Bad Philosopher Complains About Bad Philosophy in Physics

A philosopher unwittingly
illustrates Thomas Kuhn’s
view of scientific revolutions
by criticizing it.

 

by John Wise, PhD

The title of an essay in Nature this week caught my attention: “Why bad philosophy is stopping progress in physics.” (Nature, 12 May 2025). Is physics suffering from bad philosophy?

I have an answer to this question. Yes, it is!

But such an answer, true as it may be, is more complex than its simple presentation. Sometimes in order to understand a truth, we must understand the story in which it is embedded.

Thus far in what we have had to say about Hegel’s philosophy I have painted him as the enemy of Christianity and logical thinking. It is time, perhaps, to temper that understanding of Hegel a bit, and to understand why the Christian’s relationship with this philosophical giant must be more complex and nuanced than I painted it at first. This article provides an ideal opportunity to do so.

The author of the essay, Carlo Rovelli,[1] begins with this:

Nature seems to have played us for a fool in the past few decades. Much theoretical research in fundamental physics during this time has focused on the search ‘beyond’ our best theories: beyond the standard model of particle physics, beyond the general theory of relativity, beyond quantum theory. But an epochal sequence of experimental results has proved many such speculations unfounded, and confirmed physics that I learnt at school half a century ago. I think physicists are failing to heed the lessons — and that, in turn, is hindering progress in physics.

The term “Nature” here as a quasi-personified agent is perfectly consistent with Hegel’s process-metaphysics, of Spirit as Rationality-coming-to-self-consciousness (see my 1 May 2025 article here). From the perspective of scientific materialism, however, this personification of Nature is a clear contradiction. When confronted with the contradiction, materialists dismiss it by magical hand-waving about the limited capacity of language to express the non-agent agency (of Nature, what Dawkins calls The Blind Watchmaker) which they are constrained by language to invoke.

In other words (if we refuse to deceive ourselves) the evidence from nature rationally requires agency.

Of course, they never actually say it that way. That would too clearly reveal the contradiction of their dialectical logic with materialism. They desperately need both to keep up the pretense of rationality and scientific credibility.

What I find amusing in this initial paragraph, however, is how very much the author’s position exemplifies Hegel’s logic in action and the conclusions of Thomas Kuhn’s landmark text, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which is a major critical target in this article.

Let’s spend just a few moments unpacking the thoughts contained in this first paragraph.

Rovelli first laments the contemporary tendency in theoretical physics (we might generalize to other branches of science as well) to speculate beyond [2] the answers given by the standard model of physics he “learnt at school half a century ago.” Beyond as applied to standard scientific practice (what Kuhn calls “normal science”) is a dirty word to Rovelli. The job of normal science, Kuhn tells us, is to take what we know scientifically[3] – the current paradigm – and ever more comprehensively explain the available data in terms of it, to reconcile the evidence with “what we know.” From the perspective of the normal scientist, looking beyond “what we know” is ceasing to do science.

In this way, our author tips his hand.

Carlo Rovelli is a normal scientist, as are most practicing scientists. As such they assume the truth of the paradigm within which they work. For them, there is not and cannot be a good reason to question it, as the work of the scientist is to solve the “puzzles” of apparent contradiction between theory and evidence.

What this means is that Rovelli insists the current paradigm be upheld and resists those questioning from “beyond” it. In Hegelian terms, Rovelli represents the dialectically conservative thesis. Likewise, the physicists Rovelli critiques are the dialectically radical antithesis, the opposition, the “fringe.” Thus, the article’s subtitle: “Theorists are in thrall to misguidedly radical ideas about how scientific discovery works.” The best way to do science, according to the normal scientist, is to hold to what we know[4] and resist (radical) innovation and challenge.

From the perspective of Rovelli, then, those who question the status quo by proposing alternative explanations are a problem for science, holding it back. How are they holding science back? By dividing the scientific community, weakening the concerted process of theory-explication, preventing the solving of the puzzles of contradictory data and how they can be ‘made to fit’ the theory. In effect, Rovelli complains, the radicals are joining the “unscientific” opposition instead of circling the wagons around “science.” What Rovelli, and normal science in general fails to realize is that when serious opposition arises, there are usually good evidential reasons for it.

Here are Rovelli’s thoughts on why modern science seems fastened on reaching beyond the current paradigm(s), on why revolution is “in the air” in science today:

My hunch is that it is at least partly because physicists are bad philosophers.

No arguments here – Rovelli included, as I see it.

Scientists’ opinions, whether they realize it or not (and whether they like it or not), are imbued with philosophy.

Again, no argument. I can only wish Rovelli godspeed on his mission to convince scientists of this patent truth. I’ve made no headway. Philosophy necessarily underlies the views of all scientists. Secular scientists[5] like to think of themselves as completely objective agents relying exclusively on evidence and rational inference, devoid of presuppositional biases. Even if they are great scientists, denying this obvious truth proves they are very adept at self-deception.

And many of my colleagues — especially those who argue that philosophy is irrelevant — have an idea of what science should do that originates in badly digested versions of the work of two twentieth-century philosophers: Karl Popper[6] and Thomas Kuhn. From Kuhn comes the idea that new scientific theories are not grounded in previous ones: progress instead comes about through ‘paradigm shifts,’ the scientific equivalents of revolutions. Popper, meanwhile, supplies the notion that a theory is scientific only if it is ‘falsifiable’: if it can be proved wrong by empirical evidence. Superficial readings of Popper and Kuhn, I think, have encouraged several assumptions that have misled a good deal of research: one, that past knowledge is not a good guide for the future and that new theories must be fished from the sky; and two, that all theories that have not yet been falsified should be considered equally plausible and in equal need of being tested.

I find it intensely ironic that Rovelli is accusing scientific colleagues of “superficial readings” of Kuhn when his own reading is deficient,[7] making me wonder if he’s ever cracked the pages of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

When one says of Kuhn’s philosophy of science that “new scientific theories are not grounded in previous ones,” and that “past knowledge is not a good guide for the future and that new theories must be fished from the sky,” I scratch my head and wonder why anyone would take anything else he has to say about Kuhn seriously.

Rovelli’s point? that Kuhn is wrong about the radical nature of scientific advancement. In his view, slow and steady wins the race:

‘Revolutions’ in the history of fundamental physics are thus more conservative than they are often depicted.

What he calls “Kuhn’s emphasis on discontinuity” has led us astray into thinking that science is not a slow and steady upward ascent to greater knowledge, a methodical additive process by which higher understanding of nature is progressively formed. In other words, Rovelli argues, scientific progress is like evolutionary progress, reflecting Hegel’s ever-ascending dialectical process metaphysics.

Kuhn’s error? In Rovelli’s view, he refused to idealize (my word, not Rovelli’s) science in this way.

Kuhn’s theory, it seems to me, is anchored in history, empirical reality and a realistic view of human psychology, and not in wishful thinking.

Ironically, Dr. Rovelli exemplifies his point that science progresses by incremental increases in knowledge, not revolutionary leaps,[8] in the following passage:

Following the naive reading of Popper and Kuhn, Einstein should have explored modifications of Maxwell’s equations or forgone the relativity of velocity. He did the opposite. He trusted past scientific knowledge, kept both Maxwell’s equations and the relativity of velocity, and got rid of the apparent contradiction between the two by assuming that both were right and changing something else: the idea that time and simultaneity are absolute. Einstein made the idea that simultaneity depends on how an observer is moving the foundation of a new theory of relativity.

Rovelli seems not to realize that in this passage he has just cemented both of my claims concerning science and Kuhn in one paragraph, while thinking that he has done the opposite. Talk about embracing contradiction!

Here’s Rovelli’s argument:

Experimental evidence confirmed two contradictory conclusions before Einstein: 1) “Maxwell’s equations account very well for electromagnetic phenomena but say that they travel at an absolute velocity: the speed of light,” and 2) Galileo‘s investigations proved “that velocity is a relative quantity.” Both can’t be true, right? Velocity can’t be both an absolute quantity and a relative one. Remember the principle of non-contradiction? It cannot be true that a proposition and its negation are true. (My emphases)

In logical notation: ~ [A and ~A].

Rovelli asserts that if Kuhn’s theory is right Einstein should have denied one or the other conclusion by Maxwell or Galileo, creating a revolution in science. That Einstein instead maintains both by dispelling the contradiction displays his conservative (as opposed to revolutionary) view of scientific progress.

This argument shows complete misunderstanding of Kuhnian revolutions and Hegelian dialectic. In fact, revolutionary science and Hegelian dialectic function by embracing both sides of a contradiction. Scientific revolutions and Hegelian syntheses result from seeing the unity of both sides from a new and “higher” perspective, exactly as Rovelli explains here.

The only way he can miss the radical nature of Einstein’s revolution in physics is to see it retrospectively,[9] as someone who takes it for truth, someone who has embraced the revolution as a new paradigm in which to conduct normal science – in effect as a new Hegelian thesis. Because he accepts (on faith) Einstein’s theory as established knowledge, it has become normal science, and he retrospectively interprets it as just one more small step in the ever-increasing pool of knowledge that is the evolutionary progress of science.

Darwinian storytelling and Rovelli’s view of science are cut from Hegelian cloth.

Rovelli is ensconced in a dialectical story, taking the side of the thesis in opposition to all who oppose it (antithesis). The present paradigm is “established science” (thus the ever-present claim “we now know …”), and it must not be opposed. This is the opposite of “a certain humility in our methodological attitude” that he calls for in this paper. It is, rather, an arrogant claim to certainty loudly proclaiming its humility.

Sound pharisaical?

Rovelli in this article is a prototypical example of the dialectical thesis-reasoner, what Kuhn calls the normal scientist. Far from effectively critiquing Kuhn, he exemplifies Kuhn’s point for him.

Returning now to the fundamental question asked in this article, is bad philosophy holding back physics?, my answer in the affirmative agrees at the binary level with Rovelli’s, but for entirely different reasons. For Rovelli, science is held back by failing to exclude the challenges to current dogma that reach beyond ‘the consensus.’

For me, the problem is that contemporary scientists like Rovelli systematically exclude positions that disagree with their fundamental metaphysical (that is their philosophical) assumptions – immanence and materialism, putting those assumptions beyond question.

To challenge their dogma is to undermine “science.”

This sounds suspiciously like the position of the pre-Reformation Catholic church, doesn’t it? They do not exclude alternative views because they lack evidence and strong inductive reasoning, (though that is the self-justifying story they tell themselves), but by faith-based metaphysical fiat: all appeals that reach beyond “what we now know” are excluded.

What Carlo Rovelli is really lamenting here is that new evidence and strong inductive reasoning are in fact pointing beyond the current materialist paradigm, evoking a crisis he fears.

Bad philosophy – immanentism (anti-supernatural bias), materialism, and dialectical monism – is holding back science, preventing it from following the evidence and the logic where they lead.*

Some scientists are seeing this and seeking to go beyond these limiting presuppositions.

That, to my mind, is a very good thing.

*Added by Dr Wise in a request to define these terms:

While materialism is probably clear enough to most readers, perhaps I should say a few words about immanentism and dialectical monism. Both are intimately tied to Hegelian philosophy.

Immanentism is the idea well-expressed by Carl Sagan in his book and TV series Cosmos: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”

This is the positive spin on the negative proposition – nothing exists outside this reality. Immanentism is the denial of transcendence, a central Judeo/Christian doctrine. It need not be a denial of theism, but an immanent god would be continuous with, not separate from or independent of nature. Typically, this is called pantheism. Immanentism requires that all that exists (Sagan’s cosmos) is in some way part of or continuous with everything else, leading us to dialectical monism. Monism follows logically from immanentism – there is only one thing, for Sagan “the cosmos,” for Marx matter, for Einstein energy, for Hegel Spirit. The big problem for monism is to account for plurality. If there is only one thing, why do we experience so many things? The answer, given by Hegel, is dialectical process. Plurality evolves (“emerges”) by the iterative process inherent in the one thing (Spirit, matter, energy, the cosmos) with itself. This is why the notion of emergence is so critical to Darwinians – it explains everything. From One thing everything else emerges. On this view there are no real boundaries.

I believe these three philosophical assumptions to be the most dangerous ideas ever broadly accepted by humanity, which is why Hegel is my philosophical nemesis.

Footnotes

[1] “… a physicist at Aix–Marseille University, Marseille, France, and an associate member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy in London, Ontario, Canada.”

[2] He uses “beyond” four times here, and twelve times in the article, indicating its importance in his analysis. It is important for our purposes, too. See the end note below this article.

[3] I find it amusing how often contemporary materialist scientists and their apologists talk of intellectual humility, critical thinking and objectivity when in practice they act with faith-based certainty. Even as an atheist I thought theists superior on this point. Theists acknowledge (to themselves and others) that they stand on faith.

[4] By contrast, Socratic wisdom (and I would argue that this is based in OT wisdom literature) is the acknowledgment of our fundamental ignorance, our limited capacity to know as finite human beings. ‘The one thing I know,’ says Socrates, ‘is that I know nothing.’

[5] To my mind, this is one of the great benefits of a Christian approach to science – it is explicitly founded on faith and does not have to lie to itself that it brings no presuppositions to bear on its scientific work and conclusions. Atheism, too, is founded in this self-deceptive gesture – believing that they don’t believe.

[6] I will have nothing of importance to say about Popper, as I am much less knowledgeable of his work than of Kuhn’s.

[7] To be fair and offer the benefit of the doubt to Dr. Rovelli it is possible that the explication of Kuhn (the focus of my remarks) he gives is the one he calls above a “badly digested version.” However, if this is the case he should have made it clearer in this article that this was not his view of Kuhn, but that of ill-informed colleagues. My sincere apologies to him if this is the case.

[8] I can’t help seeing here the heated exchanges between saltational evolutionary thinkers (seeking to explain the leaps and gaps in the fossil record) and those more pure Darwinian slow-and-gradualists.

[9] David Coppedge has observed this feature of Darwinian storytelling for years!

---

John Wise received his PhD in philosophy from the University of CA, Irvine in 2004. His dissertation was titled Sartre’s Phenomenological Ontology and the German Idealist Tradition. His area of specialization is 19th to early 20th century continental philosophy.

He tells the story of his 25-year odyssey from atheism to Christianity in the book, Through the Looking Glass: The Imploding of an Atheist Professor’s Worldview (available on Amazon). Since his return to Christ, his research interests include developing a Christian (YEC) philosophy of science and the integration of all human knowledge with God’s word.

He has taught philosophy for the University of CA, Irvine, East Stroudsburg University of PA, Grand Canyon University, American Intercontinental University, and Ashford University. He currently teaches online for the University of Arizona, Global Campus, and is a member of the Heterodox Academy. He and his wife Jenny are known online as The Christian Atheist with a podcast of that name, in addition to a YouTube channel: John and Jenny Wise.