Anti-scientism is a philosophical movement that opposes science. The main idea of adherents is that science should not affect people's lives. She has no place in everyday life, so you should not pay so much attention. Why they decided so, where it came from and how philosophers view this trend is described in this article.
It all started with scientism
First you need to understand what scientism is, and then you can move on to the main topic. Scientism is a special philosophical movement that recognizes science as the highest value. Andre Comte-Sponville, one of the founders of Scientism, said that science should be seen as religious dogma.
Scientists called people who excelled in mathematics or physics and said that all sciences should be equal to them. An example of this is Rutherford’s famous quote: “There are two kinds of sciences: physics and stamp collecting.”
The philosophical and worldview position of scientism consists in the following postulates:
- Only science is real knowledge.
- All methods that are used in scientific research are applicable for social and humanitarian knowledge.
- Science is able to solve all the problems facing humanity.
Now about the main thing
In contrast to scientism, a new philosophical trend began to emerge, called anti-scientism. In short, this is a movement whose founders oppose science. In the framework of anti-scientism, views on scientific knowledge vary, becoming liberal or critical.
Initially, anti-scientism was based on forms of knowledge that did not involve science (morality, religion, etc.). Today, the anti-scientist view criticizes science as such. Another version of anti-scientism considers the contradiction of scientific and technological progress and says that science should be responsible for all the consequences that are caused by its activities. Therefore, we can say that anti-scientism is a trend that sees in science the main problem of human development.
Main types
On the whole, antiscientism can be divided into moderate and radical. Moderate anti-scientism does not oppose science as such, but rather against the ardent adherents of scientism, who believe that scientific methods should underlie everything.
Radical views proclaim the uselessness of science, conditional on its hostility to human nature. Scientific and technological progress has two categories of influence: on the one hand, it simplifies a person’s life, and on the other, it leads to mental and cultural degradation. Therefore, scientific imperatives must be destroyed, replaced by other factors of socialization.
Representatives
Science makes a person’s life unspiritual, without a human face or romance. One of the first who expressed his indignation and scientifically substantiated it was Herbert Marcuse. He showed that the diversity of human manifestations is suppressed by technocratic parameters. The abundance of overvoltage that a person encounters daily suggests that society is in a critical state. Not only the technical professions are overloaded with information flows, but also the humanities, whose spiritual aspiration is squeezed by excessive standards.
In 1950, Bertrand Russell put forward an interesting theory; he said that the concept and essence of anti-scientism are hidden in the hypertrophied development of science, which has become the main reason for the loss of humanity and values.
Michael Polanyi once said that scientism can be identified with the church, which fetters human thoughts, forcing important opinions to be hidden behind the terminology curtain. In turn, anti-scientism is the only free movement that allows a person to be himself.
Neo-kantianism
Anti-scientism is a special doctrine that occupies a niche in philosophy. For a long time, philosophy was considered a science, but when the latter separated as an integral unit, its methods began to be challenged. Some philosophical schools believed that science prevents a person from developing and thinking extensively, while others in some way recognized its merits. Therefore, there were several controversial opinions regarding scientific activities.
V. Windelband and G. Ricket were the first representatives of the Baden Neo-Kantian school, which from a transcendental psychological point of view interpreted Kant's philosophy, where he examined the process of socialization of an individual. They defended the position of comprehensive human development, considering it impossible to consider the process of cognition separately from culture or religion. In this regard, science cannot be positioned as a basic source of perception. In the process of development, an important place is occupied by the system of values and norms with which a person studies the world, because he cannot afford to free himself from innate subjectivity, and scientific dogmas infringe him in this regard.
In contrast, Heidegger says that science cannot be completely eliminated from the process of socialization in particular and philosophy in general. Scientific knowledge is one of the possibilities that makes it possible to comprehend the essence of being, albeit in a slightly limited form. Science cannot give a full description of everything that happens in the world, but it is able to streamline events.
Existentialism
Existential philosophical schools were guided by the teachings of Karl Jaspers regarding anti-scientism. He assured that philosophy and science were absolutely incompatible concepts, since they were oriented toward obtaining opposite results. While science is constantly accumulating knowledge, and its latest theories are considered the most reliable, philosophy can, without a twinge of conscience, return to the study of a question that was posed a thousand years ago. Science always looks only ahead. She is not able to form the value potential of humanity, since it is focused solely on the subject.
It is human nature to feel weak and helpless against the existing laws of nature and society, and it also depends on a random set of circumstances that provoke the emergence of a particular situation. Such situations arise constantly up to infinity, and it is not always possible to rely only on dry knowledge to overcome them.
In everyday life, it is human nature to forget about such a thing as death. He may forget that he has a moral obligation or responsibility for something. And only getting into various situations, facing a moral choice, a person understands how science is powerless in these matters. There is no formula for calculating the percentage of good and evil in a particular story. There is no evidence that the outcome of events will be shown with absolute certainty; there are no graphs showing the feasibility of rational and irrational thinking for a particular case. Science was created specifically so that people get rid of this kind of torment and master the objective world. This is exactly what Karl Jaspers believed when he said that antisientism is one of the basic concepts in philosophy.
Personalism
From the point of view of personalism, science is confirmation or denial, while philosophy is interrogation. Studying anti-scientism, the directions of this trend, substantiate science as a phenomenon, which contradicts harmonious human development, alienating it from being. Personalists argue that man and being are one, but with the advent of science this unity disappears. The technologization of society forces a person to fight with nature, that is, to confront the world of which he is a part. And this abyss generated by science makes an individual become a part of an empire of inhumanity.
Key points
Anti-scientism is (in philosophy) a position that disputes the significance of science and its ubiquity. Simply put, philosophers are sure that, in addition to science, there must be other foundations on which a worldview can be formed. In this regard, one can imagine several schools of philosophy that studied the need for science in society.
The first course is neo-Kantianism. Its representatives believed that science cannot be the main and only basis for understanding the world, since it infringes on the innate, sensual and emotional needs of man. It should not be completely eliminated, because scientific knowledge helps to streamline all processes, but it is worth remembering about their imperfection.
Existentialists said that science is preventing a person from making the right moral choice. Scientific thinking is focused on knowing the world of things, but when it becomes necessary to choose between right and wrong, all theorems become meaningless.
Personalists are of the opinion that science disfigures the natural nature of man. Since man and the world around him are one, and science forces him to fight with nature, that is, with a part of himself.
