Pierre Bourdieu: Ethical Indignation and Scientific Production

Abstract

In this lecture, I seek to recover an aspect of Pierre Bourdieu’s work that I consider particularly significant for those of us working in the social sciences: the relationship between ethical indignation, scientific production, and commitment to society. I want to show that, from his early research in colonial Algeria to his public interventions in the 1990s, Bourdieu did not understand the scientist’s political responsibility as an abandonment of the demands of the profession but rather as their radicalization. His reflexive sociology requires us to question our own categories of perception, the social conditions under which knowledge is produced, and the forms of symbolic violence that also traverse the academic field. From this perspective, the autonomy of science does not imply neutrality or isolation, but the defense of institutional conditions that make it possible to produce knowledge governed by scientific standards rather than by political, economic, or corporate interests. In Argentina at the beginning of 2002, this reflection challenges us in a particular way. Those of us working in universities and the social sciences are not merely observers of the crisis: we are also part of the institutions and practices that must be examined. Defending science therefore requires a professional ethic, reflexivity, and a commitment to placing our cultural capital at the service of universal causes and greater spaces of freedom.