Hooge school en maatschappij. H.R. Kruyt en het ideaal van wetenschap voor de samenleving

Abstract

' University and Society' H.R. Kruyt and the ideal of science for society In this article the ideology of science for society that was propagated by Dutch scientists around the turn of the century is investigated, focusing on the ideas and activities of H.R. Kruyt, one of its foremost spokesmen in the inter-war period. Unlike most of his colleagues, Kruyt developed his views from a socialist position, that saw science as the principal driving force behind social progress. For that purpose, research had to remain strictly pure, for pure science eventually provided the greatest societal benefit. Members of the Dutch Academy, including Kruyt, took the initiative to establish an Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), that should form the bridge between science and society. The establishment, however, turned out to be more complicated than expected, because the needs of the leaders of industry were quite different fi'om what scientists like Kruyt had expected. Another expression of the ideology of science for society was Kruyt's own research programme, for the problems he investigated and the kind of knowledge he aimed to produce, were closely connected to his conception of what 'pure science' should be.