Rik Peels: Scientific Fundamentalism (1/6)
Channel: Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh
Date: 2017-08-28

Part of the free online course, "Philosophy, Science and Religion" https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy-science-religion-2

In this series of lectures Dr Rik Peels (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) considers religious and scientific fundamentalism. Scientism is the currently popular thesis that only natural science gives rational belief or, alternatively, that there are no principled limits to science. In this lecture, I give several examples of scientism, such as scientism about free will. After that, I present seven reasons that have been given for scientism. Subsequently, I outline three arguments against it. Finally, I explain some crucial similarities and differences between scientism on the one hand and fundamentalism on the other. I argue that, even though some varieties of scientism resemble fundamentalism, most of them are more similar to religions or worldviews.