José de la Luz y Caballero and Science as a Social Phenomenon

Abstract

The results in this work present a new facet of the work of the distinguished Cuban thinker of the XIX century José de la Luz y Caballero, who analyzes science as a social phenomenon, linked to the solution of the most urgent necessities, generated by the national formation process in Cuba. His contributions are also analyzed at the beginning of the professionalization and institutional process of science. The objective of the article is aimed at revealing the determinations that Luz y Caballero had discovered in science as a phenomenon linked to the general economic, social and cultural evolution of Cuba. The article offers to the reader significant reflections on Luz vision about the social causes of sciences and the significance of its classification of sciences. The text closes with a critical exhibition of the youth place as the main scientific development leader claimed by the national formation process. The investigation demanded the application from the adjusted methods to the characteristics of the topic, prioritizing the work with the gathered sources whose data were generalized by means of the logical procedures of the scientific knowledge. The authors selected the work materials, in correspondence with the demands of the research process.