Science Under the Yoke of Value

Maurizio Borghi; Ivo De Gennaro; Gino Zaccaria

doi:10.4324/9781003134497

What is it about?

Focus: The "machinery" and the critique of the value-concept. This book investigates how modern science has fallen under the "yoke of value." We argue that scientific research is no longer guided by a quest for truth, but by a coercive "evaluation machinery" that prioritizes artificial metrics like “quality,” “impact,” and “productivity.” Unlike common critiques that focus on bureaucracy, this inquiry goes deeper: it challenges the very logic of "value" itself. By drawing on great thinkers from Plato to Heidegger, we expose how the concept of value acts as a mechanistic force that subjugates scholars and prevents them from questioning the system that measures them. It is a call to recognize how scientific autonomy is being traded for a self-perpetuating cycle of valuation.

Photo by Chromatograph on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Focus: The urgency of the crisis and the unique philosophical depth. While many complain about "too much paperwork" in academia, this work reveals the true menace: the "Evaluation Machinery." This system magically prevents us from questioning its necessity, consuming enormous resources and diverting science from its true purpose. This book is essential because it provides the philosophical tools to understand why scientific life feels increasingly "machinic." It is a vital resource for anyone—from STEM researchers to policymakers—who senses that the current trajectory of academic life is compromising the very advancement of knowledge.

Perspectives

Our perspective is a radical departure from the norm. We do not seek to "improve" evaluation or make it "fairer." Instead, we offer a biting critique of the act of evaluating itself when applied to science. We contend that reasoning through "values" is a modern trap that transforms the pursuit of truth into a production line. By interrogating the "Yoke of Value," we invite our colleagues to step outside the machine and reconsider what it means to conduct research with genuine autonomy, free from the coercion of self-implicating metrics.
Gino Zaccaria
Bocconi University

This page is a summary of: Science Under the Yoke of Value, November 2025, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003134497.
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Open Access version
Science Under the Yoke of Value
The title of this book suggests that present-day scientific research is subjugated and that the yoke under which it is placed is “value”. We believe that this circumstance constitutes a threat to science itself. The idea that subjugation is a threat to science is not surprising, as it is generally accepted and commonly codified that scientific research must be free and cannot, therefore, tolerate being deprived of, or restricted in, its freedom and autonomy. Specifically, it is understood that scientific inquiry must be defended and sustained in its task of harbouring within itself the unknowable origin from where the changing forms of knowability, to which its endeavours respond, spring; by implication, science itself must maintain an openness towards the advent of new forms of knowledge (including an entirely new and different notion of scientificity) and thus remain capable of being shaken in its foundations; in one word: it is understood that science must guard its philosophical trait, and this means: its fundamental fragility. Unless we subscribe to a position which, at any time, identifies reality with a set of extant facts, then scientific inquiry is as well-founded as it remains firmly open to transformations in the very sense and meaning of “reality” and, in this sense, fragile in its foundations.

Contributors

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Gino Zaccaria
Bocconi University

The Machine of Measurement: Why "Value" and "Evaluation" are Disrupting Science

What is it about?

Why is it important?

Perspectives

Resources