I don’t think you can dismiss positivism or scientism so easily. Carnap, at least, was well aware of the seeming contradiction in positivism but did not think it was a problem. He even had the technical machinary to deal with these problems of self-reference: the positivist criterion quantifies over first-order statements. It is therefore second-order, and so type theory does not allow it to refer to itself.

I think this approach is too formal, and prefer Carnap’s own defence. The positivist criterion of meaning is just a *ladder* that we erect temporarily to ascend from our current idealistic vocabulary into the positivist one, after which we can throw the ladder away. On this view, the positivist criterion of meaning becomes more like a political or rhetorical assertion rather than a definition to be analysed, at least until we have fully internalised it.

And this is where Hitchens and Dawkins are particularly strong. They’re got great rhetoric. They may be anti-philosophy, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, I actually find it refreshing.

And I’m not convinced that Dawkins or Hitchens would say “science has primacy over all interpretations of life”. I think your article could have done with some quotations to support that claim. And it seems to be stretching the term to call this “religion” anyway.

@Vaz: Thanks for the comment!

I could have been a bit more specific, I suppose. I wasn’t intending to link Dawkins with Scientism, just that of the “New Atheism”.

As for Carnap, I’ll review the material as the distinction you’ve mentioned seems quite interesting.

“the critiques that Dawkins and the rest of the “new atheists” make of religion are somewhat laughable.”

i have heard this many times and i wonder if you have actually read the start of the book where dawkins defines what kind of religion he is attacking. he is specifically attacking the kind of prayer answering – sinner smiting – noah flooding gods (which as he states appears to be a very popular flavour of religion)

the book is NOT supposed to be have proof of the non existance of any kind of god – he never states this, nor do i think this is even possible.

the book is supposed to be written in answer to the literalist interpretations of major monothestic religions.

@rob: Oddly enough, Dawkins does present an argument for the non-existence of God in his book. It’s a parody of the Ontological Argument.

But for the large part, I would agree. His critiques of religion or social critiques of religion. As I said in a previous comment, my goal was not to equate Dawkins to a Scientistic person (though he might be), I was just using Dawkins as an example of a “new atheist”.

I’m not sure you’ve presented a consistent discussion of Scientism here. First you regard it as the view that science has primacy over all interpretations of life. They you refer to it as a restatement of positivism, that only scientific claims are meaningful.

I think it would be worthwhile to focus on what it means to say that an interpretation of life is scientific.

And I do not think it is accurate to say that science rests on empiricism, as if some philosophical argument against empiricism could invalidate General Relativity or CERN. Again, this suggests that you are not working with a practical notion of “science.” Those guilty of “Scientism” could reject your arguments simply for not reflecting their understanding of science.

For example, if “science” is described as the formalization of new methods of discovery (a definition I’ve come up with and rather like), then it makes perfect sense to say that a scientific interpretation of life trumps all others. This is only to say that an interpretation of life that involves methodical discovery is better than one which does not. This does not rely on empiricism or any other philosophically controversial views. Of course, we could debate what it means for something to be a method of discovery, and there is surely room for disagreement here. But that does not lend plausibility to your argument.

I’m not sure from reading this post that there actually is a single person who holds the position you’re criticizing. Clearly you find the idea that someone would to be objectionable, but I don’t think it’s particularly fair to single out Dawkins without providing a reference to his public statements or written work. There’s a fair bit to sample.

I would suggest that “science is the most reliable means we have of discovering the nature of the universe” is a lot closer to what someone like Dawkins actually believes. Saying that scientific statements are the only meaningful statements is to say that the statement “I like Mozart” is nonsense, which is clearly not the case.

I’m also not sure why you seem to think that people need to be professional philosophers in order to be atheists. I would agree with you that philosophy can be quite fulfilling, but it’s hardly necessary to reject religious belief (or accept it, for that matter).

I accept both the criticisms from you Jason, and you Alan and I will take them into consideration if I write another article on the subject.

I did not mean to categorize Dawkins as Scientistic though I see how it came out that way.

Thanks for the feedback!

I thought this was a very worthwhile article to read and in principle agree with the argument you are making. Dawkins is unfortunately not a philosopher, he's a scientist and the two are very different disciplines. It is the case that showing how religion originates is not an ontological argument of any form. Dennett is much more sophisticated in his book 'Breaking The Spell' than Dawkins is but even he can't make an ontological statement other than the commitment that science has made (implicitly) to some form of physicalism. However, Dennet does make one point of science very clearly and well, that is that science is not committed to saying this or that exists but it is committed to testing hypothesis. That in effect is parallel to logical arguments about the structure of science made by Karl Popper (though the two don't have exactly the same views, again, in principle the idea is the same).

That however, is the central critique against religion, that is that it doesn't stand up to testing (as far as it has been done…and that's not that much).

One thing I don't quite understand in your article however, is how one can argue that science doesn't rest on empiricism. Science is a systematic form of empiricism. It doesn't matter if you are a postivist or agree with Popper or any other philosopher of science, the method of science is what makes it science and the method is based around empiricism. It's in effect exactly that method that excludes a commitment to an ontology in place of a search for regularities and laws that explain and predict natural phenomena that makes science what it is. From the body of facts that are accumulated about the world and the logical structure that is found from these facts and their relations the scientific world view is framed.

Scientism i think it's worth noting is also at present a commitment to third person methodologies as far as the Geisteswissenschaften (or social sciences) are concerned. There is a growing antipathy toward this limitation of science certainly within the Philosophy of Mind. But that is another issue.

There is also a point made in one of the earlier comments made here that rightly distinguishes atheism from science. the secularization of society and the resultant atheism are not scientific commitments. In fact most atheists are not professional scientists. In addition I've personally had some very meaningful conversations with evolutionary psychologists who hold religious views. If we agree with either the logic of your article or the comment I am making here that implies no clear contradiction.

All in all however, I found the article worthwhile. I don't think there is enough of a critique of people like Dawkins, Dennett and other scientists who are unfortunately given to rhetorical methods where they lack substantial proof. The entire edifice of memetics is also in-part based on the same rhetoric.

be glad for your thoughts/comments.

LeBlanc, as an ignostic, strong atheist, new atheist,empiricist, humanist, naturalist and skeptic, I favor my argument the atelic or teleonomic one that as the [ scientific] weight of evidence reveals no predetermined out comes- teleonomy, that itself contradicts God's intention- teleology- for what happens in the Cosmos..Thus creation evolution obfuscates by adding intent to natural selection. And the presumption of naturalism holds::natural causes and explanations themselves are the sufficient reason, Leibniz notwith standing.
All teleological arguments- fine-tuning, probability, design and from reason/ the self-refutation of naturalism, claim that there is intent, thus begging the question. As Jerry Coyne adumbrates in " Seeing and Believing,' had circumstances been different, and I add here, that being the cooling-off period and the arrival of the flowering plants, neither we nor any comparable species have evolved: no intent.He keel hauls Kenneth Miller as does Amiel Rossow in his essay on Miller- both essays now @ FRDB or Talk Reason.
We naturalists, perforce cannot advocate scientism, but as other fields do intent count; and John Haught notwithstanding, we do not do that by excluding the supernatural [ or, I add the paranormal, when he states that there are other venues of knowledge whereby he begs the question of those venues. Someone claims that logic and intuition are fields of knowledge that refute naturalism, but no, naturalism rests partly on logic, and intuitions can be disconfirmed. Art, music and other fields then do play a role for us naturalists,but not faith-based matters. Evidentialism, perforce, carries the day.
Thus William Kingdon Clford wins out against William James. Now the evidence is proportionate to the claim as and as necessary as the claim so one doesn't dither forever to act. This is fallibilism, which James himself insists on in his account of taking faith: the difference is that one doesn't act on belief but on the promise of that belief ; so, James errs there.
What makes for them are the presuppositions behind the argument from beauty- just look around yourself and think how all this came about and the argument from pareidolia that people see intent and design as people see Yeshua in a tortilla when there are only teleonomy and patters that appear. These two naturalistic- the atellic and from pareidolia- arguments accompany partially Xenophanes's and Feurbach's criticisms,but is not here ,however, the genetic fallacy at play, but only that there is no reason to see intent, quite another matter altogether!
Another excellent site is Digital Bits Skeptic.
Google skeptic griggsy and the presumption of naturalism, the one of rationalism, the one of skepticism, the problem of Heaven and the ignostic-Ockham for fuller argument.

"It seems that the general consensus amongst this community is that as long as they can explain how a belief in God originated, they have showed it to be false. In fact, this is wholly fallacious (it’s known as the Genetic Fallacy)."
Things get kinda hairy here. Certain arguments of this general type are not always fallacious. An argument from the origination of a belief whose conclusion was a claim to truth would be fallacious but not a similar one whose conclusion was a claim to justification. More clearly, you're right that this kind of argument would not show belief in God to be false, but it may show belief in God to be unjustified. I take it that this is one of the insights that reliabilists proposed in response to Gettier's cases.

Mitchell, as adumbrated @ WEIT, there is there is the majority provisional methodological naturalism and the minority one of the accommodationists and even PZ Meyers. The former would include the supernatural and the paranormal should they ever rest on evidence[ and my naturalism, should they overcome the need for evidence for His referents and attributes, but the attributes would have to be coherent and non-contradictory.] The latter excludes a priori the two superstitions as the creationists of any stripe maintain..].
Thales Naturalist Griggsy [Carneades]

Mitch, I now call it the teleonomic argument whils I call the argument that all teleological ones beg the question the atelic one. I firget who originally noted that begged question.
Also, I’ve learned that supernaturalists use the arguments from incredulity and from ignorance behind other arguemnts.
” Logic is the bane of theists.” Inquiring Lynn