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 been acknowledged, yet systematically repressed in favor of a reductionist ideal. As 2025 has been proclaimed the “International Year of Quantum Science and Technology,” it is urgent to rehabilitate quantum epistemology—with its principles of uncertainty, incompleteness, and complementarity—not as a theoretical curiosity, but as the foundation for a renewed ontology of beings (étants). Such an ontology, centered on diversity, relationality, and finitude, would allow us to move beyond the childish “as if” of simplism toward an ontological “as it is.” This shift requires recognizing that knowledge never coincides with science alone, and that genuine rationality is precisely that which accepts its own limitations.

1. Problem Statement: Science as the “Generic Form of Knowledge”—An Epistemological Impossibility

The contemporary crisis of knowledge does not stem from a lack of science, but from a categorical confusion: equating science (a specific mode of knowing) with knowledge itself (a plurality of forms of intelligence, experience, and discernment).

This conflation, driven by scientism, implicitly asserts that:

• Only what is measurable, falsifiable, and reproducible deserves to be called “knowledge”;

• All other modes of relating to reality—ethical, poetic, spiritual, sensory, narrative—are relegated to subjectivity or even illusion.

Yet this position is self-contradictory. Modern science itself rests upon non-scientific presuppositions: belief in the intelligibility of the world, the regularity of natural laws, the value of truth, and the necessity of methodological transparency. These axioms are philosophical, not scientific—and thus excluded by the very logic they enable.

In other words, science cannot ground itself. It presupposes a horizon of meaning that exceeds it. To claim that science embodies knowledge in general is therefore a fundamental epistemological error: the reduction of knowledge to one of its modalities.

This claim is not merely false—it is dangerous, as it marginalizes forms of knowing capable of posing questions that science, by definition, cannot ask: Why? To what end? At what cost? For whom?

2. Three Appearances of Complexity—and Three Repressions

Nevertheless, the history of human thought has witnessed three major intuitions or discoveries that challenged this reductionist vision—each time subsequently neutralized.

a) Ancient Holism

For Aristotle (Metaphysics, Z, 17), the whole is “more than the sum of its parts” because it possesses its own form (eidos) and finality (telos). Understanding life, the cosmos, or the polis demands a systemic, not analytical, approach. Yet this vision was eclipsed by the Galilean-Cartesian revolution, which replaced final causality with efficient causality and form with geometry.

b) Pascal’s Cognitive Principle

In his Pensées, Pascal articulates a radically relational epistemology: “Everything is caused and causing… I hold it impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole, nor to know the whole without knowing the parts in particular.” Here, knowledge is circular, contextual, and non-cumulative. Yet this insight was relegated to the domain of the “heart,” opposed to “reason”—despite constituting an early critique of reductionism.

c) Quantum Physics and Its Epistemology

In the twentieth century, quantum mechanics scientifically demonstrated that:

• Knowledge is intrinsically limited (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle);

• Every formal system is incomplete (Gödel’s incompleteness theorem);

• Contradictory descriptions are necessary (Bohr’s complementarity);

• Perfection is impossible, and the lesser can never produce the greater!

These are not “temporary gaps,” but structural features of reality itself. And yet, while 2025 was celebrated as the year of quantum technologies, the epistemological implications of these discoveries remain largely ignored. We exploit quantum effects while refusing their philosophical lesson: reality resists total mastery.

3. Quantum Epistemology: The Mirror Science Refuses to Look Into

Quantum epistemology—developed by Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, and debated with Einstein—constitutes the most profound self-critique science has ever produced. It reveals that:

• The observer is not external to the phenomenon;

• Reality is not independent of measurement;

• Binary logic (true/false) is insufficient;

• Knowledge is always partial, contextual, and interactive.

Yet this revolution remains incomplete, as it has not been integrated into dominant scientific culture or collective imagination. Scientism continues to operate as if the world were classical, objective, and deterministic—even though the most advanced science has proven otherwise.

4. Toward an Ontology of Beings: Overcoming Anthropocentrism Through Complexity

Faced with this impasse, we must undertake a radical ontological shift.

The Greek word on (“being”) is the present participle of einai (“to be”): it designates that which is in the process of being—in its concrete, temporal, plural manifestation. Ontology should therefore no longer seek Being as a single, transcendent essence (the metaphysical tradition), but beings (étants) in their diversity, interdependence, and finitude.

This ontology of beings implies:

• Diversity: there is no single way of existing (human, animal, vegetal, technical, symbolic);

• Complexity: relations among beings are nonlinear, emergent, and recursive;

• Complementarity: seemingly contradictory perspectives may be necessary for fuller understanding.

It rejects:

• Unicity (one truth, one method);

• Simplism (reducing the whole to its parts);

• Binary oppositions (subject/object, nature/culture).

This shift enables us to overcome anthropocentrism—not by denying the human, but by re-situating humanity within the web of beings, as Indigenous cosmologies, deep ecology, and Bruno Latour’s “Terrestrial” perspective already do.

5. Conclusion: From the “As If” to the “As It Is”—The Maturity of Knowledge

Modern civilization still lives in an infantile “as if”:

• As if science could know everything;

• As if reality were fully controllable;

• As if formal reason alone sufficed to guide action.

Yet today’s ecological, social, existential, political, economic, and geopolitical crises reveal the exhaustion of this fantasy.

It is time to embrace the ontological “as it is”: reality as it presents itself—complex, uncertain, multiple, relational.

This demands recognizing that knowledge never reduces to science alone, and that true rationality is that which acknowledges its own limits.

As Pascal already wrote:

“Reason’s last step is the acknowledgment that there is an infinity of things that surpass it.”

In 2026, following a global year (2025) dedicated to quantum technologies, the task is no longer to compute faster, but to think better—that is, more humbly, more broadly, more complementarily.

For true knowledge—the “substantifique moelle” (marrow of substance) evoked by Rabelais—is not about dominating the world, but inhabiting it rightly. The word “human”—our natural condition—derives from humus, the earth. It also gives us “humble” and “humility.” We wish to dwell on Earth humanly, not escape it techno-scientifically!

It is time to move beyond anthropocentrism—not by rejecting the human, but by re-embedding humanity within the fabric of reality, as Indigenous peoples, thinkers of complexity, ecologists, and theorists of the Earth (Latour, Stengers, Tsing) already do.

In 2026, after a year devoted to quantum technologies, the true urgency is no longer technical, but philosophical: to dare to think complexity, to embrace uncertainty, and to inhabit the world as it is—not as we wish it to be.

When will we finally see an International Year of Quantum Epistemology—one that enables responsible practice of science and technoscience? We hear talk of a “great mystery”—but what else is this great mystery, if not complexity itself? A complexity that is both ontological and ecological—immanent and transcendent. This is not religious or deistic; it is wholly ontological and natural!

The complications exhausting us arise precisely from our failure to account for ontological complexity!

When will we finally awaken—from our torpor!

References (Selected)
• ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, Book Z.
• PASCAL, B., Pensées, Fragment 72 (Brunschvicg ed.).
• HEISENBERG, W., Physics and Philosophy, 1958.
• BOHR, N., Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, 1958.
• GÖDEL, K., On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems, 1931.
• MORIN, E., Introduction to Complex Thought, 1990.
• STENGERS, I., Cosmopolitics, 1996–1997.
• LATOUR, B., Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime, 2017.
• NICOLESCU, B., Nous, la particule et le monde (We, the Particle, and the World), 1985.
• WEIL, S., Gravity and Grace, 1947.

“It is not by looking harder that we see better, but by changing our glasses.”
— Adapted from Edgar Morin