The Science wars : a French pathology ?

International audienceThe so-called Science wars are a set of philosophical controversies that began at the end of the XXth century, about the scientificity of social and philosophical studies of science. These controversies concerning the methods and objects of philosophy of science and sociology of science, broadly interrogated the roles and aims of philosophy and sociology, in a fierce opposition between the continental and analytic traditions, and reiterated to some extent the analogous opposition of the first half of the XXth century between logical empiricism and metaphysics. The political and ideological aspects that emerged from these controversies gave them on many occasions the form of polemics, hence their appellation of wars. This article is about the origins, the main stakes and the effects on philosophy in France of these controversies and polemics. On the basis of this particular case and of Noam Chomsky's rather recent assertions about the influence of French culture, it briefly discusses also the relevance, both epistemological and political, of grounding philosophical thoughts on a given tradition, history, place, or nation