The myth of science

The relationship between societies and science inscribes itself a broader temporal framework; it is also a situated relationship. In the West, in particular, it has been structuring our history since Antiquity, starting with the historical and mythical figure of Prometheus. However, it took a specific turn in the early modern period in the wake of the “scientific revolution”, which embodies both a moment of reconfiguration in the definition of science and a narrative of the history of Western science. This is what the introduction to this issue ambitions to tackle, from the privileged vantage point of the history of science and knowledge. The various ensuing papers bring the discussion further by adopting other points of view, both in terms of spaces and disciplines. The ultimate aim of the issue is to invite readers to question the variegated meanings the term “science” covers, so abundantly mobilized as it is in the public and academic arenas, here and elsewhere, in the singular or the plural, also in relation to its many uses.
The contemporary features and effects of these relationships determine both the responses and the stakes of economic choices: what models of (de)growth derive from the many technoscientific choices? They also influence political choices: what role should scientific expertise play in the political debate? They shape societal choices: what relation to labour and consumption does a given scientific innovation entail? These are but some of the issues we are globally confronted with.
This issue by no means pretends to exhaust the questioning of such relations, but rather aims to explore its complexity, as each historical period has elaborated its own definition of science, beyond the longue durée of the uses of science. We here shed light on the multiple genealogies of these definitions as well as the variety of the social groups that have formulated them, relying on a widely shared assessment today: the non-neutrality of science and the constitutive nature of its relationship with politics, in the past just like nowadays.