Editing Scientism (section)

===Pro-scientism===
Physicist and philosopher [[Mario Bunge]] used the term ''scientism'' with a favorable rather than pejorative sense in numerous books published during several decades,<ref>{{cite book |last=Bunge |first=Mario |year=1983 |title=Epistemology & Methodology II: Understanding the World |series=Treatise on Basic Philosophy |volume=6 |location=Dordrecht; Boston |publisher=[[D. Reidel]] |isbn=9789027716347 |oclc=9759870 |doi=10.1007/978-94-015-6921-7 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=HXb8U35LfKMC&pg=PA263 263]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mahner |first1=Martin |last2=Bunge |first2=Mario |date=1997 |title=Foundations of Biophilosophy |location=Berlin; New York |publisher=[[Springer-Verlag]] |isbn=3540618384 |oclc=36630019 |doi=10.1007/978-3-662-03368-5 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6is9AggSLMcC&pg=PA135 135] |s2cid=6273758 |quote=Finally, we should add a version of ''scientism''&nbsp;... This is the thesis that anything knowable and worth knowing can be known scientifically, and that science provides the best possible factual knowledge, even though it may, and does, in fact, contain errors. This form of scientism should not be mistaken for the neopositivist unification program, according to which every discipline should ultimately be reduced to one basic science, such as physics or psychology.}}</ref><ref name=Bunge2006>{{cite book |last=Bunge |first=Mario |date=2006 |title=Chasing Reality: Strife Over Realism |series=Toronto Studies in Philosophy |location=Toronto |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |isbn=0802090753 |oclc=61174890 |doi=10.3138/9781442672857 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6GraKxazuOQC&pg=PA264 264] |quote=As for scientism, it is the thesis that the scientific method is the best strategy for attaining the more objective, more accurate, and deepest truths about facts of any kind, natural or social.&nbsp;... True, Hayek (1955) famously claimed that scientism is something quite different, namely, the attempt on the part of some social scientists to ape their colleagues in the natural sciences, in ignoring the inner life of their referents. But this arbitrary redefinition involves confusing naturalism, or reductionist materialism (as practised, e.g., by the sociobiologists), with scientism.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bunge |first=Mario |date=2017 |chapter=Scientism |title=Doing Science: In the Light of Philosophy |location=Singapore |publisher=[[World Scientific]] |isbn=9789813202764 |oclc=959200429 |doi=10.1142/10333 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SwGyDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA137 137] |quote=Scientism is the thesis that ''all cognitive problems are best tackled by adopting the scientific approach'', also called 'the scientific attitude' and 'the scientific method.' While most contemporary philosophers reject scientism, arguably scientists practice it even if they have never encountered the word.}}</ref> and in articles with titles such as "In Defense of Realism and Scientism"<ref>{{cite book |last=Bunge |first=Mario |title=Annals of Theoretical Psychology |chapter=In Defense of Realism and Scientism |date=1986 |volume=4 |pages=23–26 |publisher=[[Springer-Verlag]] |doi=10.1007/978-1-4615-6453-9_3 |quote=As for scientism, I take it to be quite different from Tennessen's 'belief in some sort of ''scientific world view'' miraculously emanating from the main bulk of the testimony of the senses or so-called scientific results.' The brand of scientism I defend boils down to the thesis that scientific research (rather than the navel contemplation or the reading of sacred texts) can yield the best (truest and deepest) possible knowledge of real (concrete, material) things, be they fields or particles, brains, or societies, or what have you.&nbsp;... I take the scientific method, rather than any special results of scientific research, to be the very kernel of scientism. Consequently, I cannot accept Tennessen's implicit approval of Feyerabend's antimethodology or 'epistemological anarchism'—the latest version of radical skepticism.|isbn=978-1-4615-6455-3 }}</ref> and "In Defense of Scientism".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bunge |first=Mario |date=December 2014 |title=In defense of scientism |journal=[[Free Inquiry]] |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=24–31 |publisher=[[Council for Secular Humanism]] |url=https://www.hpsst.com/uploads/6/2/9/3/62931075/in_defense_of_scientism.pdf |quote=Scientism is the thesis that all cognitive problems concerning the world are best tackled adopting the scientific approach, also called 'the spirit of science' and 'the scientific attitude'. While most contemporary philosophers reject scientism, arguably scientists practice it even if they have never encountered the word. However, the correct meaning of 'scientism' has proved to be even more elusive than that of 'science'... |access-date=2019-09-19 |archive-date=2019-09-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190918223231/https://www.hpsst.com/uploads/6/2/9/3/62931075/in_defense_of_scientism.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Bunge said that scientism should not be equated with inappropriate reductionism,<ref name=Bunge2006/> and he dismissed critics of science such as Hayek and Habermas as [[dogmatist]]s and [[obscurantist]]s:
{{Blockquote|text=To innovate in the young sciences it is necessary to adopt scientism. This is the methodological thesis that the best way of exploring reality is to adopt the scientific method, which may be boiled down to the rule "Check your guesses." Scientism has been explicitly opposed by dogmatists and obscurantists of all stripes, such as the neoliberal ideologist Friedrich von Hayek and the "critical theorist" Jürgen Habermas, a ponderous writer who managed to amalgamate Hegel, Marx, and Freud, and decreed that "science is the ideology of [[late capitalism]]."|author=[[Mario Bunge]]|source=''Evaluating Philosophies''<ref>{{cite book |last=Bunge |first=Mario |date=2012 |title=Evaluating Philosophies |series=Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science |volume=295 |location=New York |publisher=[[Springer-Verlag]] |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=n1FFbie7pR8C&pg=PA24 24] |isbn=9789400744073 |oclc=806947226 |doi=10.1007/978-94-007-4408-0}}</ref>}}

In 2018, philosophers [[Maarten Boudry]] and [[Massimo Pigliucci]] co-edited a book titled ''Science Unlimited? The Challenges of Scientism'' in which a number of chapters by philosophers and scientists defended scientism.<ref name="BoudryPigliucci2018">{{cite book |editor1-last=Boudry |editor1-first=Maarten |editor2-last=Pigliucci |editor2-first=Massimo |date=2017 |title=Science Unlimited?: The Challenges of Scientism |location=Chicago |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=0ApCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76 76] |isbn=9780226498003 |oclc=975442387 |doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226498287.001.0001}}</ref> In his chapter "Two Cheers for Scientism", [[Taner Edis]] wrote:
{{Blockquote|text=It is defensible to claim that scientific, philosophical, and humanistic forms of knowledge are continuous, and that a broadly naturalistic description of our world centered on natural science is correct&nbsp;... At the very least, such views are ''legitimate''—they may be mistaken, but not because of an elementary error, a confusion of science with ideology, or an offhand dismissal of the humanities. Those of us who argue for such a view are entitled to have two cheers for an ambitious conception of science; and if that is scientism, so be it.|author=[[Taner Edis]]|source="Two Cheers for Scientism"<ref name="BoudryPigliucci2018"/>}}