Ben-David’s Critique of the Sociology of Knowledge and His Politics of Freedom

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Ben-David’s normative notion of science and its relation to an ‘open’, rationality-focused society. Like a range of his contemporaries, Ben-David believed in the enlightenment function of science and in the associated benefits accrued to society. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a social contract in place which accorded universities and research centers a high degree of autonomy, and academia and the respective societies were both profiting from this consensual arrangement.

This situation changed slowly during the subsequent years: the role of science and scientists changed, and the reflection on science transformed itself as well. Against this backdrop Ben-David’s idealization of the autonomy of science had become somewhat anachronistic; but the science community is still called upon to share Ben-David’s persistent passionate concern to preserve the integrity of science and the cultural foundations of the politics of freedom in contemporary society.