SCIENCE, KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND SOCIAL PRACTICE
SCIENCE, KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND SOCIAL PRACTICE

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I present the main policies of neoliberal capitalism concerning the production of knowledge arguing that the so-called ‘cognitive capitalism’ is nothing more than a characteristic feature of Late Capitalism as described by the Marxist economist Ernest Mandel. I review the currently fashionable view among radical intellectuals that science, despite being the most effective process of knowledge production, is a construction of western colonialist, masculine, racist culture deprived of any ability to give an objective account of reality. Finally, I revisit the classic Marxist theory of knowledge and attempt to articulate a theory of science as social practice incorporating Vygotsky’s theory of symbolic tools and Zilsel’s sociological account of the role of artisans and technicians in the birth of modern science.

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