Why is scientism philosophically wrong?

Question

I think a combination of science and philosophy _alone_ leads to closer to truth. Why is it that it is wrong to think that science _alone_ leads to truth? Isn't empirical truth the only one we can be sure about? If there is any absolute truth at all, isn't it to be uncovered through the scientific method?

Answer 1

"Why is it that it is wrong to think that science _alone_ leads to truth?"

If by "science" you mean not just "knowledge", which is what the Latin word 'scientia' means and is the origin of the English word 'science', but rather something like "knowledge obtained via the scientific method", one reason why I'd say that it's false that knowledge obtained through the scientific method is the only knowledge we have is the following. The scientific method itself rests upon assumptions that the method itself cannot justify. Here are some examples:

1. That there is an external world.

2. That the world wasn't created five seconds ago.

3. That persons' memories are generally reliable.

It's not that these assumptions are not reasonable. I think they are. The point is that the scientific method assumes them but cannot show that they are true.

"Isn't empirical truth the only one we can be sure about? If there is any absolute truth at all, isn't it to be uncovered through the scientific method?"

No.Though the truths of pure mathematics and pure logic are consistent and in some way continuous with the empirical facts that we know, it's hard to see how, e.g. that there is an infinity of prime numbers, or that, if (P and (if P then Q)) then Q, are empirical facts or that our knowledge of these facts depends upon empirical investigation. They certainly don't depend on the scientific method as we know it, for Aristotle and Euclid knew these things long before what we now call the scientific method was developed.