Science and Other Common Nouns: Further Implications of Anti-Essentialism
The term “science” is a common noun that is used to designate a whole range of activities. If Reeves is right—and I think he is—that there is no essence to these activities that allows them to be objectively identified and demarcated from nonscience, then what qualifies as science is determined by c...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2020]
|
In: |
Zygon
Year: 2020, Volume: 55, Issue: 3, Pages: 782-791 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Reeves, Josh A. 1976-, Against methodology in science and religion
/ Natural sciences
/ Religion
/ Essentialism
|
RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism CF Christianity and Science |
Further subjects: | B
Essentialism
B Language B Scientific Method B Evolution B History B Pseudoscience B Truth |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | The term “science” is a common noun that is used to designate a whole range of activities. If Reeves is right—and I think he is—that there is no essence to these activities that allows them to be objectively identified and demarcated from nonscience, then what qualifies as science is determined by communities. It becomes much more difficult on this antiessentialism position to identify and dismiss pseudo-science. I suggest we might find a way forward, though, by engaging a philosophical tradition that has largely been neglected in English-speaking science and religion studies, and by articulating a theory of consensus along the lines of Oreskes (2019). |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1467-9744 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Zygon
|
Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12622 |