The Social Study of Science: The Resurgence of Historical Materialism

The Social Study of Science (SSS) constitutes an interdisciplinary domain dedicated to examining the profound influence of social, political, and cultural factors on the development of scientific research and practice. Rejecting conceptions of science as an autonomous, self-directed enterprise, SSS posits that scientific knowledge is fundamentally a social product, deeply embedded within specific historical and cultural contexts. This field employs analytical frameworks from sociology, history, philosophy, and anthropology to elucidate the practices, institutions, history, and intellectual content of science. The scrutiny of science’s social dimensions has fundamentally reconfigured understandings of scientific work and methodology. During the 1960s and 1970s, the field was significantly shaped by contemporaneous protest movements, with historical materialism emerging as a critical framework for sociologists and historians of science seeking to critique power structures and alienation inherent in scientific practices. However, a subsequent intellectual shift witnessed a movement away from this materialist approach towards postmodern and constructivist analyses. Recently, a resurgence of interest in Marxian historical materialism has become evident. This is marked by a renewed engagement with pre-War II Marxist theorists such as Boris Hessen and Edgar Zilsel, whose works are being republished and re-evaluated in light of the ongoing technological revolution in automation and machine intelligence. This paper delineates this development within SSS, highlighting the contributions of these foundational Marxist thinkers to the critical assessment and understanding of the social ramifications of the new technological revolution.