Most introductory philosophy of science courses begin by presenting the traditional positivist view of science as objective, descriptive, and value-free, usually as a historical position that will later be critically examined. Science and Culture in Latin America is likewise a philosophy of science course, taught as an upper-level class at the University of Utah, but it is one that reorients this familiar starting point by foregrounding the philosophical significance of science’s embeddedness with culture, power, and values. Although the course is interdisciplinary (it was cross-listed as a Spanish course and a History and Philosophy of Science course), its central questions remain philosophical: What counts as scientific knowledge? How do values shape inquiry? How should we understand scientific practices embedded in colonial and Indigenous contexts? In contrast to standard syllabi that assume students already inhabit a positivist framework, this course begins by challenging that assumption and situating science within broader cultural and political worlds.
We begin with familiar debates concerning the nature of science and how we tell its history: we discuss Galileo Galilei, Thomas Kuhn, and the contested notion of “the Scientific Revolution.” But the course quickly complicates this narrative. Students encounter Iberian colonial science, Nahua medicine, and Mayan astronomy, not as marginal curiosities but as constitutive influences on “modern science” itself. The point is not to set up “alternative” sciences but to show how Indigenous knowledges and colonial practices shaped what we now call science. Here, Helen Longino’s account of values in scientific communities and Sandra Harding’s insistence on the cultural embeddedness of science provide philosophical frameworks for rethinking the very categories through which philosophy of science has often defined itself.
From there, the syllabus turns to literature and aesthetics. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s baroque reflections on beauty and knowledge, Jorge Luis Borges’s meditations on memory and cognition—these texts remind us that science has always been bound up with imagination and meaning. We then confront science’s complicity in cultures of domination: imperial botany, eugenics, medicine and gender, as well as technoscience under capitalism. Within the last topic, Karl Marx’s analysis of alienated labor and Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto frame the discussions, showing how science and technology are inseparable from exploitation and the possibilities of reimagining subjectivity.
The final section of the course turns to science and justice. We study how the Abuelas of Plaza de Mayo used genetics to restore identities lost during Argentina’s dictatorship, repurposing a technology once tied to eugenics into a tool of memory, even as new bioethical problems emerge. We then turn to the Zapatistas, whose writings on climate catastrophe and call for “a world where many worlds fit” challenge us to imagine scientific practice beyond colonial and capitalist frameworks. These cases compel students to see science as contested terrain. In this way, the course closes by asking not only what science is but also what science might become when placed in the service of justice.
Pedagogically, the course is bilingual by design. Weekly reflection assignments written in Spanish encourage students to engage the texts in their original language, while presentations and papers delivered in English or Spanish foster collaborative argumentation. This rhythm embodies the philosophical claims that science is always mediated by culture and language and that philosophical analysis must attend to these mediations.
Students often highlight the literary and activist elements as their favorites. Borges sparks conversations about cognition; films like Blood of the Condor and Sleep Dealer dramatize the complexities of science, technology, gender domination, and capitalist exploitation. And the Abuelas and Zapatistas show how science can be mobilized for justice and emancipation. For me, the most rewarding moments are when students realize that philosophy of science is not only about seemingly abstract theory but also about the worlds we inhabit and the futures we might build.
In reflecting on this course, I don’t offer advice so much as an invitation. Philosophy of science, if it is to remain relevant, must provincialize itself while still seeking universality. The Zapatista provocation, “a world where many worlds fit,” captures this tension: a shared world made through plural practices, where science is both contested and vital. To defend science while also questioning it—that is the paradoxical task at hand.
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Alejo Stark
Alejo Stark is an astrophysicist, philosopher, and cultural critic. He works as Assistant Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature and Culture at the University of Utah. His book project, Science as Critique, theorizes how Latin American practitioners transform science into a critical practice.
