Unlike the use of the scientific method as only one mode of reaching knowledge, scientism claims that science alone can render truth about the world and reality.
Scientism’s single-minded adherence to only the empirical, or testable, makes it a strictly scientifc worldview, in much the same way that a Protestant fundamentalism that rejects science can be seen as a strictly religious worldview.
Scientism sees it necessary to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical, philosophical, and (...)
Home > Resources in pathology > Epistemology
Epistemology
Epistemology of biology and medicine
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scientism
13 November 2005 -
scientific revolution
13 November 2005A development which arose in the early sixteenth century with the cosmological discoveries of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). Copernicus, going against the current belief that the Earth was stationary and at the center of the universe, hypothesized a Sun-centered (heliocentric) universe with a moveable Earth. Further discoveries by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) confirmed the second of these hypotheses, and added two other discoveries: 1) planetary orbits in the shape of ellipses, and 2) an (...)
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reductive physicalism
13 November 2005A doctrine stating that everything in the world can be reduced down to its fundamental physical, or material, basis. For this reason, the word "physicalism" is often used interchangeably with the word "materialism." Both terms hold that the real world consists only of matter and energy, and that all organic and inorganic processes can be explained by reference to the laws of nature. Physics, the main branch of science generally supporting this view, has been able to explain a large range of (...)
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reductive materialism
13 November 2005The view that only the material world (matter) is truly real, and that all processes and realities observed in the universe can be explained by reducing them down to their most basic scientific components, e.g., atoms, molecules, and everything else thought to make up what we know as "matter."
For example, a reductive materialist would view the miraculous and unexpected healing of a supposedly terminal cancer patient as a random coincidence of solely biological and physiological processes (...) -
postmodernism
13 November 2005post-modernism
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Omega
13 November 2005Greek for ending or last.
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non-reductive physicalism
13 November 2005Complex structures or concepts can have irreducibly non-physical properties, such as consciousness and will.
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non-linear non-equilibrium thermodynamics
13 November 2005Non-Linear, Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics
A branch of physics developed in the latter half of the twentieth century that deals with systems of particles that are far from the near-equilibrium conditions studied in classical thermodynamics and which are governed by complex, non-linear forces. Significant attempts have been made to extend this theory into the realm of living (self-replicating) (...) -
non-linear systems
13 November 2005Non-Linear Systems
Systems which are not characterizable by linear or first-order equations, but are governed by any variety of complex, reciprocal relationships, or feedback loops. -
neoplatonism
13 November 2005Neoplatonism is a thought form rooted in the philosophy of Plato (c. 428-347 B.C.E.), but extending beyond or transforming it in many respects. Neoplatonism developed as a school of thought in the Roman Empire from the third to the fifth century of the common era (C.E.). However, the term itself was coined only recently in the mid-ninteenth century, when German scholars used it to distinguish the ideas of later Greek and Roman Platonists from those of Plato himself. Plotinus (c. 204-270 (...)
