The Political Science of Science: An Inquiry into the Possible Reconciliation of Mastery and Freedom*

Harold D. Lasswell

American Political Science Review, 1956, vol. 50, issue 4, 961-979

Abstract: My intention is to consider political science as a discipline and as a profession in relation to the impact of the physical and biological sciences and of engineering upon the life of man. I propose to inquire into the possible reconciliation of man's mastery over Nature with freedom, the overriding goal of policy in our body politic. In the interest of concreteness I shall have something to say about past and potential applications of science in three areas: armament, production, and evolution. It is trite to acknowledge that for years we have lived in the afterglow of a mushroom cloud and in the midst of an arms race of unprecedented gravity. Here I shall support a proposition that may at first evoke some incredulous exclamations. The proposition is that our intellectual tools have been sufficiently sharp to enable political scientists to make a largely correct appraisal of the consequences of unconventional weapons for world politics.

Date: 1956
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