I read NWM as well as a number of his other papers earlier this year, and while I enjoyed them a great deal I still struggle to understand the basic motivations for and plausibility/coherence of anti-representationalism/global expressionism. Why not rest content with commonsensical expressionism within restricted domains (culture/psychology/morals)? Total metaphysical and scientific expressionism make little sense to me; it seems obvious that there must be some underlying medium that governs our "discursive practices". I haven't read FFT (waiting... (read more)
I suppose it's one of those statements that says a good deal in context and rather less outside it. 'Scientism' usually refers to a belief in the universal applicability of the tools of science in understanding the world. It is so understood by two camps, one who views it as an intellectual failing, the other a virtue. Wilson's point is that the latter camp should not cede any ground to the former -- not even terminological ground.
Edit: by context here I don't mean the book in particular. More like, reading too much contemporary philosophy.
... (read more)"The Enlightenment is the moment at which explanatory knowledge is beginning to assume its soon-to-be-normal role as the most important determinant of physical events. At least it could be: we had better remember that what we are attempting – the sustained creation of knowledge – has never worked before. Indeed, everything that we shall ever try to achieve from now on will never have worked before. We have, so far, been transformed from the victims (and enforcers) of an eternal status quo into the mainly passive recipients of the benefits of relative
That on probabilistic or rational reflection one can come to believe intuitively implausible things that are as or more extraordinary than their theological counterparts. Or to mutilate Hamlet, that there are more things on earth than are dreamt of in heaven.