Scientism and the Humanities

Roger Scruton, May 7, 2013
The Wheatley Institution

[@arcturus681]

A truly great philosopher, thinker and communicator, helping us travel beyond the bounds of the materialistic straightjacket of modern culture.

[@blakej6416]

I appreciate his commenting on the economics of academia. Things certainly aren't as "pure"as many academics would have us think.

[@literatureandideasdotcom9907]

I agree. However, he elsewhere disparages Marxism for concerning itself with precisely that sort of systemic critique.

[@PeterKuypers]

At 2:00 Mr. Scruton is falling asleep and you can''t blame him....

[@TheCrusaderRabbits]

great talk. so intelligent. I love how he is conservative. What a breath of fresh air.

[@GeorgWilde]

Remove the AOC picture, please! It insults the eye.

[@TheOrdener]

Important talk. Thanks! I kept waiting for him to talk about Pascal’s Spirit of Finesse versus his Spirit of Geometry. Surely that is the base for the distinction?

[@marna_li]

I'm a dualist and I believe in methodological dualism: There is matter and there is the mind. I don't deny that mind is generated out of the biological process. My point is that thought, ideas and values exist separately in each individual. That they are in a realm that is entirely separate from the predictable natural sciences that should be studied in a different way. I believe that you can be scientific in the humanities and form theories - but they can only be strictly qualitative, and not quantitative like in the hard sciences. I don't think economics should be treated as a "hard" science either, because it is about living people and their preferences and action - not predictable like mindless matter like in physics. Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote about this in his book "Theory and History." Thus there is a natural divide between natural science and the humanities.

[@theGuilherme36]

This is the Mises and Hayek position

[@naturalismforever3469]

Robert: You have precisely ZERO verifiable evidence for your position. It is therefore merely superstition.

[@ShunyamNiketana]

Don't genetic and evolutionary factors blur that boundary? We 'value' things that harmonize our groups and cultures, and that benefits our collective and individual survivals.

[@herbspencer4332]

The Old-Greeks obsessed on the One & the Many: analytic separation of a holistic unity.

[@Macheako]

This is probably off topic, but I something Roger said sparked something. What if part of the motivation for people who partake in scientism is exactly what scientism does in regards to "ignoring the human relations of things after explaining what something IS". The whole "theme" with most people that take up scientism is this air of elitism. They simply "know" how the world works and the rest of us are too "thick skulled" to ever be at their level. The last thing they care to consider IS their own relation to this world. Because to investigate such a relation would only reveal to them their TRUE place in humanity, and society. Which, I'm guessing, isn't NEARLY as "high and mighty" of a place that they would like to be personally. So in an attempt to destroy their relation with others (which only stands to "oppress" their self-image) they disregard ALL relations in the human mind & understanding so the NEED for place, position, and relational meaning are now longer necessary. Scientism is essentially "Revenge Of The Nerds" lol For being outcasted by society, they throw off all chains, or relations they once held and now hold themselves in SUCH high esteem, they no longer have a need for such petty relations. And in doing such an act, which is truly nothing other than protecting their own ego and sense of self-worth, so it's a cowards move, but regardless, in doing so they cut off that portion of themselves which relates to knowledge and understanding itself. Because while we relate to one another, we also relate to "knowledge". What we understand IS the knowledge that we are able to "relate" with. But if you don't relate to anyone, or anything, then how can "you" even exist, and more so, how can you understand the "meaning" of anything because that what "meaning" is, the knowledge of somethings relation to oneself and all else which one understands. They're cutting off their nose, to spite their face.

[@ganshrio7336]

VERY GOOD

[@havenbastion]

This is a simple category mistake. We have different kinds of explanation for different purposes.

[@rashidaitshlih5019]

.

[@herbspencer4332]

Science studies 'Pebbles' (Dead Matter) while the Arts focus on lived Experience; so science can make objective claims about "Things" while Arts people can make subjective claims that are often valid (perhaps, not 100% like science). What is important? Each of us must make these decisions.

[@plekkchand]

I don't think the musicologist at 54:00 is very interesting.

[@debblouin]

The question of the brain not doing the interpreting...I would ask the questioner if he talks to himself? Who or what is doing the asking and who or what is doing the answering? When you refer to yourself who or what constitutes that self. Your brain? Hardly. I think you could also dig deeper when it comes to misinterpretation or misperception. It is possible to recognize when there is a conflict in one's perception and one's interpretation. What or who is recognizing that conflict?

[@lifewasgiventous1614]

When you take this line of questioning to the existential, as in why do I exist? Which is not the same as asking why do humans exist, or why do brains or biological organisms exist. You will find that consciousness seems highly personal, that consciousness presupposes identity, and that identity seems to span further than the material or so it seems.

[@JRobbySh]

Mechanically or by a more complicated process?

[@mattgilbert7347]

Is the brain really neutral? Is it not true that our brains *are* ourselves? I have a few problems with Scruton's characterisation of science or scientism, but overall this talk is excellent. First-rate. Thank you for uploading.

[@debblouin]

Matt Gilbert The brain is an organ. It does not constitute a self. Have you ever had an internal conflict? One in which your rational process was in discord with your ethical or emotional process? How did you navigate that conflict? If brain IS self, such conflict would seem to be unnavigable.

[@johnmartin2813]

+Debra Blouin ... As always it's the woman who is the only one who talks logically. (Or politely.)

[@robokill387]

@@debblouin that's an assumption.

[@wcatholic1]

Scientism as an analog of fundamentalism in relation to science?

[@villiestephanov984]

The 9th symphony is the only monogamy known as misunderstood : " is Israel a servant? Is he a homeborn slave? Why is he plundered ?"... So don't fear, for you will not be ashamed nor be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame, ( God forbid, you will forget the shame of your youth and remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore !) Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth, which is idolatry, for we are not overextending ourselves, as though our authority did not extend to you, not boasting of things beyond measure, that is in other men's labors. For with what Judgment you Judge ? And what measure do you use and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His Heritage ??

[@michaelweber5702]

V S - What the heck?

[@jonatasmachado7217]

Science works because a rational God created the Universe rationally and with a rational structure that can be rationally understood by rational human beings created in the image of God

[@antkcuck]

Nassim Talebs books on complexity and uncertainty show this to not be the case

[@antkcuck]

if you google "Incerto 'Being rational about rationalism" the author has a brilliant explanation that tackles this question

[@ghostxl8525]

mathematicians disagree with you

[@herbspencer4332]

Really, do women agree to marry a man because he's "beautiful"? Surely, it's because of his social status and future prospects. Men may seek out healthy (beautiful?) females as wives but that's because of men's privileged roles in most Warrior societies.

[@ghostxl8525]

male scientist tend to marry female partners that study fields related, terrence tao one of the best mathematicians of this generation has a nasa engineer for a wife and they are not handsome by scruton standards

[@lipingrahman6648]

I wonder if any of Scruton's ideas would hold any use or meaning in cross cultural studies. I have the unpleasant thought that they probably would not.

[@lipingrahman6648]

+Maria Callous fair enough

[@michaelweber5702]

@Maria Callous - good thinking and yes , Dr. Scrutons lecture was spot on...

[@justin_5631]

He's absolutely wrong on his first example of scientism. The question of the monogamy or polygamy of a species is a scientific question and it does have its roots in evolution. Different species have different levels of monogamous behavior, and this tends to be due to adapations in how difficult it is to raise children - whether two parents are required, one, or even none. And there are also anatomical differences in species based on the degree of monogamous behavior - gonad size and even sperm that attack foreign sperm. It is a genuine field of scientific study. Monogamy evolved in humans - so far as we are monogamous at all - because it is (or was) - extremely difficult to raise a human child. They need to be looked after for 13 years or more which required diligence from both parents. The same is not true for example, with a bear. A year or three of tending by a single mother is sufficient to bring a child bear to adulthood. This only brings home CP.Snow's original argument that people from the humanities are much more ignorant of science than people of science are ignorant of the humanities.

[@justin_5631]

But the humanities use of 'scientism' by the left is also utter nonsense. So much of sociology is play-acting by humanities scholars of what they think real science is like.

[@ppwalk05]

I think they are going to lose this fight in the long run. Claims of transcendent metaphysics are impossible to prove and most forms of idealism eventually make material claims or manifest in material action. The humanities will always have a place for unempiric philosophy, though it will be treated more and more skeptically as a solution to human problems.

[@ishmaelforester9825]

Pure metaphysics is practically the answer to every peculiarly intellectual problem, but the moderns have almost completely ignored it. If I told you it reduces all contemporary divisions of nation, race, gender, sexuality, creed, philosophy and ideology down to mere child's play, or that it involves the realization of being itself with a pertinence that is literally, and I mean literally, infinite, of course you would not believe me, but it is no less true. Look again at the so-called 'traditionalists' and 'sophia perennis' if you remain interested, but they are bare theory and effectively it has to be personal realization. Also it requires a fair bit more than mere obedience to facts: a measured asceticism, committed meditation, extended solitude and solitary contemplation etc are genuinely required to attain metaphysical realization (at least in this age), something the wisest ancients knew and the moderns ignorantly scorn to their continual detriment. Moderns want to believe that ultimate truth is accessible to people living a petty bourgeois consumer lifestyle, and in that spirit through a mere amassing of physical facts, . It just ain't, I'm afraid

[@yuudaemones2624]

+ppwalk05 Physicalism (or materialism), empiricism, indeterminism, and determinism are examples of positions in the field of metaphysics which are not empirically grounded, but actually provide the framework for trusting things like empirical evidence. Metaphysics isn't supposed to be empirical, because if it was, it would effectively render justifications for positions like empiricism, purely circular. Also, if it were to be based on the assumption that empiricism were true, it would surely become redundant alongside science. It must remain unempirical, for its own sake as well as science's. Also, logical positivism died out in the 1920s for good reason.

[@wii3willRule]

+You Daymon In hindsight, I honestly wonder how logical positivism ever got to be regarded as anything more than what it really is-- a self-referentially incoherent philosophy.

[@yuudaemones2624]

wii3willRule Agreed, I'm confounded by how prevalent positivist sentiments are these days, but I probably shouldn't be.

[@francemaster]

I didn't hear any claims of transcendent metaphysics, he said a theory of how neurons perceive images isn't the same as understanding the painting, with examples. It seems you need to watch the whole thing again - you seem to have missed the point.

[@blahdeblah6207]

just really tired of hearing music people talk about "western harmony" in a context of moral relativism and wtf is this bullshit about "scientism about harmony". why didn't you ask about the "scientism and proportion", Einstein. The intelligent codification of the musical realm commonly disdained by so-called academics as "Western harmony" works. Everywhere.

[@kevinmccahill7522]

The humanities are real, except Warhol & Derrida. Them guys are fake AF.. if I don’t like it it’s fake

[@KinkyZeebra]

why those two, specifically? just curious

[@JosephHarner]

This speaker strikes me as the sort of person who is rejecting science as a whole due to the existence of a few bad theories. Who has carved out his own niche and is determined to defend it from "Science" invading.

[@douglasliebermann5330]

Joseph Harner No of course he is not "rejecting science as a whole". That is an absurd claim. He has some important points though (and I say this as someone studying neuroscience). It is for me very unclear whether neuroscience and evolutionary biology has anything of substance to offer say art history. Neuroscience is still mostly concerned with the mapping of neural correlates for events i.e. I see pain inflicted upon another human, parts in my sensory limbic cortex are activated as I feel empathy for that person).

[@roybatty2269]

Joseph Harner Many philosophers are anti science these days because deep down they know that philosophy has been made obsolete by science, and they are afraid of loosing their jobs, positions and influence. That is why you can hear such nonsense from such smart people sometimes, like some of the things mr. Scruton says in this lecture for example. While philosophy offers mainly opinions and wishful thinking, science offers real answers based in objective reality. That is why so many philosophers find science so uncomfortable and frightening and are willing to oppose it to the point of making themselves look rather silly.

[@roybatty2269]

Edward Small And where exactly did I say he is arguing that science and philosophy contradict one another? Nowhere, you just pulled that out your ass.

[@roybatty2269]

There is no outrage, there is only amazement at the level of your stupidity.

[@roybatty2269]

Edward Small Go f yourself, moron.

[@naturalismwins8552]

Scientists are among the most erudite humanists I've ever know. Far, far more so than the idiots who tend to "teach" the humanities.

[@bookwormaddict3933]

My oldest daughter is double majoring in Psychology and Religions.

[@BillJakinovich]

There is nothing implicit to science that requires humanism. Nor, is Scruton saying people involved in the humanities are smarter than scientists, or vice versa.

[@marielcalma3831]

Naturalism Wins, I pretty much agree with you ^^

[@naturalismforever3469]

Hey Largesse: Nothing at all wrong with the term "idiot." In this case, it most certainly applies.

[@wcatholic1]

Except-we are all human, so have those inner experiences in common. Those experiences make us who we are. No area of human endeavour can be separated from its human context.