An Epistemological Analysis of global crises

Otto Neurath, one of the leading figures of Vienna Circle, mentioned that many  difficulties encountered in modern science arise from the fact that even scientists in the same field cannot agree on whether they are talking about the same problem or explaining a different point of view. Although this situation has been identified as a problem based on differences between several scientific languages, it turned out that the problem lies in the limit of knowledge: it is impossible to know everything, at least in our time.

Many philosophers recognized the limits of science. Carl Popper considered History of Science as an endless sequence of assumptions, a view that describes the major problem of scientific knowledge and the kind of authority based on it. Despite scientific advances, the fundamental questions that concern it have not yet been solved. Therefore, scientists who think too much of themselves for their knowledge are those who know too little about the fundamental principles of science.

There’s an attitude of superiority in scientific community which is manifested in a generally arrogant way. Despite the fact of deep specialization in all scientific fields, many scientists tend to believe that they can even take a position on issues outside their field. Scientists usually confuse the right to express an opinion in any subject with the formulation of a scientific position that only few can express. Thus, we see scientists interpreting other disciplines based on criteria of their own scientific “language” and perception. It is a concept whose influences are found in a specific view for unification of science, a very ambitious project supported by Vienna Circle in the early 20th Century. Although the position for a unified scientific system has never been proven, it seems that modern scientists are behaving as if this position were a successful project. For the modern scientific community, every scientist, no matter his specialization, is a superior human being capable of understanding everything  That false sense of superiority leads to a scientific “racism” and a generally arrogant attitude that can be described by the phrase: “I know one thing, I know everything”.

More important than an arrogant attitude, the way scientists perceive the modern world can have serious political and social consequences. That is an absolute fact in period of crises, where, despite the field that concerns (i.e. economical or medical), every human activity is reasonable influenced, no matter the kind of crisis, for there’s no science that is isolated from the others. While anyone would expect the crisis to be addressed in a very general context and with the substantial assistance of many scientists from different fields, scientists who are specifically involved with the field to which the crisis refers primarily, consider themselves capable of managing the whole crisis. We have seen it happen during the financial crisis, when economists proposed measures for every human activity based on an economic-centered perception. According to them, everything in human’s life is calculated based on money. The same thing is happening now with the COVID-19 crisis, where all human activities are treated as a laboratory experiment. We are all experiencing the same fundamental epistemological mistake.

Despite our arrogance, we are much less scientifically advanced than we want to believe and far more away from the truth than we think. Despite our evolution, we are much less civilized than we proudly present and much more barbaric than we try to hide…