scientism
nounEtymology From scient- (in either Classical Latin scientia or scientific) + -ism. Compare scientist.
1
The belief that the scientific method and the assumptions and research methods of the physical sciences are applicable to all other disciplines (such as the humanities and social sciences), or that those other disciplines are not as valuable.
- Finally, with good reason, this psychology aims to be a psychology of a purely empiriological type. It is pervaded and overwhelmed on every side, however, by a pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar character, which Freud is all the less anxious to dispense with as he imagines he has no philosophy or metaphysics at all. I say pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar type, because it combines all the prejudices of deterministic, mechanistic scientism with all the prejudices of irrationalism.1964, Jacques Maritain, “Freudianism and Psychoanalysis [Freudisme et psychanalyse]”, in William Birmingham, Joseph E. Cunneen, editors, Cross Currents of Psychiatry and Catholic Morality, page 351:
- This claim, espoused by scientific naturalists, is called scientism, the view that science is the paradigm of truth and rationality. There are two forms of scientism: strong and weak. Strong scientism […]2007, Ted Cabal, The Apologetics Study Bible, B&H Publishing Group, →ISBN:
4 more examples
- This is the view of scientism. The historical roots of scientism can probably be traced to the Enlightenment with its ideology of progress and perfectibility. Perhaps its best-known historical advocate is the French social philosopher Auguste […]2008, Peter Meusburger, Michael Welker, Edgar Wunder, Clashes of Knowledge: Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in Science and Religion, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 111:
- Habermas's work of the middle and late 1960s is centrally concerned with the philosophical and sociological issues raised by scientism, the reduction of all knowledge to that furnished by the empirical sciences, where these are conceived as […]2013, William Outhwaite, Habermas: A Critical Introduction, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
- 'Scientism means ... that we no longer understand science as one form of possible knowledge, but rather identify knowledge with science.' Habermas's critique of scientism focuses on its relation to positivism, since positivism provides […]2013, David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
- First, I want to make clear that what I am attacking is not science but scientism: the mistaken belief that the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology and their derivatives) can or will give a complete description and even explanation of […]2014, Raymond Tallis, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity, Routledge, →ISBN, page 15:
2
The belief that all truth is exclusively discovered through science.
3
Rare A pseudoscience.
- The line is straight out of eugenics, the deeply dishonest scientism that in the early 20th century convinced many people that criminality, poverty and a host of other ills were all inherited.2024 October 14, Dan Vergano, “Trump’s Racist Rants against Immigrants Hide under the Language of Eugenics”, in Scientific American, archived from the original on 14 Oct 2024:
- Derived terms
- scientistic