[lbo-talk] Scientism

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Sun Oct 8 15:25:35 PDT 2006


You are perhaps thinking of the title of John Dewey's book, The Quest for Certainty? As a pragmatist, Dewey was wholly skeptical of any claims to certainty, philosophical, scientific, or religious.

--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> The "Lust for Certainty" (who coined that phrase?)
> in the 20th century
> took/has taken/takes two forms. On the one hand the
> attitudes (of either
> scientists or non-scientists) which can be labeled
> "scientism" in that
> they hold that (their version of) science provides
> such certainty; on
> the other hand those (like ravi) who, finding
> correctly that science
> does not provide that religious certainty, argue
> that it doesn't provide
> any certainty at all. The argument, for example,
> that astrology "might"
> be true shows that religious dogmatism and religious
> scepticism have the
> same source -- the conviction that unless a
> proposition is guaranteed by
> the Word of God there is no reason to believe it.
>
> Carrol
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

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