Science, Scientism, and the Disunity of Science: Popular Science during the COVID-19 Pandemic [Special Issue]
Issue: Issue 13 • Author/s: Nicolò Gaj, Giuseppe Lo Dico
Topics: Epidemiology, Epistemology, Philosophy of Medicine, Philosophy of science
Unsurprisingly, science has been conferred growing expectations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the issue of dissemination and popularization of scientific outcomes has come to the fore. The article describes the main features of the so-called dominant view in popular science, which is claimed to be implicitly connected to scientism, a stance identifying science as the most (if not the only) reliable source of legitimate knowledge. Scientism’s implicit philosophical roots are argued to lie in naturalism and a trivialized neopositivist concept of science, which underscores the supposed unity…