Crisis of Worldview: An Interview with Helena Sheehan
Helena Sheehan
Abstract
In this interview, Helena Sheehan reflects on four decades since Marxism and the Philosophy of Science, tracing the decline of Marxist philosophy of science after 1989 and its recent revival amid the ecological crisis and renewed engagement with Engels’ Dialectics of Nature. She highlights Marxism’s distinctive strength as an integral philosophy that reconciles enduring epistemological dualisms and situates scientific knowledge within both socio-historical processes and the material world. Sheehan revisits the impact of the 1931 London Congress, where Soviet delegates helped spark a Marxist current among leading British scientists such as Bernal, Haldane, and Needham. She also discusses the continued relevance of Lenin’s philosophical realism while cautioning against its reductive use as an anti–postmodern talisman.Addressing Western Marxism’s resistance to “grand narratives,” Sheehan argues that the crises of late capitalism demand a comprehensive worldview..one increasingly embraced in contemporary Chinese Marxism. Across these themes, she affirms Marxism’s enduring capacity to provide coherence, purpose, and systematic insight in a fractured intellectual and political landscape.
Keywords
Marxism, science, Engels, dialectics of nature, Soviet science, Helena Sheehan
