Six Signs of Scientism

As the English word “scientism” is currently used, it is a trivial verbal truth that scientism—an inappropriately deferential attitude to science—should be avoided. But it is a substantial question when, and why, deference to the sciences is inappropriate or exaggerated. This paper tries to answer that question by articulating “six signs of scientism”: the honorific use of “science” and its cognates; using scientific trappings purely decoratively; preoccupation with demarcation; preoccupation with “scientific method”; looking to the sciences for answers beyond their scope; denying the legitimacy or worth of non-scientific (e.g., legal or literary) inquiry, or of writing poetry or making art

The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

«Muchas verdades son pronunciadas, para que más puedan ser ocultadas», escribió el magistrado Darling en 1879. Empezando con una articulación de la distinción entre verdad (el fenómeno o concepto) y las verdades (proposiciones verdaderas particulares), este trabajo está en gran parte dedicado a: 1) desarrollar una explicación del doble significado de «parcialmente verdadero» —«verdad-en-parte» vs. «parte de la verdad»—, y 2) entender las razones, y los peligros, de la tendencia muy común a decir sólo parte de la verdad relevante.«Much truth is spoken, that more may be concealed», wrote Mr. Justice Darling in 1879. Opening with an articulation of the distinction between truth (the phenomenon or concept) and truths (particular true propositions), this paper is largely devoted to: 1) developing an account of the dual meaning of «partially true» —«true-in-part» vs. «part of the truth»—; and 2) understanding the reasons for, and the dangers of, the very common tendency to tell only part of the relevant truth

What\u27s Wrong with Litigation-Driven Science? An Essay in Legal Epistemology

I. Introduction Jeremy Bentham's memorable description of "Injustice and her handmaid, Falsehood" 2 should remind us, if we need reminding, that factual truth is an important element of justice, 3 that it really matters whether this witness's recovered memory of an alleged crime is genuine, whether this is the person who committed the crime, whether this plaintiff's injury was caused by a defect in this manufacturer's tire or seat-belt buckle or lawn-chair, whether this was the chemical exposure that caused or promoted the plaintiff's cancer, and so on. 4 Because the factual truths at issue in a case often go beyond what the average juror can be expected to know, courts have come increasingly to rely on expert witnesses, among them scientists testifying on just about every subject imaginable: experts on blood, bullets, bite-marks, battered wives; on PCBs, paternity, poisons, post-traumatic stress; on radon, recovered memories, rape trauma syndrome, random-match probabilities; on psychosis, asbestosis, silicosis (and for all I know, on psittacosis!). But as long as courts have relied significantly on scientific witnesses, there have been complaints: about the scientific ignorance and gullibility of attorneys, judges, and jurors; about "witness-shopping"; and - as my opening quotation illustrates - about the irresponsibility and venality of professional scientific experts willing to say whatever is needed to advance the cause of the party that hires them. As reliance on expert witnesses has grown, so has the felt need for courts to ensure that the expert testimony admitted is not just flimsy or ..

On Logic in the Law: Something, but not All

In 1880, when Oliver Wendell Holmes (later to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) criticized the logical theology of law articulated by Christopher Columbus Langdell (the first Dean of Harvard Law School), neither Holmes nor Langdell was aware of the revolution in logic that had begun, the year before, with Frege\u27s Begriffsschrift. But there is an important element of truth in Holmes\u27s insistence that a legal system cannot be adequately understood as a system of axioms and corollaries ; and this element of truth is not obviated by the more powerful logical techniques that are now available

Coherentism Discomposed: A Critique of Bonjour's the Structure of Empirical Knowledge

I think Lewis is quite right to hold that its inability to allow the relevance of experience to justification is an insuperable difficulty for coherentism. Coheren- tists, however, naturally enough, argue that the difficulty is superable. This paper is a case study of one attempt to overcome it: BonJour’s. BonJour attempts to accommodate experiential input within a coherentist framework by means of the imposition of an additional requirement, the ‘Observation Requirement’, on justification. This, however, turns out to be ambiguous: on one interpretation it is compatible with coherentism but fails to guarantee experiential input; on the other, it guarantees observational input all right but sacrifices the coherentist character of the theory