Husserl’s Crisis from the Philosophy of Science to the Politics of Science

Resumen

Edmund Husserl’s The Crisis of European Science remains a very relevant work today, because the “crisis” has by no means been overcome. The crisis is not primarily a crisis in scientific productivity or theorizing, but rather a crisis in our conception of what science is, can be, and should be. The crisis consists in a lack of reflection and meaning: the sciences, precisely because of their successes, focus on delivering ready-made solutions for practical problems: material prosperity, but spiritual poverty. In this article, I wil try to extend Husserl’s account of the philosophical crisis of the sciences also the politics and policies of science. Not only have the sciences themselves been mathematised (in the sense of studying only what is quantifiable), but also our thinking about science, especially our science policy, has been mathematised: not only what the sciences study, but also how the sciences operate must be quantifiable. Scientific achievements are measured and managed by quantitative assessments and rankings: number of publications, citations, projects, PhDs supervised, H-index, impact factor, etc. Through the mathematization, technization, and then mechanization of science itself, the practical results have grown a hundredfold, but at the expense of genuine thought. By limiting science, we limit who we are and can be as humans: the crisis of the sciences is therefore essentially also a crisis of humanity. Besides a diagnosis of the nature of the crisis, Husserl’s work can also offer a potential cure: Besinnung. A fundamental questioning and reflecting on the sense of science, to clarify the means and ends of science, would also help to make sense of and give meaning to human existence. Only in this way can society fully realize the potential of scientific inquiry to enrich human existence beyond mere material prosperity.