ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the notion is scientism – defined as an excessive trust in science and its methods – and how it relates to the general approach of liberal naturalism. It is acknowledged that the term “scientism” can be used to excess, as a generic (and unwarranted) trump card to defend irrational or anti-rational views. Scientism is then connected to our conceptions of what science itself is. Suggestions are made on how to develop a more organic view of the relationship between science and the humanities, with particular reference to philosophy, based on a much under-appreciated framework proposed in mid-20th century by Wilfrid Sellars and his “stereoscopic” view of what he called the scientific and the manifest images of the world. As Sellars himself envisioned, it is a major and crucial task of philosophy to continually monitor and negotiate our conceptualization of the relationship between the two images.
