The Historiography of Scientism: A Critical Review

Hakfoort C. , “Science deified: Wilhelm Ostwald's energeticist world-view and the history of scientism”, Annals of science, xlix (1992), 525–44, especially pp. 529–32, and 534–5.

Olson R. , Science deified & science defied: The historical significance of science in Western culture, ii: From the early modern age through the early Romantic era, ca. 1640 to ca. 1820 (Berkeley, 1990); see also vol. i, From the Bronze Age to the beginnings of the modern era ca. 3500 b.c. to ca a.d. 1640 (Berkeley, 1982); a third volume is projected. See also idem (ed.), Science as metaphor: The historical role of scientific theories in forming Western culture (Belmont, 1971). Midgley M. , Science as salvation: A modern myth and its meaning (London, 1992); see also idem, Evolution as a religion (London, 1985). Sorell Compare T. , Scientism: Philosophy and the infatuation with science (London, 1991).

Ostwald W. , “Wie der energetische Imperativ entstand”, in his Der energetische Imperativ: Erste Reihe (Leipzig, 1912), 1–24, especially p. 11: “das energetische Denken [nahm] von einem Gebiete meines Geistes nach dem andern Besitz.”.

Olson, Science deified (ref. 2), i, 62; see also ibid., ii, 8, where scientism is defined as “the wholesale extension of scientific ideas, attitudes, and activities to other domains”.

The same basic structure is common in recent editions of dictionaries and encyclopedias. In one of these sources scientism is defined as “the view that the method of the natural sciences should be applied in all areas of investigation, including philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences and that this is the only fruitful method in the pursuit of knowledge”. Encyclopaedia Britannica , 15th edn (Chicago, 1975), Micropaedia, viii, 985. Note that in this case method is the thing transferred, and that philosophy is in the domain outside science.

Olson , Science deified (ref. 2), i, 7–8, 12, quotations on pp. 8, 7 (in the original the second quote is italicized throughout).

Ibid., 62, 72–74, quotations on pp. 62, 74.

Ibid., 74, 75.

Ibid. , 75. Compare ibid., 14: “Unless we can show that elements of the scientific mentality have entered (or at least become prominent in) our culture in connection with the processes and products of unquestionable scientific activities it would be wrong to claim that this book deals with science and culture at all” (emphasis in the original).

Ibid., 119–20, quotation on p. 120.

Ibid. , ii, 72–86, especially p. 73. Compare ibid., 7: “The present work … seeks to explore in some detail the attempts of members of the scientific specialty to expand the influence of science into religious, social, political, economic, and even artistic domains.”.

Cassirer E. , The philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton, 1951).

Ibid., 6–27.

Ibid., 9.

Ibid., 12–16.

For example, ibid., 238.

Gay P. , The Enlightenment: An interpretation (London, 1967–70), i: The rise of modern paganism , pp. xiii–xiv, 9–10, 69–71.

Ibid., ii: The science of freedom, 127–8, 135, 138–9, 164; ibid., i, 398–401.

Porter R. Teich M. (eds), The Enlightenment in national context (Cambridge, 1981).

For example, ibid., 112: “the Protestant Aufklärung [in Germany] is characterized by its close relationship with progressive theology and with the churches, rather than by radical criticism or opposition.”.

See, for example, Olson , Science deified (ref. 2), ii, chap. 3, “The religious implications of Newtonian science”.

Sorell , op. cit. (ref. 2), is a recent philosophical introduction to the concept of scientism. It does not highlight significant aspects of the history of scientism that are not contained in the historical volumes I discuss in the text.

In an essay on Stephen Hawking's A brief history of time: From the Big Bang to black holes (Toronto, 1988), for a general readership, I have tried to follow this recipe. With some hesitation as well as reflection on the task of the historian, I voiced my doubts about some aspects of Hawking's views, while attempting to be fair to him. Hakfoort C. , “Fysica en wereldbeeld van Descartes tot Hawking” (“Physics and world-view from Descartes to Hawking”), De Gids, clv (1992), 713–22.

Hayek F. A. , The counter-revolution of science: Studies on the abuse of reason (Glencoe, 1952; 2nd edn, Indianapolis, 1979), 25, 202–3, quotation on p. 166.

Ibid., 263–91, 355. Manuel F. E. , The prophets of Paris: Turgot, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Comte (1st edn 1962; New York, 1965), 138–48, 263–96, pays some attention to cultic aspects and psychological motives. Significantly, in his preface Manuel apologises for “the intrusion of flesh-and-blood personages” in the history of ideas (ibid., p. viii). In Manuel's account the role of science and scientism in Saint-Simon's and Comte's religions is not prominent.

Cameron I. Edge D. , Scientific images and their social uses: An introduction to the concept of scientism (London, 1979).

Ibid., 13–26.

See, for example, Flew A. G. N. , Evolutionary ethics (London, 1967); Toulmin S. E. , “Contemporary scientific mythology” (published in 1957), republished as “Scientific mythology” in: Toulmin, The return to cosmology: Postmodern science and the theology of nature (Berkeley, 1982), 19–85. For the philosophical discussion about the is–ought distinction, see Hudson W. D. (ed.), The is–ought question (London, 1969).

Cameron and Edge, op. cit. (ref. 26), 3. From “where” onwards, the original text is in italics.

Ibid., 3, emphasis in the original.

Ibid., 5 (in the original the passage is italicized).

Ben-David J. , The scientist's role in society: A comparative study (Chicago, 1971; 2nd edn, 1984), 78. See also Olson , Science deified (ref. 2), i, 278–90.

Ben-David , op. cit. (ref. 32), 182.

Ibid., 52.

See for example Morrell J. Thackray A. W. , Gentlemen of science: Early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), 28, 31–32.

Cameron Edge , op. cit. (ref. 26), 57–58, 61. Thackray A. W. , “Natural knowledge in cultural context: The Manchester model”, The American historical review, lxxxix (1974), 672–709, especially pp. 681–2.

Cameron Edge , op. cit. (ref. 26), 60–62. The example they use is: Rosenberg C. E. , “Scientific theories and social thought”, in: Barnes B. (ed.), Sociology of science (Harmondsworth, 1972), 292–305, especially pp. 302–4.

Barnes B. , About science (Oxford, 1985), chap. 4, “Expertise in society”. In the first section of this chapter, headed “Scientism”, Barnes refers the reader “for a more extended discussion of the concept of scientism” to Cameron's and Edge's book (ibid., 155).

Ibid., 91. Barnes observes that for critics scientism amounts to “the pretence of being scientific: A scientistic argument is one which involves an illegitimate appeal to science; a scientistic attitude is one which makes a fetish of science and wrongly treats it as the only possible form of understanding” (ibid.). See also Cameron Edge , op. cit. (ref. 26), 4–5.

Barnes , op. cit. (ref. 38), 90.

For the history of science this problem has recently been recognized by Christie J. R. R. , “Aurora, Nemesis and Clio”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvi (1993), 391–405. He proposes to use power as the integrating theme in the history of science. Though I feel that there is more to science than power, this theme may well serve an integrating function, the more so because it seems to connect science and scientism. However, in my opinion Christie's concept of power needs clarification to fulfil its integrating role.

Shapin S. Schaffer S. , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985), can be read as a meticulous analysis of how science and non-science as well as the authority of science were constructed in a specific debate in seventeenth-century England. This is only a beginning of what would be desirable. The authors' contention that “we have examined the origins of a relationship between our knowledge and our polity that has, in its fundamentals, lasted for three centuries” seems to be premature (ibid., 343).

Barnes , op. cit. (ref. 38), 110–11.

Cantor G. N. , Michael Faraday: Sandemanian and scientist. A study of science and religion in the nineteenth century (Houndmills, 1991), 289–93, quotation on p. 293.

Ibid., 272–88, quotation on p. 283.

Hakfoort , “Science deified” (ref. 1), 538.

Midgley , Science as salvation (ref. 2), 1–2, 33, 36–37.

Ibid., 37.

Ibid., 51.

Ibid., 199.

Ibid., 199.

Ibid., 66, 199–200. Barrow J. D. Tipler F. J. , The anthropic cosmological principle (Oxford, 1986), 682 (emphasis in the original).

Midgley , Science as salvation (ref. 2), 162–4, quotation on p. 164.

Ostwald W. , “Die Wissenschaft”, in: Bloßfeldt W. , Der erste internationale Monisten-Kongreß in Hamburg vom 8.–11. September 1911 (Leipzig, 1912), 94–112, especially pp. 94, 107–11.

Ostwald W. , Religion und Monismus (Leipzig, 1914), 70.

Hakfoort , “Science deified” (ref. 1), 537–42.

Vanheste T. P. is studying the role of science and scientism in New Age literature. A first result of his research is found in: Vanheste T. P. , “Hoe de New Age-beweging de natuurwetenschap claimde” (“How science was claimed by the New Age movement”), De Gids, clvii (1994), 24–36.

See ref. 41.