The starting point for this contribution is a consideration of scientific language and with it of science in the modern age, from the 16th century onwards. The most important characteristic of modern science, that differentiates it from previous forms of science, is that the whole of reality is seen only as an object, which means that a metaphysical reduction has taken place, as the material is only one of the ways in which reality can manifest itself (Heidegger). According to Lukács, such an understanding of science is merely part of a wider process of reification encompassing the whole of bourgeois capitalist society and grounded in capitalist material objectivity. Descartes’ division between reason and nature (subject from object) as part of this historical process reached its apogee during the enlightenment, which was the philosophical accompaniment to the development of
capitalist social relations. Reason, the bearer of scientific research, became increasingly formalised, as was expressed in the scientific understanding of truth as formally correct (Horkheimer). From that point on, science has been increasingly marked by formalisation, which meant increasing abstraction from content and increasing negation of individuality. Such an understanding of science left no place
for man as subject. And this was semiotically realised in a special language register – scientific language, characterised by the specialist dictionary and the nominalised grammar. While everyday language construes reality as a balanced tension between objects and processes, the nominalised language of scientific behaviour construes it only as a structure made up of objects, as something that does not change over time (Halliday). Today, this dehumanising form of language prevails in all the sciences; moreover, under the pressure of the ever increasing reification that dominates the contemporary world, it has also taken over other domains (administration, the economy and so on), specifically those connected with social power. However, one should not overlook the opposite process: this kind of nominalised language does not suit quantum physics, as quantum reality is extremely dynamic and hard to grasp, nor does it satisfy researchers in the social sciences and the humanities who strive theoretically against reification (Holloway, Grdina).
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