot provide normativity or tell us what values or goals we “ought” to have. We can only know that by reference to our “passions” as Hume put it. However, science can help us achieve what we have already determined is worth pursuing. And it can also tell us something about our “passions”. For example, we’ve discovered a lot about how and why morality evolved - it evolved to foster cooperation which fostered survival and the passing on of their genes.

Finally, when I mentioned the “unity of knowledge thesis” which is pretty much waht scientism is all about, I didn’t mean “unity” in the trivial sense that everything in the universe is connected to everything else (although it is). What I mean is that nature, and all real knowledge, is of a piece, and the way of gaining knowledge about nature is with rationality and the scientific method. Rationality and the scientific method are the only ways of gaining knowledge that has a measure of objectivity. There are no “other ways of knowing”.

I agree with P.Z. Meyers who says that science is incompatible with religion and mysticism in the same sense that the serious pursuit of knowledge about reality is incompatible with bullsh#t. And I think the claim that there are “other ways of knowing” is just that,bullsh#t, because no one is ever able to say what these “other ways of knowing”, so beloved of the PM and mysterian crowds, actually are. Science, on the other hand, can study any real phenomena. I invite those who disagree with this to name any area of inquiry, or any phenomenon whatsoever, that cannot be investigated by science.

[Lagayascienza]

*typo
End of para 8 should read: "...the passing on of genes".