Política como ciencia y política como ideología: un viejo debate

The advocacy of a value-free social science, as a condition of intellectual honesty, sought to contrast scientific knowledge with other forms of knowledge, as well as to construct an epistemological status sufficient to access its own identity within the university institution. Such quest conceived an internal logic of scientific research as pure theory based on verifiable data, separate from the researcher’s beliefs. Its cause was science for science’s sake. The development of critical theory conceived this position as untenable, given the particularities of political and social sciences; economics, for example, can never be free from assessments of market conditions. Each position has consequences for the field of political science and for the profession of political scientist, who may participate as a scientist, advisor, or opinion maker. In response to the potential exploitation of this discipline for proselytizing purposes, there appears to be a current reevaluation of Weber’s proposal that addresses the loss of identity and specific status, which has fallen prey to interests outside the realm of science itself.