The Problem with Positivism

How do you know that scientific knowledge is the only valid kind of knowledge?

Well, you don't. That is a value judgment (an irrational one, at that) for which no one scientific evidence exists.

One can, of course, formulate positivism differently: "scientific knowledge is the best kind of knowledge." The abovementioned problem remains, but it's less fatal. But that raises the question of how "best" is to be understood.

There are plenty of things we know to be true for which no scientific evidence does (or even can) exist. Scientific evidence is, in some ways, based on them. Mathematical axioms are a good example. You can't prove that for every two points in space there is exactly one straight line connecting them. You just accept the self-evident truth of it.

But once you do that, you're moving away from positivism. You acknowledge that scientific knowledge is, ultimately, only useful for those phenomena which science is intended to study: naturalistic and materialistic phenomena. And when you grant that, it's a short leap to assert that science necessarily has nothing to say about non-naturalistic and non-materialistic phenomena: the substance of miracles and the existence of the divine.

None of this is new, of course. But I sometimes wonder that it has to be said. I have a cold and I'm sleep-deprived, yet typing out this criticism took me all of five minutes and I engaged, like, four neurons.

Comments

[imnobody]

Great blog! Keep with the good work!

[Rick]

You might be interested in reading about the Logical Positivists and how their philosophical movement fell into disarray.

Bertrand Russell looked pretty clever for a while there, but I'm confident that every philosophical argument he advanced for scientism (i.e. the idolatry of science) is flawed.

Also, you might be interested in Quine.

[RClosser]

It's apparent that you've only used four neurons in writing this. You mention that "There are plenty of things we know to be true for which no scientific evidence does (or even can) exist..." and go on to say an example of this is "You can't prove that for every two points in space there is exactly one straight line connecting them." Really? this is your logic? There is ample evidence that two points only make one line. There is so much evidence for it, that we've quit testing it. If one test proved it wrong, then the theory would be revised, as per the scientific method. Science does not set out to "prove" things, rather it gives evidence for theories and disproves incorrect ones.
Also, it's obvious that "god" is outside of science, which is pretty convenient. This is also why god most likely does not exist, as there is no evidence for it.

[Proph]

Hello RClosser, welcome to the blog. As you say, at best science can offer us plenty of evidence for the assertion that there is exactly one line which can connect any two points in space. But then no one goes around saying "this claim [basically Euclid's first axiom] is supported by the evidence." They say that it is *true*, a judgment which science itself cannot furnish. Indeed, it cannot *not* be true, and we don't need science or even empirical observation of any sort to tell us this. Euclid predates the formalization of the scientific method by a millennium or two, after all.

But I see what you're getting at, so let's take an example of something that is also regarded as obviously true which we know despite its nonempirical nature: the validity of scientific evidence. After all, scientific evidence can only be interpreted on the basis of the assumption that (a) objective reality exists and (b) our senses are basically capable of discerning its nature. A deficiency in either of these respects is sufficient to call scientific knowledge into question. But notice that these are pre-scientific assumptions. Science itself cannot furnish evidence to support them, or rather, we could only accept that evidence with an a priori assumption that science is basically valid as a means of acquiring knowledge. In any event, this is a nonscientific and metaphysical assertion.

So if scientism is true, then it's impossible to know that scientism is true, since science wouldn't be able to tell us. Thus it must be the case, if it's true, that it's impossible to know anything.

So it must be the case that it is, in fact, possible to know things through methods other than science. But if that's true, then scientism is false, anyway.

In either case, it's false -- false because it is self-refuting.

[RClosser]

I had to look up the word "scientism" because I've never herd this term. My dictionary says "the theory that investigational methods used in the natural sciences should be applied in all fields of inquiry." You attacked scientism in the above comment, although I've already said in my first comment that god is outside of science. As for the two assumptions of science, I suppose we have to assume objective reality exists. We could through this out, but it would be pointless and lead to no end, and as Descartes said: Cogito ergo sum. As for the other assumption that "our senses are basically capable of discerning its nature" I disagree. Much of science being pursued in this day (in chemistry and physics) has its roots in the quantum realm, which we are not capable of being sensed by us. The days of pure observational science died before Einstein. Science is the pursuit of truth by the scientific method. Aristotle thought we could deduce truths from thought and logic alone, but many of his theories about the natural world were shown to be false. Personal experience and thought don't even come close to the high bar you've set for knowledge. But even if we were to suppose for a second that there are other ways of knowing things, this is a very far cry from there being a supernatural realm, and even a further cry from showing that a god exists.

[Proph]

I haven't set a high bar for determining what counts as a valid source of knowledge, though. I'm simply saying that whatever epistemological system is the correct one must, of necessity, not be self-refuting, because a thing which self-refuting cannot possibly be true.

You are correct to say we simply have to accept scientism's assumptions. (Scientism, by the way, is the more general sense in which I meant "positivism.") The problem is that scientism gives us no reason to do so; in fact, if we apply it rigorously, it positively disqualifies the validity of those assumptions precisely because science itself cannot furnish them. In essence, what scientism ends up saying is, "Metaphysics is bunk, except the ones necessary to validate this claim." But why should we let it make such an unprincipled exception?

You are right that establishing that there are valid forms of knowledge beyond what are revealed to us by science tells us nothing about God or theistic principles in general. It's not intended to. This post was just to establish that metaphysical speculation of the sort indulged in by Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Edward Feser, et al., is *in principle* legitimate -- that we cannot disqualify them simply because they are nonscientific.