2

Are there any 20/21th century philosophers that talk about a different approach to the study of nature other than science? Are there any that criticize science?

Yechiam Weiss
  • 3,806
  • 1
  • 15
  • 35
  • @PédeLeão that's not the question :) – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 19:02
  • @PédeLeão I don't want to say anything that will steer this question from its objectiveness. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 19:07
  • But your question doesn't even seem to make sense. Philosophers, by definition, are people seeking knowledge, so it doesn't seem to make sense to ask about people who don't accept what they're seeking. –  Jan 30 '18 at 19:28
  • @PédeLeão are you implying science is the only method that seek knowledge? – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 19:33
  • No. I didn't say that. But concerning knowledge which we normally refer as scientific, what other method is there? I don't know what you're asking, and it's not my job to try to clarify your question. –  Jan 30 '18 at 19:37
  • @PédeLeão if you ask for an example, phenomenology might be one. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 19:42
  • 1
    Science is not the problem, rather it is science plus man's will that is the problem. There is a deep insecurity which "requires" man who look at nature in an instrumental fashion. There was a time when we could have pacified man's desire to overuse nature. 1950s thru '69. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, One Dimensional Man. It helps to know some Freud before reading Eros. Anyway, we are now in a situation where, due to our unrestricted will, we must exploit nature while at the same time curing it. This may not be possible. – Gordon Jan 30 '18 at 19:45
  • Maybe your question will make sense to someone else, but I still don't know what you're asking. Scientists don't usually deal with phenomenology because there's no apparent way to subject it to the scientific method, except perhaps as psychology. –  Jan 30 '18 at 19:45
  • @Gordon as you know, I honestly mostly agree with you. But this is why I didn't answer Pé de Leão's first question, I would really like to keep the objectiveness of this question. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 19:54
  • @PédeLeão of course scientists don't use the phenomenology method, because it's not a scientific method :) – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 19:55
  • What does that have do with it? Your question is not about what methods scientists use. –  Jan 30 '18 at 20:01
  • @PédeLeão what is science if not a method, then? – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 20:02
  • Paul Feyerabend made some interesting criticisms of science. There is a good Wikipedia on him. It may also be possible to read Arne Naess in this light, but I am less sure about Naess. – Gordon Jan 30 '18 at 20:06
  • Scientist use the scientific method - no argument there, but your question is about *philosophers* rejecting science. Why would the scientific method be a reason for rejecting science? –  Jan 30 '18 at 20:14
  • @PédeLeão I don't follow you, sorry. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 20:17
  • @Gordon thanks! Feyerabend is a good example for a criticism :) though he (as he was, after all, a philosopher of science) criticized science, and didn't suggest a different method (well, in a brief read on the Wikipedia page, he rejects any call for one methodology, so it makes sense). It's a partial answer for the question, thank you. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 20:19
  • 1
    According to Husserl, phenomenology *is* science, and its purpose is not the study of nature but of consciousness. According to Aristotle's definition, science is any systematic body of knowledge. Those who proposed alternative to the mainstream approaches to natural phenomena, like Goethe, still typically call them science So you should probably look not for something "other than science" but for a subset of science. Please include what "science" means to you into the post. What exactly do you want "other than"? Currently, it is unclear what you are asking, as PédeLeão pointed out. – Conifold Jan 30 '18 at 22:57
  • @Conifold does the add to the title helps? I mean the contemporary science. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 23:02
  • Feyerabend is not an example of a critic of science, he is a critic of positivist rationalizations of its methodology. And his exhibit A in Against Method is the *actual* practice of science, so he does not fit your conditions at all. What comes to mind instead is something like de Chardin's and Vernadsky's musings about [noosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere) or what Wikipedia lists under [Holism in science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism_in_science). – Conifold Jan 30 '18 at 23:09
  • 1
    Plessner criticised science for being too one-dimensional: Out of the sphere of phenomenological sensation, they single out that which is able to be measured, standardized, fixed. He makes a strong case for philosophy being the one discipline that can work with that which is only accessible through phenomenology (following Husserl: "erschaubar", intuitible (!?)), but not demonstrable ("darstellbar", reappearing in different ways). His philosophy of nature explicitly derives its categories from phenomenology and only deduces (justifies) their reality by means of scientific knowledge and more. – Philip Klöcking Jan 30 '18 at 23:26
  • @Conifold thank you! Those examples are great! I would like to add though, that in my badly phrased question, I did meant "critics" to philosophers of science like Feyerabend, in the sense that they're criticizing [popular] aspects of contemporary science in order to shape it more precisely. Changing the way we consider science to be. And about phenomenology, I agree that it is fundamentally about consciousness, but it's mainly about epistemology, how we [should] really understand things in the world. In that sense, it is about nature. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 23:30
  • @Conifold And I accept your definition of science, I'm simply automatically distinguish "science" and "philosophy of nature" (maybe wrongly, but from what I learned that is true) by the late 18th century (when the term "scientist" was even coined). Such as, philosophy of nature is what you say Aristotle calls science, and science is simply contemporary science. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 23:32
  • There is phenomenological philosophy of science if you are looking for methodological critique, see [Hardy's Nature's Suit: Husserl's Phenomenological Philosophy of the Physical Sciences](https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/nature-s-suit-husserl-s-phenomenological-philosophy-of-the-physical-sciences) or [Heelan's review](https://fordham.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1010&context=phil_research). Husserl himself wrote Crisis of European Sciences, [Polanyi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi) was a physical chemist and a phenomenologist. – Conifold Jan 31 '18 at 02:42
  • 1
    @Conifold "_Feyerabend is not an example of a critic of science, he is a critic of positivist rationalizations of its methodology._" It would be hard to deny all of modern science without being an extreme skeptic. – Geremia Jan 31 '18 at 03:39
  • 1
    There are critics of [methodological naturalism](https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/epistemology-naturalized/). – Geremia Jan 31 '18 at 03:40
  • @Geremia He did not deny it on its own terms, only its (in his eyes) misinterpretations which lead to unwarranted philosophical pretenses and privileged social status. But since "anything goes" anything goes, be it science, astrology or rain dances, methodological anarchism leaves no grounds for denying anything. – Conifold Jan 31 '18 at 03:50
  • You can see [Science wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars) and [Postmodernism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism) and [Scientism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism) and [Antiscience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience) for references. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jan 31 '18 at 07:39
  • 1
    I feel that to reject science is to reject philosophy. The question is difficult because there is no definition of science or Nature. Are we using Popper or someone else? What about the science of Yoga? The Dalai Lama met Popper but still calls Buddhism a 'science of mind'. I feel the question needs a lot more precision. . –  Jan 31 '18 at 12:19
  • @PeterJ will phrasing "the contemporary scientific method" be helpful? As a contrast, I mean, for example, Hegel's attempt to a priori-ly deduct knowledge about nature. I will say that I'm not exactly sure how to define it, so by commenting here you're helping me to better define the question. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 31 '18 at 12:23
  • I feel this is still not a close enough definition. The 'contemporary method' has no means of establishing the existence of consciousness yet we have 'scientific consciousness studies'. The contemporary method seems to entail defining itself very vaguely and this muddles the issues. . –  Jan 31 '18 at 12:34
  • @PeterJ maybe it'll help to say that the "science" I'm talking about is the one that is populized in contrast to philosophy. Might I say, the "popular science". – Yechiam Weiss Jan 31 '18 at 12:37
  • I feel like I should (don't think it's possible but if it is) delete this question and open a new one, with all the insights from the comments on how to better define the question. And I think I've found the most precise definition - not just "science", but more precisely, the two (most important of the contemporary science) parts in it called "mechanism" and "empirical knowledge". The question, if I were to ask it again, would be phrased - "are there contemporary philosophers of nature that reject (to any degree) mechanism and/or empiricism in contemporary science". – Yechiam Weiss Feb 01 '18 at 06:27
  • It's the focus on empiricism that causes me problems. It is assumed by most natural scientists that empiricism is the only form of experiential verification such that to be scientific is to rely entirely on our physical theory-laden senses. Others, however, would say that the scientific method should allow all forms of experiential verification. I don't know of any good philosophers who don't accept modern science as a reliable source of knowledge but many philosophers reject its self-imposed limits. This turns the question into a can of worms. . –  Feb 01 '18 at 11:07
  • @PeterJ an excellent article on the subject is Massimo Pigliucci's [Must Science Be Testable](https://aeon.co/essays/the-string-theory-wars-show-us-how-science-needs-philosophy). – Yechiam Weiss Feb 01 '18 at 11:16
  • The new formulation is much better, but I would replace "mechanism" with "physicalism" as a more recognizable term, and ask the two parts separately, they concern very different issues. As for empiricism and string theory, I once asked [Should modern empiricists embrace string theory?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/32946/9148) Also related [How should science approach non-empirical phenomena?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/32738/9148) – Conifold Feb 01 '18 at 21:38
  • @Conifold thanks, but I am more concerned with mechanism than physicalism. Although I am interested about both, so I might include them all(?). And when you say "ask the two parts separately, do you mean asking about physicalism(/mechanism) and empiricism separately, or ask them both as separated from this question? – Yechiam Weiss Feb 01 '18 at 22:11
  • One for mechanism, one for empiricism. This question also had methodological/social critique of science mixed in, as your reaction to Feyerabend indicates, that would be a third one. In the mechanism question explain what difference you see between that and physicalism. Classically, mechanism (mechanistic materialism) referred to reducing everything to mechanics, including the rest of physics, but almost no one defended that after Einstein abolished ether. Neomechanists did not even appear until last two decades. Maybe you mean something like computational theory of mind, I am not sure. – Conifold Feb 01 '18 at 23:03
  • @Conifold doesn't mechanism means simply the analyzing of physics (and other fields) as mechanical theories, the "how" questions and not the "why" questions? – Yechiam Weiss Feb 01 '18 at 23:13
  • It meant the first part in 18-19th century. As for "how" vs "why", interpreting "why" questions is a complex issue, see [Scientific Explanation](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-explanation), but only asking "how" questions is closer to positivism and instrumentalism than to mechanism and is unpopular among scientists. Providing a "mechanism" (or metaphysics more generally) *is* one of the ways to explain "why". – Conifold Feb 01 '18 at 23:31
  • @Conifold I'd like to know to better ask my questions, how would you define the most common metaphysical approach to science nowadays? Physicalistic? Empiricalistic? – Yechiam Weiss Feb 01 '18 at 23:38
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/72569/discussion-between-conifold-and-yechiam-weiss). – Conifold Feb 01 '18 at 23:45

2 Answers2

3

Shimon Malin’s “Nature Loves to Hide: Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality, a Western Perspective” offers Whitehead as a 20th century philosopher that might be what you are looking for. Schrodinger and Heisenberg would be others.

His book attempts to explain the collapse of the wave function by linking fields of atemporal potentiality with the quantum event as an actualization. Science is limited by what Schrodinger considers “objectivation” which removes the subject from the observation. That can lead to what Whitehead calls the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” where abstractions are confused with facts and are assumed to be valid outside their valid domains. In this way they criticize science.

Frank Hubeny
  • 19,136
  • 7
  • 28
  • 89
2

Of course! You know theologians exist right? They are the biggest critics of 'godless' science.

A big problem though is, how you define science. Several popes have said they accept science. The Dalai Lama says if any of the teachings of hus school of Buddhism are found in conflict with scientific findings, go with science. But these figures also hold many views which cannot be called scientific.

It might seem easy to define science, but I assure you it isn't. Falsifiability, double-blind controlled trials, repeatability, direct observations, and any number of 'hall marks' of science are actually very much discipline dependent. Occam's Razor or Baconian Induction exclude many things now accepted as science or as scientifically true. The idea science is unified in it's methodsvand homogenous is just totally wrong.

Popper developed his ideas on science specifically to stop Marxists saying historical materialism is scientific. It quickly gets political. And Dawkins and his ilk quickly resort to scientism, over truly scientific answers - which are after all very often, we don't and may never know; not a great crowd pleaser.

Critics of science from outside, tend not to have informed enough opinions to be widely listened to, and from inside tend to be reformers. The same holds generally for religions. James Lovelock or Lyall Watson argue passionately for expanded methods and paradigms, but from within, broadly, the community. I can only think of religious figures, and fringe ones, calling for a dismissal of scientific results.

Am thinking about how Foucault reinterpreted science in terms of power structures, and as influenced by and at least partly serving, biology, economics, and linguistics. So he certainly critiqued the idea that there is 'pure' science.

Thomas Kuhn's thinking about science suggested developments within it are at leastbto some extebt subjective and relative, which could be considered a rejection of ideas many scientists have about science.

Plenty of critics of aspects that may or may not be essential to science, like reductionism or positivism.

CriglCragl
  • 19,444
  • 4
  • 23
  • 65
  • 3
    I've studied many different theologians, and none of them are opposed to science. –  Jan 30 '18 at 20:00
  • 1
    Thanks :) but I might should've excluded "theologians" from the question. I would like to see answers that are more in the methodological philosophy department, and not in the theology department. And I totally agree with your statement about defining science, and as much as I'd hate to do it, for the sake of the question, let's take the generalized definition of science, and not dwell on the exact definitions (although I would wholeheartedly accept answers which will talk about those definitions). – Yechiam Weiss Jan 30 '18 at 20:01
  • 2
    Pé de Leão: you not encountering evidence, is not evidence for absence. In a quick search I found numerous theologians saying religion and science are fundamentally incompatible. – CriglCragl Jan 30 '18 at 20:24
  • 2
    It's not just a question of evidence. Any good theologian knows there's no incompatibility between science and the Omni**scient**. Afterall, God knows about the nature of the universe better than any scientist ever could, so any apparent conflict must be the error of the scientist. –  Jan 30 '18 at 20:33
  • @Pé de Leão Clarifying my statement with an example [link] WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/science-and-theology/2015/08/03/77136504-19ca-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html)[/link] – CriglCragl Jan 30 '18 at 20:45
  • @CriglCragl you and Pé de Leão are talking about two terms of science - you are talking about contemporary science, while Pé de Leão is talking about a much broader sense of science - science, as Conifold correctly suggested, that is according to Aristotle, any systematic body or knowledge. – Yechiam Weiss Jan 31 '18 at 06:29
  • 1
    I would have to agree with Pe de Leao, not that I have studied many theologians. However, I would expect the best of them to take into account the findings of science but I wouldn't expect them to focus on science per se. George Ellis, is a cosmologist and he has worked with Stephen Hawking and is something of an amateur theologian. – Mozibur Ullah Feb 01 '18 at 07:58
  • @Pe de Leao Those who don't accept evolution are in real religious movements, with their own theology. How do you account for them? You seem to have made a pre-selection, what You read, & be ignoring the rest. – CriglCragl Feb 05 '18 at 14:16
  • @CriglCragl. Those who accept evolution are basing their opinion on assumptions that can't be verified by science. Thus it is a faith doctrine, very similar to a religion. I account for my faith as a gift from God, enabling me to better recognize the authority of His revelation. How do you account for your faith in evolution? –  Feb 05 '18 at 14:48