hen Stephen Hawking observed that philosophy is dead (which itself is a philosophical statement, of course, being insusceptible of inductive proof), he was saying so triumphantly, as if this were a good thing. The reality however is that when science ignores philosophy it becomes mere scientism.
Take the search for modern anti-depressants. The logic behind this venture is roughly as follows: find a chemical trait that is held in common by the maximum number of depressed individuals and then seek to change that trait by targeted chemical intervention.
To a materialist scientist, this statement sounds like pure science, but the fact is that it makes sense only if the scientist who affirms it is holding at least one major philosophical assumption about psychopharmacological intervention, namely that we can chemically intervene at some precise point in the causal process of a psychological condition without regard for the larger picture, i.e. without any proof that this similarity that we are thereby treating is a real cause of pathology as opposed to a mere symptom of it.
Many people suffering from headache are known to wrinkle their eyebrows. We do not know why, exactly, but we have noticed that almost all headache sufferers do this. We could come up with an intervention that keeps the patients' eyebrows straight, will they or nil they, but that intervention is based on an assumption: namely, that we are actually intervening at a meaningful and relevant location in a causal chain. Likewise, we can notice that many depression sufferers have a similar type of brain chemistry. We can intervene at this level too and attempt to correct the patient's brain chemistry, but as with the headache, we can only do this by assuming that we are intervening in response to a germane causative factor viz the patient's depression. If we intervene chemically to change a non-causative factor, we are doing no more than straightening eyebrows. In the case of the depressed patient, we are actually causing harm however because we are playing around with brain chemistry that had no need of adjustment in the first place, the anomalous chemistry being a mere symptom of a far more relevant upstream causal factor (or factors) of which we are ignorant.
Of course, in the case of depression, Robert Whitaker has already documented how the anti-depressants of Big Pharma actually cause the chemical imbalances that they purport to treat. But even if we accept that depressed people share a specific brain chemistry, it does not follow that we should intervene by brute force, as it were, to change that specific chemistry. And if we do so, we are not proceeding by the mere dictates of science, but rather we are proceeding under the philosophical assumptions of materialist reductionism.
This is why psychedelic therapy for depression is generally scorned by the scientific community, not because such treatment is non-scientific but because its success would pose an implicit challenge to modern materialism, according to which psychopharmacological interventions are "scientific" (and therefore valid and potentially useful) only to the extent that they are chemically pinpointed and quantifiable.
When modern scientists say that "philosophy is dead," they're essentially saying: "We believe so strongly in the materialist approach that we will no longer even acknowledge that it is based on premises that are susceptible of debate." In other words, to say that "philosophy is dead" is to declare victory in the war of approaches to healing. It's an intolerant statement, to put it mildly, because it says to its opponents (those, for instance, who wish to use psychedelics for psychological healing): "There's no more debate allowed. Materialism is ontologically true and therefore we will proceed according to that understanding, straightening as many eyebrows as we need to in order to make our point!"
This would be funny but for the fact that materialist reductionism already has a body count: It is responsible for the fact that 1 in 8 American males and 1 in 4 American females are addicted to Big Pharma meds -- substances that were created and justified under the materialist assumption that depression sufferers are basically identical clones who are amenable to a one-size-fits-all therapy that involves intervening at the most microscopic level possible.
Such an approach has been a colossal failure, of course, since during its ascendancy over the last 50 years, America has become the most depressed and addicted country in the world. But scientists will never learn from these mistakes if they believe, like Hawking, that materialist reductionism is above criticism, that it is no longer just a way of seeing the world but THE way of seeing it.
There is a word for this kind of arrogant materialist belief that willfully ignores its own debatable premises: that word is "scientism."
Author's Follow-up: September 24, 2022
It's hard to tell the full truth about America's befuddled views on drugs, because, ironically, drug-hating Americans really believe in the psychiatric pill mill. I have female friends who could spend hours chatting with their cronies about the collection of SSRIs that they are currently "on" and how their therapist is thinking of trying a new one, and how the apparent effects of one differ from the apparent effects of another, etc. etc.
This would only make sense, however, if there were no other drugs on the planet than the ones created by Big Pharma. But such discussions sound inane to me when I consider that almost all of the competition for Big Pharma meds is outlawed. Surely, these chat sessions should be about ending the Drug War (or this drug apartheid, as Julian Buchanan calls it), rather than cheerfully making a virtue of the necessity of choosing among a paltry list of highly habituating substances, substances that were created based on the philosophical presumption that human beings are interchangeable robots when it comes to their experience of sadness.
For those who still believe that the meds in question actually "cure" depression (presumably by fixing a chemical imbalance), I would ask them, what do you mean by "cure"? If my depression were "cured," I would be up and about, living large, and heading inexorably toward self-fulfillment. I do not consider myself cured by being tranquilized such that I accept my humble lot in life and my failure to achieve my goals. So the medicalization metaphor fails, simply because those materialist who assert they have found a "cure" for depression must be able to tell us what they mean by "cure." If their definition is not my definition, then it doesn't matter how many arguments they adduce about chemical causes of behavior -- their meds do not "cure" my depression, for the simple reason that I do not accept their definition of "cure," which, in the psychological realm, is not an objective concept but rather a subjective one.
October 22, 2022
Then too there are plenty of reasons to believe that SSRIs and SNRIs cause the chemical imbalance they purport to fix. That's why they cause such dependence, because once brain chemistry is altered, the body comes to accept that alteration and, as it were, demand it. For more on this topic, see the works of Robert Whitaker, Irving Kirsch and Julie Holland.
Author's Follow-up: September 21, 2024
These are the kinds of posts that lose me followers. Remember, however, that I am opining on ideal worlds here, not second-guessing any particular choice that you yourself have made in life given the niggardly offerings of the healthcare pharmacopoeia in the age of the Drug War. Everyone will react to that unconstitutional disaster in their own way, and if you got some benefit out of the paltry list of materialist replacements for outlawed medicines, good for you. Those who believe in holistic healing, however, will reject the entire idea of confronting sadness on a strictly molecular basis, especially when those who hawk such treatments enjoy a monopoly on mood medicine thanks to drug law.
What Have We Learned?
September 21, 2024
I learned that...
1) Materialist disdain for philosophy is, in fact, based on philosophical arguments, even if the materialist is not philosophically gifted enough to recognize this fact, much less the precise nature of the assumptions inherent in said arguments.
2) The Drug War privileges the materialist approach to life by outlawing all substances that might provide us with experiential evidence of more productive alternatives.
There are endless drugs that could help with depression. Any drug that inspires and elates is an antidepressant, partly by the effect itself and partly by the mood-elevation caused by anticipation of use (facts which are far too obvious for drug warriors to understand).
This massive concern for safety is downright bizarre in a country that will not even criminalize bump stocks for automatic weapons.
Almost all talk about the supposed intractability of things like addiction are exercises in make-believe. The pundits pretend that godsend medicines do not exist, thus normalizing prohibition by implying that it does not limit progress. It's a tacit form of collaboration.
According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.
My depression would disappear overnight if religiously intolerant America would just allow me to live as free as Benjamin Franklin.
Even the worst forms of "abuse" can be combatted with a wise use of a wide range of psychoactive drugs, to combat both physical and psychological cravings. But drug warriors NEED addiction to be a HUGE problem. That's their golden goose.
How else will they scare us enough to convince us to give up all our freedoms for the purpose of fighting horrible awful evil DRUGS? DRUGS is the sledgehammer with which they are destroying American democracy.
Until we get rid of all these obstacles to safe and informed use, it's presumptuous to explain problematic drug use with theories about addiction. Drug warriors are rigging the deck in favor of problematic use. They refuse to even TEACH non-problematic use.
We need a Controlled Prohibitionists Act, to get psychiatric help for the losers who think that prohibition makes sense despite its appalling record of causing civil wars overseas and devastating inner cities.
The whole drug war is based on the anti-American idea that the way to avoid problems is to lie and prevaricate and persuade people not to ask questions.
Listen to the Drug War Philosopher as he tells you how you can support his work to end the hateful drug war -- and, ideally, put the DEA on trial for willfully lying about godsend medicines! (How? By advertising on this page right c'here!)
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Without Philosophy, Science becomes Scientism published on May 7, 2020 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
hen Stephen Hawking observed that philosophy is dead (which itself is a philosophical statement, of course, being insusceptible of inductive proof), he was saying so triumphantly, as if this were a good thing. The reality however is that when science ignores philosophy it becomes mere scientism.
You have been reading an article entitled, Without Philosophy, Science becomes Scientism published on May 7, 2020 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)