Cicero's demarcation of science: A report of shared criteria

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Highlights

  • There are coincidences on basic scientificity criteria across millennia.

  • Cicero advocated five criteria of scientific demarcation proposed today.

  • Cicero's analysis and rejection of genethliac astrology coincide with today's.

  • This is a step towards ascertaining whether there has been long-term historical stability of a concept of “science”.

Abstract

The problem of establishing intensional criteria to demarcate science from non-science, and in particular science from pseudoscience, received a great amount of attention in the 20th century philosophy of science. It remains unsolved. This article compares demarcation criteria found in Marcus Tullius Cicero’s rejection of genethliac astrology and other pseudo-divinatory techniques in his De divinatione (44 BCE) with criteria advocated by a broad selection of modern philosophers of science and other specialists in science studies. Remarkable coincidences across two millennia are found on five basic criteria, which hints at a certain historical stability of some of the most fundamental features of a concept of “science” broadly construed.

Introduction

The problem of establishing intensional criteria2 to demarcate science from non-science, and in particular science from pseudoscience, received a great amount of attention in the 20th century philosophy of science. It remains unsolved, though arguably progress has been made (see Fernandez-Beanato, 2020; Mahner, 2007, 2013).

Demarcation criteria have been sought since Antiquity. This article analyzes demarcation criteria in the work of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), an orator, senator, and philosopher of the classical Roman civilization. It examines the reasons given in his De divinatione (On Divination) to deny that genethliac astrology (GA)3 and other pseudo-divinatory techniques are effective, reliable, or scientific, and identifies the criteria of scientificity that are implicitly contained in that work (therefore analyzing the implicit demarcation of science in the Roman orator's argumentation).

Cicero used the Latin word “scientia”, which had a wider meaning than the narrow meaning of the English word “science”. The latter excludes forms of knowledge such as logic, mathematics, and human history. The former refers to any knowledge acquired by appropriate systematic means (cf. Hansson, 2013, pp. 62–4). All of the criteria discussed here can be applied using either meaning. Indeed, the analysis of this article is consistent with the proposal to reinstate a wider meaning of the word “science” (see Hansson, 2013; 2017).

Section 2 of this work establishes that Cicero's position was contrary to the belief in the effectiveness, scientificity, or reliability of alleged divination in general and of GA in particular. Section 3 shows that there are clear implicit criteria of scientificity in Cicero's De divinatione. Based on this observation, I compare these criteria with scientific demarcation criteria proposed and defended by a broad selection of modern philosophers of science and other specialists in science studies. I compare the key works on demarcation by these authors to establish whether their proposed criteria of scientificity coincide. Through such a comparison, I show that criteria of scientific demarcation employed by Cicero overlap with those of the modern authors considered.

The novelty of this article rests in part on the paucity of examples in the literature which incorporate historical research over the millennia for which demarcation criteria have been discussed. I have been unable to find substantive precedents of investigations of this article's approach. It is hoped that such novel research will be heuristically fertile for solving the demarcation problem.

I focus on astrology, in large part because in the literature on the demarcation problem, astrology has been used profitably as a paradigmatic case (in the everyday, not the Kuhnian sense of this word) of a pseudoscientific cognitive field4 and because there is a positive consensus among philosophers, scientists, and historians of science about this status (Grim, 1990, p. 15; Pigliucci, 2013, p. 17; Thagard, 1978, p. 223).

I used Teubner editions of Cicero's original texts in Latin for this investigation. To properly understand the Ciceronian primary sources, I took into account their context of production. In order to do this, I relied on secondary texts, relevant to the interpretation of the primary sources in their context, about the era and culture that framed them and about Cicero himself. I considered these secondary sources to evaluate alternative interpretations of the primary sources.

Section snippets

Alleged divination in Cicero's De divinatione

Cicero wrote De divinatione in 45–44 BCE. It was published in 44 BCE, when he was 62 years old (one year before his death), so it can be considered one of his mature writings. It is specifically and entirely dedicated to the philosophical evaluation of allegedly divinatory techniques as a family of disciplines purportedly aiming at gaining knowledge (in the above terminology, as a family of cognitive fields).

If the analysis of De divinatione carried out here is going to be fertile, firstly we

Shared scientificity criteria

In De divinatione, Cicero characterizes GA not only as an “error” (Cicero, 2011, De divinatione, 2.85, 2.90, 2.94, 2.99), but also as an “incredible delirium” (“delirationem incredibilem” (Cicero, 2011, De divinatione, 2.90)).

In line with common modern philosophical thought on demarcation (Hansson, 2017), this article defines a “pseudoscience” as a non-scientific doctrine or field that is presented by its theoreticians or practitioners as if it were scientific or a science, or that is easily

Conclusions

Any set of criteria proposed for scientific demarcation can be considered as at least a partial elucidation of what is taken to be science. Through the research and the analysis carried out here, I have identified in Cicero's thought in De divinatione implicit criteria of scientific demarcation clearly analogous to some of those that are more recently proposed. Also, due to their relative high degree of importance both for Cicero and for the modern authors considered, I conclude that these

Declaration of competing interest

None.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Christián Carlos Carman, James Ladyman, Santiago Ginnobili, Gonzalo Recio, Diego Pelegrin, Micheál Lacey, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable advice and comments to previous drafts of this article. This work has been partially funded by the University of Bristol.

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