Editing Scientism (section)

==Rationalization and modernity==
{{See also|Rationalization (sociology)|Antipositivism#Frankfurt School}}
In the introduction to his collected works on the [[sociology of religion]], [[Max Weber]] asked why "the scientific, the artistic, the political, or the economic development [elsewhere]&nbsp;... did not enter upon that path of rationalization which is peculiar to the [[Western world|Occident]]?" According to the German social theorist [[Jürgen Habermas]], "For Weber, the intrinsic (that is, not merely [[Contingency (philosophy)|contingent]]) relationship between [[modernity]] and what he called 'Occidental rationalism' was still self-evident." Weber described a process of rationalisation, [[disenchantment]] and the "disintegration of religious world views" that resulted in modern [[secularisation|secular]] societies and [[capitalism]].<ref name="Habermas1990">Habermas, Jürgen (1990), ''[[The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity]]'', Polity Press, {{ISBN|0-7456-0830-2}}, pp. 2–3.</ref>
{{blockquote|text="Modernization" was introduced as a technical term only in the 1950s. It is the mark of a theoretical approach that takes up Weber's problem but elaborates it with the tools of social-scientific [[Structural functionalism|functionalism]]&nbsp;... The theory of modernization performs two abstractions on Weber's concept of "modernity". It dissociates "modernity" from its modern European origins and stylizes it into a spatio-temporally neutral model for processes of social development in general. Furthermore, it breaks the internal connections between modernity and the historical context of Western [[rationalism]], so that processes of modernization&nbsp;... [are] no longer burdened with the idea of a completion of modernity, that is to say, of a goal state after which "[[postmodern]]" developments would have to set in.&nbsp;... Indeed it is precisely modernization research that has contributed to the currency of the expression "postmodern" even among social scientists.|author=[[Jürgen Habermas]]|title=''[[The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity]]''}}

Habermas is critical of pure [[instrumental rationality]], arguing that the "Social Life–World" of subjective experiencing is better suited to literary expression, whereas the sciences deal with "intersubjectively accessible experiences" that can be generalized in a [[formal language]], while the literary arts "must generate an [[intersubjectivity]] of mutual understanding in each concrete case".<ref name="Olson2008">{{cite book |first=R. |last=Olson |date=2008 |title=Science and scientism in nineteenth-century Europe |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-07433-2 |lccn=2007005146 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h8C7fe50J0AC&pg=PA1 |page=4 |access-date=2016-01-27 |archive-date=2016-07-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160731183052/https://books.google.com/books?id=h8C7fe50J0AC&pg=PA1 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=J |last1=Habermas |first2=JJ |last2=Shapiro |date=1971 |title=Toward a rational society: student protest, science, and politics |format=paperback |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-4177-2 |lccn=73121827 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cW7PmVj7kzQC&pg=PA50 |pages=50–51 |access-date=2016-01-27 |archive-date=2016-07-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160731182652/https://books.google.com/books?id=cW7PmVj7kzQC&pg=PA50 |url-status=live }}</ref> Habermas quoted writer [[Aldous Huxley]] in support of this duality of literature and science:
{{blockquote |text=The world with which literature deals is the world in which human beings are born and live and finally die; the world in which they love and hate, in which they experience triumph and humiliation, hope and despair; the world of sufferings and enjoyments, of madness and common sense, of silliness, cunning and wisdom; the world of social pressures and individual impulses, of reason against passion, of instincts and conventions, of shared language and unsharable feelings and sensations...|author=[[Aldous Huxley]]|title=''[[Literature and Science]]''}}