Science et pseudo-science de l’agronomie à l’agriculture biodynamique, et retour

Abstract

While the debate on the scientific or pseudo-scientific character of biodynamic agriculture regularly occupies the public debate, the history and philosophy of science seem to have shown little interest in this subject. The thesis defended here is twofold: first of all, if biodynamic agriculture is relatively successful today, this is undoubtedly due to the fact that its theorist, R. Steiner, was one of the first to criticize the paradigm that has dominated agronomy, or at least agriculture, for over a century. This criticism seems to have continued throughout the 20th century, up to a certain contemporary criticism of agribusiness and its disastrous consequences on the environment. However, and this is the second thesis defended here, this criticism seems to ignore, or even obscure, the reality of the internal debates that ran through agronomy during the 20th century and that continue to agitate it today: the systemic approach in agronomy, for example, has integrated elements of biodynamic agriculture into its objects. In our view, the main problem is that agronomy is often approached from an externalist perspective, which must be complemented by an internalist perspective in order to distinguish what is scientific from what is mystical, and to grasp the full historical and epistemological richness of agronomy.