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Conference Themes

Ways of viewing Science and Society

Separate Identities?

When Harvard University celebrated its tercentenary in 1936, it conveyed honorary degrees to 39 distinguished international scholars. Astronomer Anton Pannekoek (1878 – 1960) was one of the recipients of this great honor. Before attending the tercentenary conference, however, Pannekoek addressed the Workers' Socialist Party of the United States, whose members remembered him as party theoretician of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) and as one of the current leaders of the council communist movement.
Anton Pannekoek always tried to keep his scientific and political work separated, and even wrote two different autobiographies; one focusing on his work within the labor movement and a second one focusing on his scientific work. The controversial nature of his politics may explain why he himself put his socialist theory at a great distance from his professional career in astronomy. Still, only few efforts have been made to probe the possible connections between his two fields of activity.
Looking further into Pannekoek’s attitudes towards the relationship between politics and science does in fact reveal a more complex picture: A closer look at his work in both subjects shows remarkable similarities in his methodology and epistemic choices. Can the same be said for likeminded contemporaries?

 

Social and Scientific Ambitions

Studying Pannekoek’s scientific and political choices, as well as their interaction, can provide us with new information about the intellectual and social relations between political ideology and scholarship in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; a period that saw many scholars involved in radical politics. In comparing Pannekoek with contemporaries at similar junctures (not necessarily at the leftist end of the ideological spectrum), we stand to learn not only more about Pannekoek’s biography, but also about the science-society relationship at large.

For this reason, this conference also discusses how Pannekoek’s socialist work was received within the scientific community and, vice versa, how his (popularizing) scientific work was discussed within the labor movement. Here, too, comparisons with contemporaries can shed new light on the relationship between science and society.

 

Viewing and depicting the stars: the role of perception

Pannekoek’s astronomical work and his socialism are related through his distinctive ideas about how to view nature and how to look at society. In his political work he was inspired by the theory of knowledge put forward by the worker-philosopher Joseph Dietzgen. In his astronomical work these ideas translated into how he mapped and studied the Milky Way, for example by making use of handmade drawings.

Draftsmanship, theoretical notions of perception and related ideas about the workings of the mind played a strong role in Pannekoek’s practice of science, while the latter also shaped his ideas about how Marxists should analyze society. The conference is explicitly interested in the methods of scientists to depict nature and their overlap with artistic crafts. In trying to get a better sense of this nexus of relations between art, science and social theory in Pannekoek’s world, the conference will also address how contemporary artists (such as Dutch authors Herman Gorter or Henriëtte Roland Holst), philosophers (such as Joseph Dietzgen) and astronomers (such as Sir John Herschel) related ways of viewing to constructing social and natural knowledge.

Jeronimo Voss: Inverted Night Sky

In May and June 2016, visual artist Jeronimo Voss will present a new installation work at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, entitled ‘Inverted Night Sky’. It is inspired by Pannekoek’s astronomical work and its relation to his socialism. A guided tour to Voss’ installation at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam will be part of the conference, as well as a public event at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum.
 

Aim of this conference

The goal of the conference is to shed new light on the work of Pannekoek and his contemporaries: scientists and artists that were also active in politics. It asks how Pannekoek and his contemporaries balanced their scientific, artistic and political ambitions. Furthermore, it focuses on their ways of viewing science and society, and on the ways in which these informed scientific, artistic and political choices. Does a focus on ‘ways of viewing’ tell us more about why radical politics, science and modernism were complementary perspectives for many at the turn of the twentieth century?