Science et scientisme : l’esprit scientifique et le leurre d’une science sans limite

Abstract

ContextThe article explores the relationship between the scientific approach and the scientistic discourse. We start from the gap between scientific rationality, which is based on a heuristic of uncertainty, and scientistic ideologies, which stem from a faith in the omnipotence of science, perceived as a purveyor of truth. This inverted relationship to uncertainty makes it possible to question the meanings and uses of the scientistic discourse, often used in a vague and controversial way. ObjectivesDistinguishing the scientistic discourse from the scientific approach involves questioning the status of the scientistic discourse. Does the latter correspond to a clearly identifiable epistemological position, or does it have the function of naming a set of heterogeneous and constantly evolving ideological discourses? The ideological tenor which seems intrinsically attached to this term invites us to question its mythical or phantasmatic function: the image of an all-powerful and limitless science could be likened to a defensive construction, in the face of the difficult-to-tolerate uncertainty inherent in the scientific process. MethodThe opposition between the place given to uncertainty in scientific ethics and practice, and the exclusion of this uncertainty in scientistic discourse questions the construction and function of such an image of science: it cannot be reduced to an epistemological position and must be analyzed as ideological discourse, which leads to questioning the relationship between an ideology and the function of fantasy within the social bond. ResultsEven though the term “scienticism” is sometimes used to designate an extension or an excess of the claims of scientific rationality, it seems to us, on the contrary, to be based on a denial of uncertainty and of the limits specific to the scientific spirit. This fantasy of an all-powerful science would testify to a need for certainty that is specific to narcissism, but its contemporary incarnations would also bear the mark of the fall of the ideal of scientific progress specific to modernity. Questioning the relationship between scientific approach and scientistic discourse thus highlights the heteronomy of science, which can only find outside itself the discourses and ideologies likely to legitimize it – which makes it particularly permeable to these ideologies. ConclusionRecalling the gap between scientific rationality and scientistic discourse invites us to deconstruct this idealized and hegemonic image of science. This deconstruction seems all the more crucial since a certain number of denunciations of scientistic discourse – understanding it as a threat or an excess inherent to the scientific approach itself – run the risk of giving substance to this fantasy of a science without limits. Rather than a limitation of the claims of scientific rationality, the critique of scientistic discourse would call for the reconstruction of a scientific ideal from the ashes of its founding myths and ideologies: one that leaves space for uncertainty.