Question During discussions with one of my friends (who is an undergraduate biologist) we often enter into the empiricism vs. rationalism debate. In support of empiricism as the best route to true knowledge my friend often cites the many practical achievements made throughout history resulting from a scientific/empirical approach. In response to this I find it difficult to cite any significant advancements or examples of knowledge which can be credited to the side of rationalism. Indeed it seems to me the invocation of science's great 'utility' is often used as a defence of its (sometimes questionable) actions as well as its assumed superiority as a means to true knowledge. Therefore my question is how can one most effectively challenge science's monopoly on truth and knowledge (particularly in today's 'science worshipping society') in the face of its great practical achievements?

Accepted:
July 27, 2008

Comments

Perhaps we need to ask a prior question: why would we make such a challenge? And living in a country where large numbers of people are suspicious of evolution and think that people who worry about global warming or nutty or part of a conspiracy, I'm not so sure that society really is "science worshiping."

If you want to know the truth about the natural world, science is your best bet. That's because "science" isn't a secret cabal, but most importantly it's a set of intellectual methods that let us explore the empirical world systematically, weed out unpromising hypotheses, and gauge the strength of likely explanations. Does acupuncture work for back pain? The answer may well be yes. But anecdotes aren't enough to make the case. We need the kind of systematic techniques that we call science. At the other end of the spectrum, how many dimensions does space-time have? We may never know for sure. But it's a safe bet that our best answer will come from science. And on it goes.

If rationalism here is supposed to mean a priori methods for coming to conclusions about the nature of reality, then there's not much in the way of good reasons to think it will get us very far. After all, we've come to see through science that there are excellent reasons to believe things that various rationalist thinkers thought must be false. But from all this it doesn't follow that every worthwhile question is a scientific question. Some questions that we care about a great deal are of a different sort. If you are writing from the USA, you may be trying to decide who should be the next President. Facts are relevant, and so is science. (For example if a candidate is in the grip of bad science, and is likely to make policy accordingly, that's relevant.) But I'm not going to turn to "science" to tell me how to cast my vote. Science is relevant to the questions that go under the heading of the "free will problem," but two people who agree about the science may well disagree about the best way to interpret what the science tells us. In thinking about what, if anything, counts as cause and effect we want our answer to mesh in a reasonable way with science and to be guided by scientific insights. But the kind of questions that thinkers like Hume were asking aren't simply scientific questions. We could multiply examples indefinitely.

So there's room for a reasonable division of labor. Look to science for what science is good at providing, and give the wide range of that its due. But we needn't fear on that account that no other kinds of questions remain and that no other stances are ever appropriate. There's no one best tool for thinking about things.