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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Zygon 2020-09, Vol.55 (3), p.782-791
Main Author: Stump, J. B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
essentialism
evolution
history
language
pseudoscience
scientific method
truth
Online Access:Get full text
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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:0591-2385
1467-9744
DOI:10.1111/zygo.12622