Science cannot eliminate potentiality and must actually presuppose it
Evidence
This character of pure nothingness in potentiality results in efforts on the part of science, which aims at establishing relations of simple exteriority, radically to suppress the potential (essence and potencies). But on the other hand the necessity of potentiality as a meaningful structure of perception appears clearly enough so that we need not insist on it here. Scientific knowledge, in fact, can neither overcome nor suppress the potentializing structure of perception. On the contrary science must presuppose it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 613
Categorization
- SEED: Sartre’s argument that science must presuppose the potentializing structure of perception could anchor an essay on the limits of reductive explanation in the sciences.
- XREF: connects to: Causes require nihilation and transcendence toward a not-yet-existing potentiality — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1089; Denying metaphysics in favor of science is itself a metaphysical position — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 294; Science can penetrate everything but what it penetrates is not being (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Causes require nihilation and transcendence toward a not-yet-existing potentiality
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1089 - Science can penetrate everything but what it penetrates is not being
#expands(0.82) - Denying metaphysics in favor of science is itself a metaphysical position
#corroborates(0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 294 - The possible is a lack constitutive of consciousness itself
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 385