On Saying “That”











12 responses to “On Saying “That”

  1. ” I agree with Charles Taylor as well that naturalistic reduction – scientism is the more appropriate label – is a moral hazard”

    Why do you think that scientism is a moral hazard? Can you spell it out?

  2. Thanks for the comment.

    I don’t know whether I can spell it out to your satisfaction but I’ll try. Scientism puts exact science before human understanding and that’s ass backwards. In doing so it will (and it has) sacrificed humanity because it is “logical” to do so. Logic here is misunderstood as something inhuman which it’s not. Science is not the problem by the way – just its misapplication as primarily exact instead of primarily human.

    The current outgrowth of scientism as the moral hazard is economism where economy as a science is completey misunderstood: see


    Other than that I recommend the book of Charles Taylor.

  3. Hi JoB, Thanks for your answer. I think that honest exploration in to any question is conducive to good philosophy and that truth springs from arguments among friends. The aim of my questions is not to win an argument but to provoke thinking. If somebody questions me, I do not take it as an act of hostility but a way to improve my thinking.

    You wrote, “Scientism puts exact science before human understanding”

    Can you give an example of this?

  4. Hello ontorealist,

    I totally agree with your take on arguments. I took no offense to your question but obviously it is so that writing is being vulnerable (which is why you need it to be done between friends) and vulnerability comes with some anxiety.

    To your question: I tried to give examples, but of course there is no definition of scientism so it’s probably difficult to give something sufficiently clear. What I believe is that, specifically in the current popular account of exact science, it is believed to be able to answer everything. Some believe it can detect some level of religious feeling on an MRI-scan. I think this is obviously wrong on a scientific level but also that it flies in the face of the fact that humans do have an understanding – as friends who can argue – that comes before any such a scientific explanation.

    Well, it at least is a try ;-).

    Thanks for reaching out.

  5. O.K. good.

    You wrote, “What I believe is that, specifically in the current popular account of exact science, it is believed to be able to answer everything.”

    I also think that this is what is generally believed. I agree that science(physics) does not and cannot know everything about what actually exists and what is actually happening. The reason for my thinking so is that physics cannot not know the actual reality but only humanly perceivable existence. But actual reality is not limited to that which can be perceived and understood by human mind, it is much more than that.
    Do you understand this? Do you understand Kant’s Transcendental Idealism? Or Nietzsche’s ontological perspectivism?

  6. I won’t claim I understand anything but I have read and thought about it all.

    Time for me to ask a question, you say “But actual reality is not limited to that which can be perceived and understood by human mind”.

    Here I am maybe too scientific – for me the human sciences come before the exact sciences and for me also there is something ontological in how human understanding can come about, still I really don’t know how to make sense of an actual reality that can be humanly neither perceived nor understood. This would be a mystery and mysteries are neither here nor there. Mysticism is in my view worse than scientism because it negates critical thinking.

  7. You wrote, “Time for me to ask a question——”

    What is your question to me?

  8. What actual reality do yo think exists beyond that which can be perceived & understoood by the human mind?

  9. 1. I had said that actual reality is not limited to that which can be perceived and understood by human mind.
    2. I have a human mind.
    So, how can I tell you what actual reality exists beyond that which can be perceived & understood by the human mind?

    Do you understand?

  10. I understand that you believe neither you nor I can understand. So I won’t try the impossible.

  11. Pingback: Being of Two Minds: Anomalous Monism | Quoughts

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