In this series on the science of purpose, I have been discussing the limits of scientism resulting from the inherent limitations of subject-object metaphysics (SOM), which is fundamental to science itself: That is, the analytical framework introduced by René Descartes in the 17th century remains intact in the modern science of today. Descartes famously created the subject-object dualism by dividing experience into the two realms of res extensa and res cogitans. He declared, simply stated, the ultimate separation of mind from external reality. His metaphysics is embodied in his famous statement, “Cogito ergo sum.”  (I think, therefore I am.)

The metaphysics of Aquinas accommodated mind, body, and soul without dualism. But the metaphysics of Descartes overturned that precedent of scholastic metaphysics. Descartes is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of Western science. And the conversion from medieval scholasticism to Cartesian dualism propelled scientific advance dramatically. 

The Errant Path

But in a manner quite unintended, it was this very dualism of Descartes, and his abandonment of Thomistic Aristotelianism, that has led us inexorably onto the errant path of scientism and scientific atheism.

How so? 

For the 250 or so years following Descartes, enlightenment, modern, and postmodern philosophers such as Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant labored valiantly but in vain to reconcile Cartesian dualism with common experience. It really is impossible to fit a square peg into a round hole, even when the greatest minds try for centuries to do so. Their combined experience is aptly summarized by the most famous of them all, Immanuel Kant, who proclaimed that, because of SOM, we never really know the “Ding an sich.” (The thing in itself.)

The Bad Argument

In his book Seeing Things as They Are: A Theory of Perception, Berkeley professor of philosophy John Searle has described this state of affairs as “The Bad Argument. One of the biggest mistakes in philosophy in the past several centuries…it is the mistake of supposing that we never directly perceive objects in the world but directly perceive only our subjective experiences.” (pp 10-11)

And while all of this may seem to many as just so much esoteric and irrelevant philosophizing, these philosophical misadventures led directly to a deeper and more regrettable outcome.

In my most recent post, “Understanding Limits of Scientism,” I pointed out that it is impossible to analyze vision or consciousness/mind via SOM. And yet, that is exactly what Western philosophy has tried unsuccessfully to accomplish for almost three centuries. And although it is seldom explicitly articulated as such, the goal of Descartes and all of his successors was to somehow isolate and grasp the human soul as an object.  That is, in the same way that they unsuccessfully attempted to grasp vision and consciousness: via SOM. Which is impossible.

Considering all of the above, this failure created a gaping void that scientism opportunistically aggrandized. Since materialists, aka scientific atheists, only believe in energy and matter as discerned by SOM, the abject failure of SOM “to find the soul” has proved to them that their atheism is correct.

Again quoting John Searle, “Philosophy never completely overcomes its history, and many of the mistakes of the past are still with us.” (p. 10)

If we want to overcome scientism, we must recognize these mistakes, and return to the timeless truths that obviate the misguided beliefs of materialism.