Truth finding and will formation

When people argue about topics such as vaccination, climate change, homeopathy, glyphosate or Covid-19, they tend to confuse two perspectives – the scientific and the political one. Their different foundations need to be respected if there is to be any fruitful interaction between them.

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Those wishing to enforce vaccination or climate protection or to oppose the recognition of homeopathy or the use of glyphosate by referring to scientific insights are employing political stratagems. They refer to science because they see science’s supposedly unambiguous insights as synonymous with political demands and therefore wish to put them into practice without further ado. But lumping science and politics together in this way means spoiling both the scientific and the political broth.

Science needs to be able to serve the finding of truth. Abusing it for garnering majority support means sawing away at the tree of knowledge. For this tree to grow and flourish, art and science, research and education must be free – as it says in the German constitution.

Relevance and legitimization

This does not only mean, however, that the search for the best argument and perpetual readiness to correct mistakes need to happen free from political influence; it also means that the state of research at any given time, however unambiguous it may seem, must never pre-empt political decisions. The broad consensus among climate researchers that human-made carbon dioxide emissions are driving the warming of the planet is one thing. What is done politically as a consequence, on the other hand, does not follow inevitably without alternatives and is not academic, but requires a democratic decision.

This brings us to the task of politics, which does not consist in truth-finding but in will formation. In a free society of equal citizens it enables continual decision-making on public affairs. Shying away from discussions among equals in favour of dealing out insights from the ivory tower as superior decrees leads ultimately to the denial of politics and damages the democracy.

The popularity of that kind of adulterated politics and corrupted science is connected with two acute problems: the lack of relevance in science and the lack of legitimization in politics.

Freedom and knowledge

Driven by third-party funding, homo academicus hopes to unlock unforeseen resources of relevance by politicizing his special knowledge; similarly, the post-democratic zoon politikon sells its demands as findings of scientific research, hoping to benefit subjectively from science’s claim to objectivity.

This is tragic in that it clouds the understanding of how science and politics hang together. Both science and politics live on premises that they themselves are unable to guarantee: science’s finding of truths requires political freedom just as political will formation requires scientific insights. Truth-finding without freedom leads to ideology; will formation without knowledge leads to despotism. Freedom in finding the truth and enlightenment in will formation constitute the cornerstones of open societies.

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