Peels Rik
Philosophy Department, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2017 Jun;63:11-21. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2017.04.001. Epub 2017 Apr 20.
A strong version of scientism, such as that of Alex Rosenberg, says, roughly, that natural science reliably delivers rational belief or knowledge, whereas common sense sources of belief, such as moral intuition, memory, and introspection, do not. In this paper I discuss ten reasons that adherents of scientism have or might put forward in defence of scientism. The aim is to show which considerations could plausibly count in favour of scientism and what this implies for the way scientism ought to be formulated. I argue that only three out of these ten reasons potentially hold water and that the evidential weight is, therefore, on their shoulders. These three reasons for embracing scientism are, respectively, particular empirical arguments to the effect that there are good debunking explanations for certain common sense beliefs, that there are incoherences and biases in the doxastic outputs of certain common sense sources of belief, and that beliefs that issue from certain common sense doxastic sources are illusory. From what I argue, it follows that only a version of scientism that is significantly weaker than many versions of scientism that we find in the literature is potentially tenable. I conclude the paper by stating what such a significantly weaker version of scientism could amount to.
一种强硬版本的科学主义，比如亚历克斯·罗森伯格所主张的那种，大致是说，自然科学能可靠地提供合理的信念或知识，而诸如道德直觉、记忆和内省等常识性信念来源则不能。在本文中，我将讨论科学主义的支持者已经提出或可能提出的为科学主义辩护的十个理由。目的是要表明哪些考量因素可能合理地支持科学主义，以及这对科学主义应如何表述意味着什么。我认为这十个理由中只有三个可能站得住脚，因此，证据的分量就落在它们肩上。支持科学主义的这三个理由分别是：具体的经验性论证，大意是对于某些常识性信念存在合理的揭穿性解释；某些常识性信念来源的信念输出中存在不一致和偏差；以及源自某些常识性信念来源的信念是虚幻的。从我所论证的内容可以得出，只有一种比我们在文献中发现的许多科学主义版本明显更弱的科学主义版本才有可能站得住脚。我在论文结尾阐述了这样一种明显更弱的科学主义版本可能是什么样的。
