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Science Unlimited?

The Challenges of Scientism

Maarten Boudry Massimo Pigliucci

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English
Chicago University Press
12 January 2018
All too often in contemporary discourse, we hear about science overstepping its proper limits - about its brazenness, arrogance, and intellectual imperialism. The problem, critics say, is scientism: the privileging of science over all other ways of knowing. Science, they warn, cannot do or explain everything, no matter what some enthusiasts believe.

In Science Unlimited?, noted philosophers of science Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci gather a diverse group of scientists, science communicators, and philosophers of science to explore the limits of science and this alleged threat of scientism.

In this wide-ranging collection, contributors ask whether the term scientism in fact (or in belief) captures an interesting and important intellectual stance, and whether it is something that should alarm us. Is scientism a well-developed position about the superiority of science over all other modes of human inquiry? Or is it more a form of excessive confidence, an uncritical attitude of glowing admiration? What, if any, are its dangers? Are fears that science will marginalize the humanities and eradicate the human subject - that it will explain away emotion, free will, consciousness, and the mystery of existence - justified? Does science need to be reined in before it drives out all other disciplines and ways of knowing?

Both rigorous and balanced, Science Unlimited? interrogates our use of a term that is now all but ubiquitous in a wide variety of contexts and debates. Bringing together scientists and philosophers, both friends and foes of scientism, it is a conversation long overdue.

Edited by:   ,
Imprint:   Chicago University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 23mm,  Width: 16mm,  Spine: 2mm
Weight:   425g
ISBN:   9780226498140
ISBN 10:   022649814X
Series:   Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith
Pages:   320
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Maarten Boudry is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University, Belgium. Massimo Pigliucci is the K. D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. He is the author of many books, including Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk and, most recently, Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life. Together they are the coeditors of Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem.

Reviews for Science Unlimited?: The Challenges of Scientism

"""Science Unlimited? tries to establish a clarity to the debate over the scope and limits of scientific knowledge, and whether there are forms of knowledge other than the scientific. With breadth and topicality, the contributors' arguments critical of and defending scientism ring true. This book will appeal to a wide range of scholars, including those working in the fields of (obviously) philosophy, but also the sciences themselves, religion-based specialties, and the humanities in general.""--John S. Wilkins, author of ""Species: A History of the Idea"" ""What is scientism? Can there be too much science? What are the limits in the pursues of science? Is there room for other valid ways of knowing? Can science address questions of religion, morality, philosophy, alternative medicine, and economics? What is the relation between science and the humanities or the social sciences? How does scientism affect politics, from education to health care? Science unlimited is a collection of chapters addressing all kinds of questions about all kinds of meanings of scientism.""--Renia Gasparatou ""Science & Education"""


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