Abstract

CHATEL, Vivianne. Réconcilier activité de penser et activité de connaître. Soc. estado. [online]. 2002, vol.17, n.2, pp. 333-349. ISSN 0102-6992.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69922002000200006.

This article proposes to question the scientist's posture regarding his/her ivory tower and indifferent to things of the world. Based on the observation during the twentieth century of the participation (often accomplice) of the scientists to the different undertaking of genocide, it tries to question the disjunction between activity of knowledge and activity of thinking, because of the common foundation to these both activities : the distantiated examination, the epistemological break… Should the scientist not, also, become a "guide" of the world, without becoming supplier of conscience, in integrating into the scientific posture the critical abilities, as the principle of statement of possibilities? It shouldn't deny the scientific ideal (like the critical ability, organ-point of the thinking process), but, at the opposite, it should prove its worth again if we do not shut ourselves into laboratories.

Keywords : distantiated examination; epistemological break; scientific ideal.