Einstein talks about how philosophy can help the scientist escape from well-worn habits of thinking and understanding:
Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as “necessities of thought,” “a priori givens,” etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason. (Einstein 1916, 102)
Opinion
When I read this I couldn't help but think of my primary area of concern, the alarming degree of scientism involved in today's psychology and psychiatry. By scientism, I mean weak, unreflective, politicized and potentially fraudulent science. Scientism also refers to the belief that science alone can eventually comprehend everything. No need for God or providence. Science is the new religion for some.
The other day I was talking with some folks about mental health issues. I told them that Bill Gates recently said that if the "autism" label had been more popular when he was younger, he would probably have been diagnosed as such. One of my interlocutors replied, "They didn't know how to categorize it back then." In other words, they seemed to suggest that in the 21st century, science has got it right. No more need for reflection. We know everything now.
I couldn't disagree more. I am certainly with Einstein on this point. We need to keep our eyes open for entirely new ways of seeing and understanding our experience, even those experiences that make us feel uncomfortable like so-called "depression," "depersonalization" or "alienation."
A broader approach might in some cases lead to a better solution. I'm not suggesting that psychological discomfort and suffering is unreal. That's not what my critique of contemporary psychiatry is about. I am, however, suggesting that the current hegemonic way of understanding discomfort and suffering could in some instances exacerbate it.
Comments