Is science the only way of knowing?

Most of us learned that science provides good answers to all sort of questions ranging from whether a certain drug is useful in treating COVID-19 to whether humans evolved from primitive apes. A more interesting question is whether there are any limitations to science or whether there are any other effective ways of knowing. The question is related to the charge of "scientism," which is often used as a pejorative term to describe those of us who think that science is the only way of knowing.

I've discussed these issue many times of this blog so I won't rehash all the arguments. Suffice to say that there are two definitions of science; the broad definition and the narrow one. The narrow definition says that science is merely the activity carried out by geologists, chemists, physicists, and biologists. Using this definition it would be silly to say that science is the only way of knowing. The broad definition can be roughly described as: science is a way of knowing that relies on evidence, logic (rationality), and healthy skepticism.

The broad definition is the one preferred by many philosophers and it goes something like this ...

Unfortunately neither "science" nor any other established term in the English language covers all the disciplines that are parts of this community of knowledge disciplines. For lack of a better term, I will call them "science(s) in the broad sense." (The German word "Wissenschaft," the closest translation of "science" into that language, has this wider meaning; that is, it includes all the academic specialties, including the humanities. So does the Latin "scientia.") Science in a broad sense seeks knowledge about nature (natural science), about ourselves (psychology and medicine), about our societies (social science and history), about our physical constructions (technological science), and about our thought construction (linguistics, literary studies, mathematics, and philosophy). (Philosophy, of course, is a science in this broad sense of the word.)

Sven Ove Hanson "Defining Pseudoscience and Science" in Philosophy of Pseudescience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem.

Clearly, scientific education ought to mean the implanting of a rational, sceptical, experimental habit of mind. It ought to mean acquiring a method – a method that can be used on any problem that one meets – and not simply piling up a lot of facts.

George Orwell

Using the broad definition, one can make a strong case that science is the only proven way of gaining knowledge. All other contenders are either trivial (mathematics), wrong (religion) or misguided (philosophy). So far, nobody that I know has been able to make a convincing case for any non-scientific way of knowing. Thus, I adopt as my working hypothesis the view that science is the only way of knowing.

• Science Doesn't Have All the Answers but Does It Have All the Questions?
• Territorial demarcation and the meaning of science
• What Is "Science" According to George Orwell?
• The trouble with scientism
• What Is Knowledge?
• Can theology produce true knowledge?

Last year, Jerry Coyne revived the debate by posting an article about our favorite philosopher Maarten Boudry.¹ Boudry also adopts the broad definition of science and agrees that there are no other ways of knowing [Scientism schmientism! Why there are no other ways of knowing apart from science (broadly construed)]. As I mentioned above, the debate is related to the charge of "scientism," which is often levelled against people like Boudry and Coyne (and me).

The debate over science as a way of knowing hasn't been settled. There are still lots of philosphers fighting a rearguard action to save philosophy and the humanities from the science invasion. Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci have put together a series of papers on the debate and it's a must-read for anyone who participates in this war. One of the defenders of philosophy in this book is Stephen Law, who is active on Facebook so you can engage in the debate there.

Stephen claims that there are two kinds of questions to which science cannot supply answers: moral questions and philosophical questions. Neither of those make any sense to me. Moral questions are essentially questions about the best way for societies to behave and the answers to those questions clearly depend on evidence and on observations about existing societies. As for philosophical questions, Law describes them like this,

On my view, philosophical questions are, for the most part, conceptual rather than scientific or empirical, and the methods of philosophy are, broadly speaking, conceptual rather than scientific or empirical.

Stephen Law recognizes the distinction between "questions" and "knowledge" and, while he defends philosophy as "valuable exercise," he admits that pure reason alone can't reveal reality.

So perhaps, there's at least this much right about scientism: armchair philosophical reflection alone can't reveal anything about reality outside of our own minds. However, as I say, that doesn't mean such methods are without value.

If you've read this far, then good for you! Read the ongoing debate between Jerry Coyne and Adam Gopnik [Are The Methods Used By Science The Only Ways Of Knowing?]. Now watch this lecture given by Jerry Coyne in India a few years ago to see if you can refute the idea that science is the only way of knowing.

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1. That's Boudry on the right in a photo taken back in 2010 when he was just a graduate student attending a conference at the University of Toronto. He's with Stefaan Blanke. I also visited Maarten in Gent, Belgium a few years later.