ABSTRACT
The events of 9/11/2001 were horrific manifestations of intricate and ambiguous relationships between knowledge, power, and freedom in modern history. When the natural sciences became a dominant cultural force in Western societies during the early part of the twentieth century, their political implications were contested by two major philosophical schools. On the one hand, advocates of empiricism and positivism highlighted the liberating power of cognitively reliable knowledge over authoritarian ideologies, notably communism and fascism. The diffusion of scientific method and knowledge throughout the civil sphere, they claimed, enabled people for the first time in human history to become genuinely responsible for the content of their opinions and beliefs. On the other hand, critics of the cultural dominance of science professed that the project of making political agents responsible implied in effect the systematic attempt to subject human conduct to methodical inspection and control, and if necessary, deterrence and punishment.
