SIMM23

Objectivity and values in theories of science There has always been a gap between humanities and social sciences on one side and the natural sciences on the other. Natural scientist blame social scientist for being ideological and blind to scientific facts, and the social scientists blame natural scientists for equating science with reason. It is not only about how we view science, but it extends to how we view the world and human beings. Philosophies of science has been a contested field since the old Greeks through rationalists, empiricists, to Kant who tried to merge the two traditions, to idealists, to newer traditions like logical positivism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical realism and standpoint theory. In this essay I will discuss the four different perspectives view of objectivity and values in science. I will also during the essay argue that there is a difference not of degree between natural and social sciences, but they are completely different species. Starting out with positivism. First chapter, first paragraph in Chalmers book he writes that if
observation of the world is carried out in a careful, unprejudiced way then the facts established in this wax will constitute a secure, objective basis for science. If, further, the reasoning that takes us from this factual basis to the laws and theories that constitute scientific knowledge is sound, then the resulting knowledge can itself be taken to be securely established and objective.

Objectivity takes the centre stage; through observation we can get facts and true knowledge about an objective reality. The early empiricists like Locke argued that our mind is a tabula rasa waiting to be filled with knowledge through experience. This is a passive process where our consciousness is inscribed by the nature. Empiricism and positivism follows inductive and deductive reasoning, it should be verified or falsified. Values should and can be put aside. Through Marx dialectics of class-consciousness, to Feyerbends epistemological anarchism, Kuhns paradigm theory, to Foucaults genealogy that uncovered power-knowledge relations and his discourse theory, there is a strong current that question a positivistic epistemology;

namely the feminist standpoint theory. Questions of power in deciding what constitutes knowledge is the main theme in standpoint theory and Harding argues that the dominant notions of objectivity and universal truths are ostensibly objective, it is impossible to maintain such a scientific gaze if we are to take into account that science, like the rest of society, is pervaded by gender hierarchies. Haraways theory about the gaze is connected to the male, the positions of Man and White, the normative and unsituated subject. This subject takes advantage of power structures in society, it can take a position, a gaze that makes claims on power to see but not to be seen and to represent and at the same time avoid being represented; she calls this the god-trick. From this short description of standpoint feminism view on philosophy of science we can see that it critiques conventional objectivity. I will therefore look further into Haraways notion of situated knowledge and Hardings theory about how taken into account standpoint can lead to strong objectivity. In social science, but also in natural science, fewer and fewer would argue that values and norms could be excluded from research. Some, like standpoint feminists, even argues they should not be excluded. But even positivism, no matter their utopian claims, is neither value free nor objective. As a critique of positivism, especially in social science, a series of new paradigms like social constructivism, phenomenology and hermeneutics emerged. They argued that since social reality is fundamentally different than nature, we should therefore not apply the same methods when we research it. Gadamer emphasized that because the subject matter of the social sciences, human understanding is a precondition for all knowing and thus humanities and social sciences should logically be prior to the natural sciences. Social sciences, unlike the natural sciences, are about meaningful action. Social phenomena are constituted of meaning that people attribute them and we ought to view social phenomena as embedded in culture and social context. Knowledge does not come from a vacuum; it is dependent on our position within the structures, on social, cultural and historical contexts. Based on this short briefing can draw the conclusion that there is no such thing as objective or value-free knowledge viewed from the social constructivism view. But I will further look into the prevalent notion of separating facts from values in these perspectives.
Critical realism bills itself as a kind of middle way between positivism and social constructivism. It is mainly concerned with ontology, unlike social constructivism that is mainly concerned with epistemology. When it comes to values and objectivity the above philosophies of science, in a

sense, are more either or. With critical realism more doors are kept open and with the words of Sayer I will leave you with this cliff-hanger.
Objectivity and subjectivity are some of the most ambiguous words in the vocabularies of social scientists and philosophers, causing widespread difficulties, even for scholars well versed in social theory.