The autonomy of science

pp. 68-76

in: Joseph Agassi, Science and society, Berlin, Springer, 1981

Abstract

The praise of the autonomy of science seems to be something so laudable it barely needs defense. This is the sign of rapidly changing times. for, it was only in the forties, as I well remember, that the defense of planned science, i.e. government regulated and controlled science, was no less in the vogue, and was taken for granted not only by left-wing scientists. Michael Polanyi is by now one of the best known philosophers of science. He began his philosophical career when he attacked the theory of planned science during World War II, when he was a well-known scientist. He began his defense of the autonomy of science arguing from the autonomy of the scientist, and he ended by denying this autonomy. I wish to argue that Polanyi's progress is logical enough: you cannot have it both ways.