>>In short, the definition of “scientism” that I would endorse is the following: there are no other ways of knowing apart from those used by the sciences (broadly construed, including history and the humanities). All valid modes of knowing are continuous to each other and rely on pretty much the same methods and modes of inference. If, on the other hand, someone presents us with a method that is completely detached from the ones used in science, like personal intuition or revelation or reading tea leaves, we can be confident that it’s rubbish.

I know I’m a few days late to this post, but I have to take issue here.

First, I think this “broad construal” of science to include history and the humanities makes “science” a meaningless term and is not really defensible. The end of the article names “personal intuition” as a “rubbish” way of knowing that is clearly detached from the methodological continuity of science. But what makes Hegelian dialectical idealism a methodologically continuous part of science that is not present in personal intuition (or, say, astrology)? You could say that it has to do with the lack of comparing notes with others and thinking rigorously, but people talk about and revise their personal intuitions based on empirical information all the time. It’s called gossiping. Is gossiping a science?

Second, I flatly disagree that something like personal intuition is an invalid way of knowing. If I’m a woman on a date and I’m noticing what could be red flags, getting bad vibes, etc, am I to reject that as an invalid type of knowledge, unfit to inform action?

Finally, I think by advocating for or spurring the adoption of this frame, you are legitimating and entrenching colonial epistemological frames. “The humanities” get to count as methodologically continuous with science and therefore valid ways of knowing, but I’ll bet you indigenous traditions don’t. Philosopher Gabriela Veronelli argues that colonialism operates along linguistic lines by separating true, sufficiently sophisticated languages from lower, brutish, pseudo-languages. Colonial subjects are facially excluded from the category of possible interlocutors because their linguistic milieu is thought to be fundamentally unconnected with the type of rationality necessary for “civilized” discourse. This view of what gets to count as a legitimate way of knowing, to me, seems to do much the same: if a person doesn’t have access to traditions that are methodologically continuous with science—or if they find particularly pertinent meaning or knowledge from a tradition that is not methodologically continuous with science—they are told this is an invalid form of knowing and whatever insight should be thrown out on the face of it, without consideration. Meanwhile, ideas emerging from methodological continuity with science like dialectical materialism are worthy of rigorous consideration.