ARENDT,HANNAH ON THE NEED FOR A PUBLIC DEBATE OIL SCIENCE

I discuss Arendt's claim that science and its uses should become a mat ter of political discussion. The suggestion that science can be discus sed and monitored by lay people is based on her interpretation of mode rn science. Modern science results from a flight from the human condit ion, which in her view should be reversed by means of the public debat e. I conclude that Arendt's political approach should in fact be calle d a moral approach. Arendt's arguments can be reduced to a traditional humanistic critique of science, interpreted as a version of Kant's an tinomy between the cognitive and the moral interests of reason, accord ing to which scientists must be prevented from treating human beings a s a natural species like any other.