Abstract

Margolis’s book is driven by two convictions: that the problem of realism “is the master theme of the whole of modern philosophy” and that “[s]cientism remains the most salient vision of … analytic philosophy”. While tracing the former problem in Descartes, Kant, and post-Kantian Idealists, his main focus is the analytical scientism of the positivists developed during the first half of the twentieth century, superceded by American analytical philosophy in the second half. Defining scientism as materialism, extensionalism, reductionalism, and eliminativism with the intent of establishing a wholly scientific vision of the universe, Margolis opposes the project.