Brushing against the Grain the History... of Science: Heisenberg in the Light of Benjamin’s Philosophy of History and Marcuse’s Criticism of Technological Rationality [Spanish]

Authors

  • Henar Lanza González Universidad del Norte

Abstract

When, on August 6, 1945, the scientists of the German atomic project led by physicist Werner Heisenberg heard the news from their confinement in Farm Hall, England, that the United States had dropped a nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, the construction of history began: Heisenberg’s version in his intellectual autobiography was that he knew the project was unviable in the short and medium term and, therefore, there was no risk in advancing the research. Following Benjamin’s theses on the philosophy of history, I will brush against this construction of the history of science to bring to light several reasons that dismantle this construction. To do this I will resort to the philosophy of science of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos and Marcuse’s criticism of technological rationality. The aim is threefold: to question the vision of science held by Heisenberg, to show the influence of the great scientific-technological projects on the way of thinking and acting of individuals and to bridge the two abysses denounced by the physicist and novelist C. P. Snow, one between sciences and humanities and the other between those who have specialized knowledge and those who do not.

Author Biography

Henar Lanza González, Universidad del Norte

Universidad del Norte

References

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Published

2022-05-25

Issue

No. 35 (2021): January-june

Section

Articles

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