Come now, and let us reason together, saith
the Lord.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow; though they be red as
crimson, they shall be as wool.
If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat
the good of the land.
Hello, and welcome once again to Faith and
Philosophy.
This week’s topic is “Understanding the
Modern and Post-Modern Mind, Part III: Scientific
Rationalism.”
Last time I talked about the three prevailing
attitudes of modernity: the autonomy and sovereignty
of the individual, the autonomy of reason,
and the sufficiency of reason to answer all
of our questions and solve all of our problems.
The poster-child for these attitudes is the
man generally regarded as the father of modern
philosophy: René Descartes.
Descartes was so troubled by the fact that
some of the things he had learned as a boy
were not true that he quite literally cleared
his calendar of all appointments, locked himself
in his room, and then vowed to doubt everything
he could possibly doubt until he found something
that was itself beyond doubt.
That thing would be the basis for all knowledge.
The result of all of this deep thinking was
his discovery was that the one thing he could
not possibly doubt was the fact that he was
thinking.
Thus, Descartes’ own ability to think became
for him the one indubitable bedrock upon which
he sought to build a coherent philosophy.
Do you see how Descartes personifies the modern
attitude?
The lonely individual, locked in his room,
determined to question everything custom and
tradition had taught him, armed with nothing
more than his own thoughts.
Interestingly, however, Descartes thought
of himself as a good Christian boy, so he
did not extend his radical method much beyond
the narrow confines of epistemology.
He did not, for example, seek to re-establish
religion and morality on a purely rational
basis.
Later thinkers, Emmanuel Kant especially,
would do this, and it will become a recurring
theme of the modern project.
In this respect, then, while Descartes set
the ball of modernity rolling, he would likely
have been shocked to see where it ended up.
In fact, even though he is regarded as the
father of modern philosophy, Descartes is
something of a whipping boy among modern philosophers,
especially those in the Anglo-American analytical
tradition.
Descartes famously distrusted sense experience
and argued that mind was fundamentally a different
sort of stuff from physical matter.
This is one of the few points on which Descartes
was closer to Plato than to subsequent modern
philosophers.
Thus, while Descartes was what we would call
a “mind-body dualist,” most modern philosophers
are strict materialists.
This brings me to today’s topic: scientific
rationalism.
According to conventional wisdom, it was Francis
Bacon who codified a method for organizing
our sense experience, giving us what we call
the scientific method.
But observation, even methodical observation,
without analysis, accomplishes little.
These observations must be quantified and
then subjected to mathematical analysis.
In a sense, we could say that modern science
is the product of both Bacon and Descartes,
who was, after all, a mathematician.
This is why I use the term “scientific rationalism”:
to denote both elements of the modern scientific
method: the ordered observation of nature,
that is, of empirical experience, combined
with mathematical or rational analysis.
Scientific rationalism, however, is more than
just the scientific method.
It is an all-encompassing philosophy.
As such, it can be defined by four essential
marks or isms: materialism, positivism, scientism,
and progressivism.
Let’s start with materialism.
This is the view that the only thing in the
universe is physical matter.
This was the view of the earliest Greek philosophers
such as Thales and Anaximander, and it is
without question the dominant viewpoint among
modern philosophers.
This is not to say that there are no challenges
to materialism.
For one thing, modern physics makes it difficult
for anyone who is not otherwise committed
to materialism to hold a crude physicalist
view of the universe.
Then again, most biologists don’t really
care what theoretical physicists have to say.
The other great challenge comes from German
idealism, which we will discuss in a later
podcast.
As an aside, I would note that from an Orthodox
perspective, German idealism is far more dangerous
than even materialism.
At any rate, and in spite of these challenges,
most philosophers and most scientists, some
physicists excepted, are thoroughgoing materialists.
Now, if we accept as our bedrock philosophical
principle that there is nothing in existence
other than physical matter, then it obviously
follows that the only path to true knowledge
is through the systematic observation and
analysis of matter.
In other words, positivism, the belief that
science is the ultimate arbiter of truth,
logically follows from materialism.
Let me stress here that positivism does not
simply assert that science is useful.
Who can question the fact that science has
provided humanity with a wealth of knowledge
about our world, some of which is even of
practical benefit?
No, positivism is the doctrine that the scientific
method is the path to truth, and all other
truth claims, if they can be said to be truth
claims at all, are subject to the ultimate
jurisdiction of scientific inquiry.
Philosophically, the high-water mark of positivism
came in the early 20th century with the advent
of logical positivism, the doctrine that the
only statements having literal significance
are those that are either tautologies, like
definitions and mathematical statements, or
those capable of empirical or scientific verification.
Any statement that does not meet one of these
two criteria—and that would include most
statements of religion, aesthetics, and ethics—is
said to be literally meaningless.
Not false, mind you, just gibberish.
While logical positivism as a philosophical
movement peaked prior to mid-century, the
attitude that science is the ultimate arbiter
of truth remains dominant, at least as far
as government bureaucracies and universities
are concerned.
In fact, bureaucracy is itself to a large
degree the product of positivism.
Indeed, what is bureaucracy if not an attempt
to systematize and regularize procedures in
a way that at the very least suggests the
procedures of the scientific method?
This brings me directly to our third ism:
scientism.
Scientism can be defined in a variety of ways.
Some people use it to refer to the fairly
widespread phenomenon of treating science
as though it were a kind of religion.
However, I’m going to use the term in a
slightly different way and I hope more precise
way.
Scientism is the conviction that all areas
of human endeavor and concern can be subjected
to the scientific method.
If you think about it, this is just the logical
outcome of materialism and positivism.
If one believes that physical matter is the
only thing in existence, and that the scientific
method is the only way of getting the truth
of things, then it follows that the scientific
method can be applied everywhere and to every
thing.
What is the human soul?
It is the mind.
The Greek word for “soul” is “psyche,”
by the way.
What is the mind?
It is, in some sense, a physical phenomenon,
or at least epi-phenomenon, which can be studied
like any other natural phenomenon.
Thus we have, on the one hand, neuroscience
that deals specifically with the brain, and
on the other hand, psychology, which deals
with human behavior.
Somewhere in the middle is psychiatry, which
borrows from both.
What unites all these different disciplines,
however, is the firm belief that each is a
science.
In addition to the behavioral sciences, the
modern era has also seen the emergences of
the social sciences: anthropology, sociology,
even political science.
Thomas Hobbes, who was a thorough-going materialist,
and who explicitly based his social thinking
upon the physics of the day, would likely
take great pride in the fact that his theories
now fall under the purview of political science.
The final ism that comprises scientific rationalism
is progressivism.
This is the belief that our ever-increasing
scientific knowledge is resulting in an ever-improving
world.
In other words, humans are not simply evolving
genetically or biologically; we are evolving
culturally, socially, and morally, and the
key to all of this is science itself.
Moderns do not simply believe in progress;
they believe in scientific progress.
Since science is unassailable and irrefutable,
progress must be as well.
Now, you and I might ponder the fact that
the high-water mark of scientific rationalism,
the 20th century, was also the bloodiest century
on record.
And we might be tempted to wonder just how
much progress we have really made.
But I caution you not to wonder too loudly
or in the wrong company.
At the very least, you will be thought unscientific,
and in some circles you will be thought un-American
and even un-Christian for doubting the inevitable
march of progress.
I must stress at this point that scientific
rationalism is not simply an attitude.
It is an all-encompassing philosophical disposition
that colors just about every facet of the
modern world.
To this day, it remains the dominant intellectual
paradigm of our society.
When you send your children off to government
schools, you are sending them off to be initiated
and indoctrinated in this secular religion.
Of course, the latter half of the 20th century
has seen the waters muddied a bit.
Post-modernism challenges many of the assumptions
and conclusions of the scientific rationalist
religion, but these challenges remain largely
peripheral.
While there is a good deal of talk of post-modern
uncertainty and a good deal of genuine confusion
in some areas like ethics, anyone who is too
vocal in challenging the dominant belief in
scientifically produced progress will be silenced
quickly enough.
It is important to understand, however, that
there are two very different understanding
by what we mean by science in the modern world.
What we call post-modernism is the result
of a direct clash in the first half of the
20th century between these two different conceptions
of science, one largely Anglo-American, the
other essentially German.
Add to this clash a renewed interest in some
of the dissenting voices of modernity, such
as David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ludwig
Wittgenstein, and you get post-modernism.
Next time we will begin to explore the historical
development of these two different conceptions
of science.
Our ultimate goal here is to understand how
we arrived at this crazy, mixed-up period
in which we live and to begin to consider
how we, as members of an undeniably pre-modern
faith, can continue to live faithfully in
these troubled and troublesome times.
Until then, may our great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ, through the intercessions of
St. Innocent of Alaska and of the blessed
Elder Sophrony (Sakharov), have mercy upon
us all and grant us a rich entrance into his
eternal kingdom.
