Fisici italiani negli anni ’70. Fra scienza e ideologia

In the wake of the international political turmoil generated by the protests of ’68, a large number of social movements explicitly focused on raising awareness of the role and social function of science in advanced capitalist societies. From a theoretical point of view, such debates have largely focused on the discussion of the non-neutrality of scientific knowledge with respect to its socio-political conditioning. The article aims to present the contribution of Italian physicists to this debate by 1) showing their positioning in the wider sphere of transnational militancy networks 2) highlighting the theoretical specificities and the related querelles that have sprung up within the Italian intellectual field with the Italian Science Wars and 3) bringing out how this politically engaged approach to science has influenced research practices in physics history by encouraging new paths of inquiry.