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The purpose of this chapter is to address the challenge of the conditions necessary for genuine science to proceed. To do this I will change and critique the Weberian Ideal that genuine science as "knowledge of the sake of knowledge" is dependent upon certain social structures and institutions—namely universities and democracy. In point of fact, I will actually begin the argument that the Weberian Ideal is a pipe-dream in that universities have rarely, if ever, been in the business of promoting genuine science. We will see that just because a university department calls itself "Social Science" or claims to be doing "social science" does not mean that it actually does. In particular we need to recognise that while such departments provide more opportunity in which to do science, genuine science is itself not dependent upon these departments in order to be done. To demonstrate this point I will focus on how Britain's Research Excellence Framework is evidences of how democracies do not necessarily make genuine science possible. Indeed, if we turn back as far as Galileo, the more accurate condition for genuine science is "spare time". Drawing on Sartre's phenomenology I will suggest that genuine science is a form of play.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-92120-4_5

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