… is what Ian Hacking said in 2015 about this topic. Tomorrow we will, obviously, still talk about objectivity! Nevertheless, I wanted to share this interesting and fun read that endorses Objectivity as a “magisterial historical study of an epistemological concept”.
I’ve attached the article which appeared in 2015 as part of the book Objectivity in Science (which is available through SFU library) but unfortunately the book editors did not keep the abstract as part of the actual book, which, to a certain degree, ruins the effect of the structure and setup of the whole article. Thus, I have added the abstract in this post and attached the full-text here (PDF).
Abstract
The trajectory of objectivity, as an idea, is the triumph of bumbling public good sense over great but bad European philosophy (Descartes, Kant). The public in question is primarily that of querulous western democracies as they entered the age of technocracy, and it did a good if unplanned job of dealing with novelty. It is often hard to be objective in the face of a real-life debate, but there is no problem about objectivity itself—except what is foisted on it by highbrow idealization and misguided polemics. The adjective “objective” does the work for the abstract noun, “objectivity”, but in a negative way: in any single situation, one or more of the host of ways to fail to be objective is what matters. Objectivity is not a virtue: it is the proclaimed absence of this or that vice. When public virtues compete—evidence-based versus clinical medicine, for example—we need to think harder, not more objectively. When objectivity is declared to be the cardinal virtue of science, it at once gets bashed (rightly)—or else abused (deservedly), as in “NAOS: The National Association for Objectivity in Science” (q.v.). So let’s get down to work on cases, not generalities.
Add yours Comments – 3
This is neat! I am going to take a look at the book – the abstract definitely touches on a lot of the issues now around the word itself. It raises in my mind the context of “scientific truths” and public good – and in the face of fake news….and general misinformation. Is it fine to critique objectivity in science philosophically – but Not Okay when we want to maintain that we have gained knowledge scientifically and we need it to better the planet?
Thanks Asura for sharing this interesting article. I read it twice and I cannot say I have been able to find sufficient reasoning in the article for the argument it is making; that subjectivity-objectivity dialectic will never get anywhere unless we consider the injunction, which proposes not addressing the dialectic in the first place. Most of the cases and examples it brings are (or at least seem to be) about how the scientific community and the public come into contact each other; and that’s where the problem arises when interests on different groups conflict each other and as a result, objectivity becomes or is seen – knowingly or unknowingly – a tool for validating interests of a certain group. Here are a few points I find questionable in this article:
1. Hacking’s assertion 2.6 says: “Objectivity Is Not a Virtue: It Is the Proclaimed Absence of This or That Vice”. I understand what he is asserting. But it seems very inconsistent in the way it makes the argument. Vice sounds to be just like objectivity; a family-resemblance concept. It seems to have no clear definition; a word which finds its meaning in its context. In the scientific community, probably a concept which is considered to be a vice to a particular group of scientists might not be perceived as a vice to another. In this case, his sixth assertion sounds to be a second-story evaluation of vice and I guess the same injunction for objectivity could apply to vice too. Hence, it seems to me that this assertion is shifting the problem to another concept instead of addressing it.
2. I cannot really say whether he praises Daston and Galison’s work or not. His arguments suggest avoiding second-story studying of objectivity. The book “Objectivity” however is a third-story study of objectivity (history of epistemology or meta-epistemology in Hackings words).
I don’t understand whether he believes the injunction only applies to practical problems like the Sockeye Salmon case (where the public is involved) or it also applies to epistemological studies of objectivity (hence, disapproving Daston and Galison’s studies)?
——————————————–
There is also a very interesting example of “second-story” objectivity disputes in “Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter (1979). Hofstadter had noticed epistemological disputes on objectivity often have no ending and we end up “kicking the problem upstairs”. The example he brings is the scientific study of ESP (extrasensory perception or sixth sense). People who believe they have this power, cannot show any evidence of it when brought to the laboratory for scientific study. It simply vanishes in the lab and as soon as they leave the lab, they believe the power inexplicably returns to them. Science would label ESP as a non-real phenomenon which cannot be studied under scientific terms. However, those who believe in ESP argue that it is real, but when brought under close inspection, it fights back and shows no indication of its existence. In this case, the problem is being kicked to the second story and the scientific methods are being accused of inconsistency and incompatibility with nature. To prove that this statement is wrong, we need enough evidence to support the compatibility of scientific methods with nature which is a third-story subject for discussion.
I have not read the book entirely, but what I know is that unlike Hacking, he does not suggest to avoid studying objectivity beyond the ground level. He merely seeks the meaning of evidence and addresses some fun issues in the never-ending cycle of “evidence for evidence for evidence for …”. I will write a post about these issues very soon.
Reference:
Hofstadter, D. R. (1980). Gödel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid. New York: Basic Books.
Edit: (I wrote my second question in a way that implied a different meaning I didn’t want to. Disregard the first paragraph of question 2 in your mind and consider this one. Sorry!)
2. I cannot really say whether he praises Daston and Galison’s work or not. His arguments suggest avoiding second-story studying of objectivity. The book “Objectivity” is a third-story study of objectivity (history of epistemology or meta-epistemology in Hackings words) which naturally is not approved by Hacking’s assertion. However, he mentions the book Objectivity with a sense of approval which is very confusing to me.