Can Scientific Agnosticism Be Rational? Docta Ignorantia and the Crisis of the Academia in the Age of the Digital Transformation

Abstract

The digital transformation reminds us of the limits of deductive, rule-based knowledge. This leads us back to the roots of the Abrahamic tradition. Originating in the critique of idolatrous attachments, the latter emphasized that epistemic limitations are not determinable based on reason alone. Modern scientists might be religiously indifferent. Yet it has become harder than ever before to rely on scientific systems of thought without committing oneself to ultimate constructs that raise the suspicion of idolatry. This paper builds on the speculative-realist turn of contemporary philosophy and related discussions in the Radical Orthodox movement. Starting from the anthropological triangle of nature, technology and culture, it introduces a metaphysics that conceptualizes the unifying center of rational thinking as a constitutive theological dimension of our scientific and prescientific engagement with the world. The immanentist idea of a “scientific naturalism” has lost its credibility.