http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html
I highly recommend anything Dr. Feser writes. Here is a bit, but the entire post is worth reading...
I highly recommend anything Dr. Feser writes. Here is a bit, but the entire post is worth reading...
Quote:
Scientism is simply not a coherent position. You cannot avoid having distinctively philosophical and extra-scientific theoretical commitments, because the very attempt to do so entails having distinctively philosophical and extra-scientific theoretical commitments. And if you think that these commitments arerationally justifiable ones and of course, anyone beholden to scientism thinks his view is paradigmatically rational then you are implicitly admitting that there can be such a thing as a rationally justifiable thesis which is not a scientific thesis. Which is, of course, what scientism denies. Thus scientism is unavoidably self-defeating.
The fallacy is simple, and blindingly obvious once you see it. So why is it so common? Why do so many otherwise genuinely smart people (as well as people who merely like to think they are smart, like combox trolls) fall into it?
Part of the reason is precisely because it is so common and so simple. Again, as Putnam complains, even many professional scientists (by no means all, but many) commit the fallacy. So, when you call someone out on it, there is a strong temptation for him to think: "If my critic is right, then I and lots of other scientists have been committing a pretty obvious fallacy for a very long time. Surely that can't be!" They think that there must be some way to avoid the contradiction, even if they are never able to say what it is, and always end up doing exactly what they claim to be avoiding, viz. making extra-scientific philosophical claims. Paradoxically, the very obviousness and prevalence of the fallacy keeps them from seeing it. As Orwell famously said, "to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
Then there is the element of pride. You have to be smart to do natural science. Combox trolls usually are not very smart, but theythink of themselves as smart, because they at least have the capacity to pepper their remarks with words like "physics," "science," "reason," etc. as well as to rehearse whatever science trivia they picked up from Wikipedia. So, suppose you are either a scientist or a combox troll who has gotten your head full of scientism. You are convinced that philosophers and other non-scientists have nothing of interest to say. Then one of them points out that you are committing a fallacy so simple that a child can see it. That can be very hard to swallow. And if the person pointing out the self-defeating character of scientism happens to be religious, the blow to one's pride can be absolutely excruciating. "Some religious nut is going to catch me out on a blatant fallacy? No way in hell! I refuse to believe it!" One's pride in one's presumed superior rationality locks one into a deeplyirrational frame of mind.
A third factor is that, though the fallacy is pretty simple, you have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of certain philosophical concepts realism, instrumentalism, self-contradiction, etc. and a basic willingness to think philosophically, in order to be able to see it. Now, suppose you not only don't know much about philosophy, but are positively contemptuous of it (as those beholden to scientism often are). Then you are not going to know very much about it, and you are not likely to be able to think very clearly about even the little bit you do know. Your prejudices keep getting in the way. You are bound to be blind even to obvious fallacies like the one in question.
The bottom line is that if you cannot help doing philosophy for again, the very act of denying that one needs to do it itself involves one in a philosophical commitment but at the same time also refuse to do it, then you are inevitably both going to do it and do it badly.
