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Marx and the Objectivity of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Pete Railton
Pete Railton*
Affiliation:
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Extract

Karl Marx has written that “modern Industry … makes science a productive force distinct from labor and presses it into the service of capital” (1867, p. 361) Moreover, according to Marx, “The ideas of the ruling class are In every epoch the ruling ideas”, which are “nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships” (1846, p. 64). Part of what Marx means by ‘ideal expression’ is revealed when he argues that ruling ideas have a legitimating function: a ruling class must “represent its Interest as the conmon interest”, “give its ideas the form of universality, ana represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.” (1846, pp. 65-66).

The idea that scientific inquiry is objective is unquestionably among the ruling ideas of our epoch, and it represents science as serving not the Interests of a particular class, but a purely general interest in the understanding of nature.

Type
Part XX. Marx and Scientific Objectivity
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1984 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1984 , 1984 , pp. 812 - 826
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I am Indebted to Garland Allen, Allan Glbbard, Joseph Hanna, and Richard Lswontin for helpful remarks in response to an earlier version of this paper. I follow a familiar convention In attributing the ideas expressed In such works as The German Ideology and The Conmunist Manifesto to Marx alone, rather than to Marx and Engels.

References

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