Hayot's critique of science
 

Hayot: "All societies have a set of things that count as valid truth-procedures. [...] What's striking about modern society is that the epistemological forms associated with one very particular set of truth-procedures have come to dominate the idea of reason as such, that one specific kind of reasoning, the one we call 'science,' has risen to such prominence that it can occupy the regime of reason almost entirely by itself" (8)
 
"the culturally dominant idea of reason and truth with which we live stems from the steps forward made by a set of institutionalized practices that focused, as [scientists] developed this theory of reason, almost entirely on inanimate, nonconscious objects, or on nonconscious parts of animate objects [...] [Scientists] have an entire ideology of truth that derives from their study of some tiny percentage of the things that make up their lifeworld" (and omits "all the other objects in that lifeworld, including societies, people, historical processes, and so on")
 
this goes some way toward explaining why "the historical attempts to make scientific reason apply to the objects from which it does not derive (to historical or social processes, to events or objects that have minds) have so often turned out to be failures" (9)

> from Eric Hayot's Humanist Reason (2021)

> tagged with #knowledge, #science

> created July 5, 2026 at 8:52:43 PM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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