Metaphysics of Physics: How Russian Physicists Use Science to Under-stand Ethnicity

Abstract

This article uses the example of physicists to examine the conflict between different ways of thinking about ethnicity. It is physicists who have often become the central subject of social science research because of the peculiarities of their supposedly objective view of the world — which runs counter to the constructivist view of sociology. The authors pose the question: how does science appear in the everyday judgments and reflections of physicists? The material for the study was in-depth interviews collected in 2023 from JINR staff in Dubna. The authors pose the question: how does science appear in the everyday perceptions of physicists? Before proceeding to the classification of interpretations of ethnicity, two main positions of physicists regarding knowledge about society were identified — positivism and skepticism. When discussing physics as a practical activity, it was emphasized that this science exists in close connection with the state. At the same time, the universality of the knowledge created remained an important characteristic of physics for the informants. One of the primary assumptions, that the scientific ethos can help to understand the connection of the structure of science with everyday values, turns out to be partially correct. This study allowed an attempt to identify 4 “ideal types” of physicists’ thinking about ethnicity: naturalistic explanation, which assumes a natural-scientific view of ethnicity; explanation through pure science, which appeals to the criteria of scientific knowledge that invalidate the significance of differences between people; explanation through the practice of science, when physicists make judgments about ethnicity with reference to the social context of their work; extra-scientific explanation, which is often based on a subjective feeling and a sense of duty towards the state. These types, using different rationales, lead to different positions on ethnicity, which allows us to speak of the multifaceted nature of scientific ethos and values.