The Impossible Monopoly of Science
The Impossible Monopoly of Science The Impossible Monopoly of Science: An Epistemological Critique of Scientism and the Necessary Return to an Ontology of Complexity Author: Jean-Yves Izel ecometajyi@gmail.com Date: January 2026 Field: Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Ontology, Complex Thought Abstract This article examines a fundamental contradiction of late modernity: science—by its very nature a partial, methodologically bounded, and contextual form of knowledge—has imposed itself as the sole legitimate model of knowing, to the point of becoming the "generic form of knowledge." This claim constitutes an epistemological impossibility, as it negates the very conditions that make scientific knowledge possible: namely, its specificity, its limits, and its historicity. Through three pivotal moments in the history of thought—the ancient holistic worldview, Pascal’s cognitive principle, and the quantum revolution—we demonstrate that the complexity of reality has repeatedly ...