Can science be at the centre of modern culture?

Abstract

Increasingly, such concepts as the `End of the Modern Era', the `End of Progress', and the `End of Objectivity' have been given public exposure, originating from parts of academe and from popularizers. Far from being merely a passing phase connected with the usual fin-de-siècle preoccupations, the movement appears to signal the resurgence of an old, recurring rebellion against Enlightenment-based presuppositions of Western civilization, particularly the claim of science to lead to intersubjective (objective) knowledge. The negative impacts upon the public understanding of science are becoming evident, including among legislators of science policy. To understand the movement, a survey is given of some of the chief theorists on the question of whether science may play a central role in 20th-century culture, including Oswald Spengler, the Vienna Circle scientist-philosophers, Sigmund Freud, Isaiah Berlin, and Václav Havel.