Društvene i Humanističke Studije (May 2019)
Does Science Deal with the Truth: The Perspective of Edo Pivcevic
Abstract
One of the biggest misconceptions of the modern age is the attitude that science is our only guide in true knowledge about the world. That which was the role of philosophy and religion in the “dark” ages is replaced by science in the age of enlightenment. This is seen as a sort of a Copernican revolution, because attitudes are no longer accepted solely on the basis of authority, but on the grounds of critical reflection. Rationality, and not dogmaticity, becomes the criterion. The enormous advance and high degree of applicability of science have only amplified this thesis. Contrary to the stated, the starting assumption of this research is that science doesn’t talk about truth at all. The nature of science, as defined by Popper and Kuhn after him, shows that the goal which science is following is to find a solution which is sustainable at the moment, but subject to change when a better solution appears. Emphasis is not put on a correct description of the world, but on the description which best fits the overall background theory. This is the reason why it is said that science deals with operant, and not real definitions. In other words, why something is the way it is cannot be deduced from scientific data, they only tell us how certain event(s) come about. This has made some philosophers to take a radical stand that reality in itself doesn’t exist at all. Each of us builds their own reality as they see it and as fits them. The paper will show the relation between truth and science using views of Edo Pivčević about these issues. It will also be argued that truth can be talked about only from within philosophy.
