Soc (2009) 46:262–266 DOI 10.1007/s12115-009-9196-7
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY
What is Socially Relevant Science? Nico Stehr
Published online: 31 March 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009
Interest in the effect on society of scientific discoveries can be traced back to the beginnings of the modern sciences. It is plain to see that for reasons of legitimizing science alone, this question was not only of interest to the early scientists. Affirmative answers to the question of the practical virtues of science helped the first generation of scientists—and of course present-day scientists as well—achieve social recognition and, not least, the resources required by a high-quality scientific practice, characterized by division of labour and, thus, increasingly expensive. There have continually been voices, on the other hand, that censure the humanities and social sciences in particular, not only due to their lack of usefulness, but rather also because they are held to be a danger to society. In this connection, one need only recall, for instance, the worldwide fear of the ideas of Marxism; the frequently criticized influence of the Frankfurt School on the politics of the 1970s in West Germany; or the influence, lamented in many quarters, of neo-liberal economic models on the economic system of developing societies in particular. Reservations and fears about the social consequences of new findings and technologies in the natural sciences are not making themselves heard for the first time nowadays. This is also true of the promises being made; to the effect that humanity will come to enjoy enormous progress by means of science and technology. Convincing arguments can be made, however, that the public discussion of the sciences’ social role has reached a new, modern phase. The first controlled laboratory experiment in genetic engineer-
N. Stehr (*) Karl Mannheim Chair for Cultural Studies, Zeppelin University, Am Seemooser Horn 20, 88045 Friedrichshafen | Lake Constance, Germany e-mail:
[email protected]
ing took place in 1972; the first human being conceived outside a woman’s body was born in 1978; and just very recently, in April 2008, the first human–animal hybrid embryo—a being immediately dubbed a “chimera” by the media—was produced by scientists in a laboratory at Newcastle University in England, However, the current controversial discussion of embryonic stem cells, neurogenetics, xenotransplantations, reproductive cloning, and the convergence of nanotechnologies, information technologies, biotechnologies and cognitive sciences also makes clear that the question of the social prerequisites and consequences of (natural-) scientific knowledge, expanding unchecked under new types of preconditions, urgently needs to be placed on the agenda of day-to-day social and political activity. And, not infrequently, this discussion culminates in the call for oversight and conscious guidance of knowledge. The question is no longer that we do not know enough, but rather that we know too much, and we then have to wonder whether we indeed want to turn all of our discoveries into practical applications. A half-century ago, in one of the classic dichotomies of writing about science, Charles P. Snow ([1959] 1964) likewise gives the carriers of literary, or traditional, knowledge extremely poor marks for being the epitome of modern luddites. For Snow, however, this is not primarily a matter of trivializing traditional literary knowledge, which he of course then goes on to do; rather, he sees his thesis as an urgent call to action for society finally to place naturalscientific and technical knowledge, and thereby its scientists—those who, as C.P. Snow sees it, have the future in their bones—at its centre. In the mid-seventies, in a radical reversal of C. P. Snow’s thesis of the dilemma of the two scientific cultures as a variant of the widespread and often resentful contrast between knowledge and ignorance, Erich Fromm provides
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his own call to action to modern societies—finally to give priority to being, and not having, in society—putting forward the thesis that it is the systematic undervaluation of the humanities and social sciences that characterizes our present era as a disastrous historical epoch. Fromm (1976) particularly emphasizes, in his essay To Have or To Be, that as long as “the science of humanity does not have the allure that up to now has been reserved for the natural sciences and technology, the strength and vision will be lacking to see new and real alternatives.” Whichever of the above-cited critical observers of the scientific landscape and the role of modern science in society may indeed be right, one thing seems to be inevitable: the question of the social relevance of science can likely be problematized only twofold, once for the case of the humanities and once for natural science and technology, strictly segregated from one another. The classic scientific-theoretical debates regarding the particularities of different types of scientific knowledge, especially the dichotomy between social and natural sciences, lead to the result that our reflections are embedded (or remain trapped) as if in a kind of permafrost. And thus our capability to rethink the interplay of intellectual, moral and social aspects within the problem of socially relevant structures of science is limited. I thus see myself in terms of these questions as a revisionist. I consider the division between social and natural sciences to be questionable, and later I will explain in greater detail why I hold this position. In what follows, therefore, I would like to answer the question “What is socially relevant science?” in terms of scientific knowledge as a whole, and not a division between humanities and social scientific knowledge on the one hand and technical and natural scientific knowledge on the other. I will lay out the considerations that lead to my answer in a series of steps: first of all, the concept of knowledge needs to be more precisely identified; this is, as we shall see, more than a matter of mere definition. There follows an attempt to answer the question posed to me under the rubric “The application of a theory is never one of strict resemblance”. With reference once again to the thesis of the two scientific cultures, I attempt to demonstrate that their chances of being put into practical use are subject to similar conditions. Finally, in a concluding section I would like to draw attention to a series of contradictory conclusions. I place these conclusions in the context of the modern society as a knowledge society.
Knowledge about Knowledge I would like to define knowledge as the capacity to act (or capability of taking action), as the possibility of “setting
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something in motion.” Knowledge is a model for reality. Thus, for example, social statistics are not necessarily (only) a reflection of social reality, but rather an explication of its problems; they refer to that which could be, and in this sense they confer the capability of taking action. Findings are not mere passive knowledge. Knowledge should be understood as the first step toward action; knowledge is in a position to change reality. Knowledge enriches human ability. And thus, even if only analytically, briefly and provisionally, I maintain the connection between social action and knowledge. In the practical interconnection between findings and action then, C.P. Snow’s uncritical, optimistic observation from the 1950s that scientists “have the future in their bones” is doubtless correct. My choice of concepts is immediately based upon Francis Bacon’s famous and fascinating thesis that “scientia est potentia,” or as this formulation is frequently, but misleadingly, translated: knowledge is power. Bacon claims that the particular utility of knowledge derives from its ability to set something in motion. The concept of potentia, this ability, here describes the “power” of knowledge. Knowledge is creation. Human knowledge is the knowledge of the rules of action and, thus, the capability of setting the process in question in motion, or producing something. The successes or results of human action can accordingly be seen in the alteration of reality. The result of this, at least for the modern world, is that its reality is increasingly based upon knowledge and consists of knowledge. Knowledge is not power (in the usual sense of the word power), but rather at best potential power. Consequently, we must differentiate between the capabilities of taking action and making use of the capabilities of taking action. Science is not only the access and the key to the mysteries of the world, but rather also the coming into being of a world. The conception of a reality-changing or even reality-producing knowledge (the capability of taking action), in the case of social-scientific findings, is likely to be almost immediately convincing. One need only recall, for instance, the idea of the thought experiment or model that requires practical implementation. By contrast, if one proceeds from regarding knowledge as conforming to reality in traditional categories, then the idea of new knowledge as a potentially reality-changing phenomenon is difficult to accept, and this is very possibly especially true in the case of natural-scientific findings. To be sure, one can refer to the example of modern biology to demonstrate convincingly that this is not necessarily true. Modern biology includes the fabrication of new life forms. It does not simply investigate nature, but rather transforms and produces new life. Biology and biotechnology are closely interconnected. Knowledge fulfils an “active” function, however, only where action is not carried out within essentially stereotyp-
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ical parameters (Max Weber), or otherwise extensively regulated. Knowledge plays an active role only where, for whatever reasons, there is latitude or necessity for decisionmaking. For Karl Mannheim ([1929] 1936), therefore, social action begins only “where the not yet rationalized latitude begins, where unregulated situations force decisions to be made.” Formulated more concretely: “It is not an action…, when a bureaucrat deals with a bundle of files according to existing regulations. There is also no action when a judge subsumes a case under a section of law, nor when a factory worker produces a screw using prescribed movements, nor actually even when a technician combines general laws of natural processes to some end or other. All of these modes of behaviour should be described as reproductive, because these actions are performed in a rationalized arrangement without benefit of personal decision.” Consequently, for Mannheim the problem of the relationship between theory and practice is restricted to situations of just this kind. To be sure, even extensively regulated and thoroughly rationalized situations that are constantly repeated are not free of “irrational” (i.e., “open”) moments. At the same time, this perspective points to the conditions of knowledge, and indeed of knowledge as the result of human activity. Knowledge can lead to social action and is, at the same time, the result of social action. Here there is already an indication that it is by no means necessary to consider the capacity to act to be identical with actual action, i.e., knowledge is not itself already action. The social significance of scientific discoveries, then, lies primarily in the capacity to make use of knowledge as the ability to act. Or in other words: knowledge gains in distinction on the basis of its ability to change reality. After these preparatory remarks on the concept and role of knowledge in connection with action, we are in a position to answer the open question of the qualities of a socially relevant science. I place these observations under the heading: The application of a theory is never one of strict resemblance.
Application of a Theory is Never One of Resemblance A meaningful theory of pragmatic transformation of scientific knowledge into the capacity to act is quite decisively coloured by the elementary insight that social action is situationally bound, and by the fact that the characteristics or constraints of a particular situation for taking action, which vary from context to context, are either relatively open or unchangeable. Human action is indeed, as Mannheim also stresses, in manifold ways the result of a relatively set repertoire of fixed complexes of actions or modes of behaviour, which
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play out in given triggering situations. This by no means applies to all the situations with which we are confronted in daily life, however, or in less routine contexts for action. As Friedrich Tenbruck emphasizes, for example, due to internal or external circumstances human beings continually find themselves in new situations, for which highly automated and self-contained modes of behaviour and habits are not appropriate. In these cases, it makes a great difference “which elements of the situation are given and which are open” (my emphasis). Even the fixed nature of social relationships, or as this is also described by many observers, the existence of “structural” attributes of action, which work on social action as an external “force,” can be conceived of as a set of imaginable or possible options for taking action, which are open to certain individuals or groups. The qualities that findings should have—which stimulate a demand for knowledge, influence the assessment of the knowledge on offer, and co-determine the practicability of the findings—are thus to a crucial degree a function of the supposed openness of the life situation. The probability of implementing knowledge as the capacity to act into a particular social action is an essential consequence of the correspondence—in the broadest sense—between the type and content of knowledge and those elements of the situation that can be conceived of as open, i.e., controllable or manipulable by actors, and that can actually be influenced. It is probably helpful, therefore, to differentiate between “knowledge for practice” and “practical knowledge,” particularly since the pragmatic relevance of knowledge is by no means certain a priori, so that knowledge can be turned to knowledge for action or “naturally” practical knowledge. If, in this connection, we begin by following the strategic insights of Karl Mannheim, who in his study Ideology and Utopia made an attempt to formulate the problems of a “science of politics,” then it becomes clear that the successful “deployment” of findings in concrete situations for action demands that for such contexts, the possibilities for action, as well as an understanding of the actors’ latitude for action and their chances of shaping events, must be linked together, in order that knowledge may become practical knowledge. The qualities necessary for an understanding of practical knowledge, which make possible the realization of knowledge, are on the one hand particular findings, and on the other, i.e., on the side of those taking action, the control of situationally specific conditions. I call these abilities, which make implementing findings possible, capacity to shape, in contrast to knowledge as the capacity to act. In modern society, at the intersection of possibilities to take action and to shape events, the rapidly growing professions of experts, advisors and consultants as media-
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tors of knowledge find their employment and exert their influence. These professions are necessary in order to mediate between the complexity of changing and rapidly expanding (scientific) fields of knowledge and those who intend to enlist these findings as aids to taking action for ideas do not “wander” from person to person, like an item of “luggage”; rather, ability is tied to individuals and to “networks” of persons. Varying interpretations must come to one single “conclusion”; only then do they become effective as capacity to take action (Wittgenstein) and, ultimately, as practical knowledge as well. And it is exactly this function—the closing off of reflection, or the “healing” of the frequent lack of immediate practicability of scientific findings, so that they can serve as the basis for action—which is performed by experts or knowledge-based professions in the modern knowledge society. The social prestige and influence of consultants, experts and advisors is ultimately especially pregnant whenever their expertise extends to the access and control of additional findings. The particular, indeed outstanding status of scientific and technical knowledge in modern society does not result primarily from the fact that scientific knowledge is still widely perceived or treated as a true, objective—that is, reality-conforming yardstick—or as an uncontested authority. In view of this reputation, many groups and individuals are prepared in countless daily situations to suppress their doubts and reservations. This special social, but above all economic, status stems from the fact that scientific knowledge, more than any other form of knowledge, does not represent static knowledge, and continually creates and constitutes additional possibilities of taking action. This gives rise to an interesting analogy between the scientific and economic systems in the function of additional knowledge; in both systems, a “reward” is offered for additional knowledge, either in the form of recognition and prestige, or monetary returns.
The Two Cultures of Knowledge Once Again Despite my original statement, from what has been said up to now one might easily take away the impression that my answer to the question of the qualities of socially relevant scientific findings must be limited to knowledge in the humanities and social sciences. This is not the case. Therefore, at this point I will once again take up the thesis of the two cultures of knowledge. My thesis is that the usability of scientific findings is a function of the production of knowledge with regard to the open conditions in situations. A thought experiment—as an exemplary form of knowledge in the humanities, which deals with particular actors’ concrete conditions for shaping events and builds
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them reflexively into the experiment—thus has a greater chance of being realized. To what extent is this connection also true for natural-scientific findings? The practical usability of social-scientific knowledge, in other words, is a matter of the conditions of the “production of knowledge,” in which relevant latitudes for shaping events find their way into the structure and content of the knowledge. Are there comparable conditions for naturalscientific knowledge as well, which influence its application outside of the (scientific) context of its production? This is the case and, indeed, it is the particular material constraints of laboratory knowledge, for example, that find their way into the structure of such knowledge. I refer here to effects that can be observed and then reproduced only under specific conditions, namely under the “original” conditions that prevailed in the laboratory. Transferring this knowledge into other contexts consequently requires at least a partial transfer of these conditions of production as well, unless one is prepared to accept having produced “only” local, “impractical” knowledge. The practical reproduction of natural-scientific or technical knowledge, as is also the case for realizing a thought experiment, requires capacities to shape events that make possible the transfer of laboratory knowledge into practice. To be able to achieve a particular result in the laboratory, one must fundamentally simplify or reduce the (complex) influence of the natural environment on a process; for only then is one in a position to be able to unambiguously identify or determine a specific connection. The implementation of this result in practice is faced with great difficulties, of course, including the risks that could be associated with transforming society into a laboratory, and which could contaminate and even obstruct the relation or the effect. Finally, it should be mentioned that there remains the question of why the natural sciences are so much more successful in practice, so that for historical and social reasons their findings, in contrast to the social sciences, benefit from much more “favourable” chances of being utilized.
Science, Risk, and Uncertainty As a conclusion to these observations on socially relevant scientific findings, we can come to a contradictory insight. The growing significance of science and its manifold social utility has led to its having an extensive monopoly on the production of socially relevant knowledge in developing societies, which cannot be contested by religion, nor by politics, and in particular not by daily experience. In its function of researching new areas and thus expanding the latitude for making decisions and taking
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action in society, science is simply irreplaceable. In so far as one wishes to gain certain and accepted knowledge, there is no address to appeal to in society other than that of the scientific system. At the same time, it must present this as hypothetical knowledge, which could also appear differently in the future. It produces its own type of uncertainty, in that every new piece of knowledge gained by scientific means also marks out new areas of inadequate knowledge, without which scientific progress would be impossible. The systematic relationship between knowledge and inadequate information can be most clearly seen in the discourse on risk in society. Everything that we know about possible ecological, climatic or technical dangers, we know only on the basis of scientific investigations. Since we also know how this knowledge was produced, however, we see the associated limits of this knowledge too; we see the blind spots and the provisional nature of this knowledge. As a result of this mechanism, science has now lost its traditional legitimation, to the extent that it can no longer appear to be the representative of social progress or the voice of reason. Science is not the authority of which man can demand what is right or true. The central point may be that the contingency of scientifically gained knowledge has become known, and is being communicated within society as inadequate knowledge. With the disintegration of the fiction that science produces certain knowledge comes the threat of a loss of credibility and authority in the public sphere. The completely novel element of the present situation can be seen in the fact that criticism of science is no longer from outside, couched primarily in moral, religious or ideological terms, but rather is formulated as science. Science speaks of itself as if it were a third party. And this knowledge is fed into decisions as knowledge about conditions, contexts and consequences of action, which could also have turned out differently. It is for this very reason that we cannot expect to gain more certainty from more research, but rather more uncertainty, since the wealth of alternatives open to the decision-maker is reflexively increased. Moreover, the required knowledge being demanded is no longer only in the direction of ends that can be technologically realized, but rather in the realm of undesired sideeffects. Thus the future becomes a crucial parameter for knowledge (the precautionary principle). Obviously, there is a direct relationship between foreseen and unforeseen consequences of action. The further the decision-maker’s
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time horizon is extended into the future, the more probable the increase in unforeseen consequences (as, for instance, adaptation to the consequences of climate change). Both factually and socially, the significance of ignorance increases for the actors. The share of the action that can be known only in terms of probability or improbability grows, and the decision itself takes as its basis only a fictively certain reality. A reflection on these facts does not have to lead to relativism or arbitrariness of knowledge, but it does make us aware to what degree science itself has become riskladen and is increasingly becoming a source of political problems; of how knowledge societies will react with this new political field; and how science is thereby driven to ever more complex constructions. And this in a society that has no choice but to take risks. The crucial point of this discovery is that in spite of all the uncertainty of knowledge production, science is the only legitimate way to create knowledge in modern society. Its task is not the promulgation of certain knowledge, but rather the management of uncertainty. The heart of this perception is communication regarding the uncertainty and the provisionality of science’s own production of knowledge, in exchange with the public and the politicians.
Further Reading Fromm, E. 1976. To Have or To Be. New York: Harper & Row. Mannheim, K. 1936 [1929]. Ideology and Utopia. London: Routledge. Snow, C. P. 1964 [1959]. The Two Cultures: and A Second Look. An Expanded Version of the Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stehr, N. 2005. Knowledge Politics. Governing the Consequences of Science and Technology. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Nico Stehr, International Advisory Editor of Society, is Karl Mannheim Professor of Cultural Studies at the Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany. His research interests center on the transformation of modern societies into knowledge societies and associated developments in different social institutions of modern society (e.g. science, politics, the economy and globalization). Among his recent publications are: Biotechnology: Between Commerce and Civil Society (Transaction Books, 2004); Knowledge (with Reiner Grundmann, Routledge, 2005), Moral Markets (Paradigm Publishers, 2008), Who owns Knowledge: Knowledge and the Law (with Bernd Weiler, Transaction Books, 2008) and Knowledge and Democracy (Transaction Publishers, 2008).
