Social Constructivism and Beyond. On the Double Bind Between Politics and Science

Abstract

Moving beyond the post-political framing of the climate change debate, scholars have tried to show that scientific practice is based on politically significant forms of social construction. While sympathizing with this attempt, this paper questions their use of the term ‘political’. Drawing on post-foundational political theory (Mouffe, Lefort) and focusing on the example of climate denialism, it argues that the relation between science and the political constitutes a double bind: while upholding an original distinction between science and the political is untenable, representing science in political terms is impossible, because of the specific way the scientific field is symbolically instituted.

Notes

1. In the framework of this article, we cannot engage with the specificity of the social sciences. But it is evident that this analysis cannot straightforwardly be applied to the social sciences, where the possibility for a political-self-understanding of scientists is much greater, maybe even inevitable.

2. The fact that ‘matters of fact’ are actually always already ‘matters of concern’, as Goeminne shows, is not relevant for understanding the symbolic institution of the field of science: what counts is how scientists understand themselves and their activity, not how social constructivists describe their activities.