Science is political activity because it transforms what men are

Evidence

Is not science itself “political activity” and political thought, in as much as it transforms men, and makes them different from what they were before? If everything is “politics”, then it is necessary—in order to avoid lapsing into a wearisome and tautological catalogue of platitudes— to distinguish by means of new concepts between on the one hand the politics which corresponds to that science which is traditionally called “philosophy”, and on the other the politics which is called political science in the strict sense. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 916

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci’s claim that science is political activity — knowledge transforms men — is a load-bearing concept for later arguments about knowledge production and power.