On “The One Thing Neil deGrasse Tyson got wrong”
Steve Neumann wrote a provocative piece in the June 7, 2010 issue of Salon magazine entitled: “The one thing Neil deGrasse Tyson got wrong.” Neumann argues that Tyson’s and many other scientists have “come to believe that to distinguish true knowledge from surface appearance and error is still the worthiest goal of human life, with the implication that only because existence is comprehensible is it justified.” Neumann identifies this attitude with scientism which he says “is the conviction that science really is the only worthwhile human endeavor.”1 This attitude naturally leads to a denigration of other disciplines, as Tyson’s persistent attacks on philosophy reveal.
Neumann argues that Tyson’s attacks on philosophy are misguided and that “the perspectivism and nuance of full-strength philosophy provide the catalyst that can transmute the lead of knowledge into the gold of flourishing.” In other words knowledge is one thing but living well is quite another. We have all known individuals who possess storehouses of knowledge but do not flourish, and we have known simple people who have good lives. Neumann grants that science contributes mightily to human flourishing but that it can’t solve the problem on its own.
What we find when we philosophize is that we are by nature ambivalent toward life. We recognize its beauty and joy while at the same time its tragedy and absurdity. But we must resolve this problem aesthetically and philosophically, science plays a subordinate role here. Consider, says Neumann, how we should feel about the vastness of the universe. Should we feel small or large? Now some feel small, some large, and some small and large at the same time. But how we feel is a philosophical response–it’s an aesthetic view of reality that does not derive from the facts alone. The facts alone do not furnish or rescind meaning.
So the human being herself brings to existence her own meaning and her own feeling; the artist in her brings life to existence—and thereby brings existence to life …
… the aesthetic impulse engenders that synthesis of reason and emotion that enables us to muster the will to transcend the reality of those bitter [natural] truths. The individual who wants to resolve her ambivalence toward life must be equal parts scientist, philosopher and poet, cultivating a wholehearted, meditative disposition within herself.
And what is needed in the public sphere is what Nietzsche called an “artistic Socrates,” someone in whom aesthetic feeling combined with the virtues of science “can reshape the disgust at the thought of the horrific or absurd aspects of life into notions with which it is possible to live.” Only this fusion of reason and imagination can reconcile our intellectual and emotional lives, giving us both claritas and gravitas – understanding and profundity.
I think Neumann is right about all this. We begin with the facts as best science can determine them and then invoke philosophical reflection to make sense out of our findings. We must be scientist, philosopher, and poet to give meaning to the endless vastness which surrounds us and to the infinite loneliness which penetrates within. We can still affirm life; we can imagine Sisyphus happy; we can release our imprisoned artist. In fact we must if we are to give life meaning.
As it turns out, philosophy, poetry and art are needed more than ever.
1. I think this definition of scientism is too strong and makes a straw man of Tyson’s position. A better definition is “scientism is a term used to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.” [Sorell, Thomas. Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science, (New York: Rutledge, 1994, pp. 1ff.)]
