scientism
scientism noun: the belief that the scientific method and the assumptions and research methods of the physical sciences are applicable to all other disciplines (such as the humanities and social sciences), or that those other disciplines are not as valuable.
Noun
scientism (countable and uncountable, plural scientisms)
- The belief that the scientific method and the assumptions and research methods of the physical sciences are applicable to all other disciplines (such as the humanities and social sciences), or that those other disciplines are not as valuable.
- Finally, with good reason, this psychology aims to be a psychology of a purely empiriological type. It is pervaded and overwhelmed on every side, however, by a pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar character, which Freud is all the less anxious to dispense with as he imagines he has no philosophy or...1964, Jacques Maritain, “Freudianism and Psychoanalysis [Freudisme et psychanalyse]”, in William Birmingham, Joseph E. Cunneen, editors, Cross Currents of Psychiatry and Catholic Morality, page 351
- This claim, espoused by scientific naturalists, is called scientism, the view that science is the paradigm of truth and rationality. There are two forms of scientism: strong and weak. Strong scientism […]2007, Ted Cabal, The Apologetics Study Bible, B&H Publishing Group, →ISBN
- The belief that all truth is exclusively discovered through science.
- A pseudoscience.
- The line is straight out of eugenics, the deeply dishonest scientism that in the early 20th century convinced many people that criminality, poverty and a host of other ills were all inherited.2024 October 14, Dan Vergano, “Trump’s Racist Rants against Immigrants Hide under the Language of Eugenics”, in Scientific American, archived from the original on 14 Oct 2024
Examples of scientism in a sentence
- I say pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar type, because it combines all the prejudices of deterministic, mechanistic scientism with all the prejudices of irrationalism.1964, Jacques Maritain, “Freudianism and Psychoanalysis [Freudisme et psychanalyse]”, in William Birmingham, Joseph E. Cunneen, editors...
- The historical roots of scientism can probably be traced to the Enlightenment with its ideology of progress and perfectibility.2008, Peter Meusburger, Michael Welker, Edgar Wunder, Clashes of Knowledge: Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in Science and Religion, Springer...
- It was the age of the New Atheists and aggressive scientism.2026 July 25, Carmody Grey, “AI’s quest for morality”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC...
Forms of scientism
| plural | scientisms |
|---|
Origin of scientism
From scient- (in either Classical Latin scientia or scientific) + -ism. Compare scientist.
Words formed from scientism
Phrases with scientism
Questions about scientism
- What does scientism mean?
- Scientism means the belief that the scientific method and the assumptions and research methods of the physical sciences are applicable to all other disciplines (such as the humanities and social sciences), or that those other disciplines are not as valuable.
- How do you use scientism in a sentence?
- I say pseudometaphysics of the most vulgar type, because it combines all the prejudices of deterministic, mechanistic scientism with all the prejudices of irrationalism.
- What part of speech is scientism?
- Scientism is a noun.
- What is the plural of scientism?
- The plural of scientism is scientisms.
Words near scientism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scientism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “scientism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scientism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.