On creative theorising in the African scientific enterprise

The laureate of the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physics, Werner Heisenberg, in his book Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science, questioned the consequences of 20th-century scientific revolutions for contemporary society, even though his reflections where focused on 20th-century Europe, where the impact of scientific revolutions was greatest. With great acuity, reminiscent of his style of dialectical politics, the great Marxist revolutionary Lenin debated this theme in the context of the exchange between materialism and idealism. From what we have discussed, it is clear that Africa will have to elaborate its own role within the revolutions of contemporary science.

Thinkers such as Donald Gillies have articulated the debates more cogently. The contemporary scientific enterprise is still a charged field and requires thinking through the nature of science itself and what it means for Africa precisely. Never has this been more clear than with the discovery of relativity physics by Einstein and quantum mechanics by Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Bohr, Dirac and others. The revolutions in science have fundamental lessons for Africa in the mode of questioning our contribution to global knowledge within a futuristic constellation. The classical questions about the nature of knowledge, as articulated for instance by David Hume, John Locke or Odera Oruka, will be set aside for a while. In concerning ourselves with Africa, we will then ask questions about the character of science itself, especially as spurred by revolutions in physics in the 20th century.

First, what is the status of scientific knowledge in Africa particularly? Secondly, what should be the approach that links scientific process to the questions of power, and lastly, what should be the distinction between science and metaphysics, normally called the ‘demarcation problem’ by scientists? Clearly the cultural relativity within which the answers to these questions are located will always have a bearing on our views here.