Science and the World: Philosophical Approaches, edited by Jeffrey Foss [Book Review]
Teaching Philosophy 38 (4):459-463 (
2015)
https://www.scribd.com/document/294239408/Timothy-Chambers-Review-of-Science-and-the-World-By-Jeffrey-E-Foss
Even a cursory review of the literature brings to light scores of articles treating the topic of “student relativism,” including several essays appearing in this journal.1 Not surprisingly, several commentators sense that student relativism finds a partial source in a thesis we might dub student positivism: the view, roughly, that “scientific knowledge . . . is the only valid knowledge.” (524) Stephen Satris, for instance, describes encountering a “typical student reaction . . . that while scientific facts (which can be proven) might be an exception, everything else—opinions, views, feelings, values, lifestyle, ideals, activities, religion, taste—is after all relative”; Richard Momeyer notes a similar student distinction between “those quantitative, ‘scientific’ areas of inquiry in which real knowledge is attainable (‘facts’), and those fields of inquiry not yet blessed by scientific method, such as philosophy, where all is a matter of (subjective) non-confirmable opinion.”2 If, as these authors suggest, a reflexive student relativism partially results from a simplistic view of the natural sciences, then this provides one strong motivation for texts which aim to provide, as does this anthology, “a philosophical introduction to science . . . ready-to-read by the average freshman straight out of high school.” (xiii) Foss has gone to great lengths in his effort to make this text so-“ready-to-read” by newcomers to academic philosophy.
