Political Scientism
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- Source/Author: Julio M. Shiling
What is political scientism?
Scientism is the worldview that claims that science is the most reliable source of knowledge and truth. This belief system stems from positivism’s “Religion of Humanity”. Political scientism refers to a categorization that upholds the same epistemological assumption of scientism, except that it is utilized for political and ideological purposes. It is a methodologic approach consistent with the adherence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels of mixing politics and science. Marx/Engels claimed their version of socialism was superior based on its “scientific” basis. Although as far as science is concerned, Marxism could scantly hardly even qualify as pseudoscience. Communist regimes, nonetheless, rhetorically insisted that Historical Materialism (or Dialectical Materialism) possessed “scientific” merit. The promotion of socialism to this day attempts to use “science” as a validation mechanism and thus foster its overall ideological projects.
