““The only way to avoid becoming a metaphysician is to say nothing,” wrote the distinguished American philosopher E. A. Burtt nearly a hundred years ago in his classic and frequently republished Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. Language, conscience, rationality, will, freedom, meaning, personal identity, and purpose — the distinctively human attributes — have a non-natural, metaphysical character that has been apparent to wise and reflective persons ever since Socrates.”
“…“Scientists animated by the purpose of proving themselves purposeless,” the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote, ironically and aptly, “make an interesting subject for study” (The Function of Reason).”
Read more here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/james-davison-hunter-book-science-and-the-good/