Liana Tukhvatulina

The author considers Max Weber’s ideas on the relationships between science and politics. She analyzes key arguments for the “purity” of science provided by Weber. Thus, Weber considered participation of scientists in the "battle of gods" unacceptable, as well as he discussed some possible risks of using scientific knowledge in the interests of political legitimacy. The author makes an attempt to find the connection between Weberian ideas of science autonomy and the “disenchantment of the world”. She claims, since the world is not disenchanted yet, full autonomy of science is still inaccessible. Hence, an appropriate form of science-politics communication should be a matter of discussion. In this respect, the author analyzes the case of expertise in social sciences (namely, in law and economics). She claims that expertise in social sciences seems to be impossible without close interactions between science and politics. However, a clear understanding of the essence of expert knowledge makes it possible to consider expertise as a purely scientific phenomenon (in Weberian sense). The author shows that this sort of understanding requires a distinction between scientific and political contexts of the expertise. The clear understanding of this distinction helps us as well to reduce the moral pressure on the expert’s work. The author concludes that some ideas in ‘Science as a Vocation’ let us presume that Weber could’ve considered expertise in social sciences as an appropriate form of science and politics cooperation.