Making Space for Knowing: A Capacious Approach to Comparative Epistemology by Aaron B. Creller

Author:Aaron B. Creller [Creller, Aaron B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mind & Body, undefined, General, philosophy, history, Asia
ISBN: 9781498547093
Google: AwRBDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2017-12-20T23:49:21.405811+00:00

For Putnam, there is no escaping our involvement with the world in our attempts to engage with it, and so absolute reality and absolute relativity are both impossible. Later, when discussing the limits of an absolute objectivity, he states that, as knowers, we are “beings who cannot have a view of the world that does not reflect our interests and values, but who are, for all that, committed to regarding some views of the world—and, for that matter, some interests and values—as better than others.”[35] By extension, an absolute objectivity that carries no perspective is an impossible standard to employ.

A second argument against the metaphysics of scientific objectivity is given by feminist philosopher Sandra Harding. The specific problem with objectivity lies in its definition, specifically as understood by the perspective she calls “objectivism.”

Consider . . . how objectivism too narrowly operationalizes the notion of maximizing objectivity. The conception of value-free, impartial, dispassionate research is supposed to direct the identification of all social values and their elimination from the results of research, yet it has been operationalized to identify and eliminate only those social values and interests that differ among the researchers and critics who are regarded by the scientific community as competent to make such judgments. If the community of “qualified” researchers and critics systematically excludes, for example, all African-Americans and women of all races and if the larger culture is stratified by race and gender and lacks powerful critiques of this stratification, it is not plausible to imagine that racist and sexist interests and values would be identified within a community of scientists composed entirely of people who benefit—intentionally or not—from institutionalized racism and sexism.[36]

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