ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Science Wars between Postmodernism and Postsocialism: A View from East-Central Europe

• In Event: Lost in Translation? Science Wars from a Transnational Perspective

English Abstract

Although we tend to think of the Science Wars as defined mainly by US concerns, this intellectual conflict defined and was defined by historical events seemingly far removed from its place of origin. One of these events was the fall of state socialism in 1989. The postsocialist transformation raised questions about the status of science and scientists, ranging from the legitimacy of non-scientific knowledge to science funding. Following the decline of Marxism-Leninism as a key reference point for both supporters and critics of science, new conflicts emerged concerning science’s ‘objectivity’ and its use. In Czechia, the conflict over whether scientific rationality was a remnant of socialist ideology or a prerequisite for establishing democracy was represented by ‘postmodernists’ and ‘sceptics.’ Not only was this dispute significantly influenced by the science wars, but it also played a direct role in shaping them.

Rather than constituting an insular debate or a delayed response to earlier critiques of scientific objectivity in the West, this paper argues that the conflict was transnational in scope. While sceptics regarded the rise of postmodernism as a form of ‘fashionable nonsense’ imported from the West and shaped by the socialist legacy of ‘irrationality,’ postmodernists interpreted the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe as signalling the global demise of modern science. Drawing on several cases–including Czech President Václav Havel’s address to the U.S. Congress and the Sokal Affair–the paper examines the circulation of political-epistemological concepts (such as ‘objectivity’ and ‘personal experience’) across East-Central Europe, the United States, and Western Europe. It demonstrates that the meanings and values attached to these concepts were contingent upon the contexts in which they emerged. Their circulation, therefore, both facilitated and obscured the political dimensions underlying disputes between realists and relativists.

Author

• Martin Babička, Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences