Editor(s): Giulio Macilenti
Preface: Angelo Vulpiani
Anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, conspiracy theorists of all kinds: today’s world seems to be steeped in suspicion and mistrust of science. The pandemic has accentuated the problem, showing on the one hand how contemporary society cannot do without it, and on the other reminding us how science is often a necessary but not sufficient condition for progress. Starting from this contradictory situation, the book aims to overcome the polarisation between uncritical supporters of scientific thinking and its opponents, with the goal of recognising the value of science without turning it into a tool for closing off political debate. To this end, the volume argues that the central and unexplored cause of anti-scientific resentment lies in the ideological use of the methods of the hard sciences beyond their proper domain, with the aim of naturalising social reality and confining thought to an ahistorical and anti-dialectical dimension. This ambiguity, for example, plays an important role in the fusion between technical innovation and mathematical logic that underpins the process of digitalisation in which we are immersed. From this perspective, only a critique of the ideological use of science and its link to capitalist development, along with the search for a balance between dialectical and scientific rationality, allows for an effective engagement with the complexity of the present.
Publisher: Carocci
Year: 2022
