PS 100 (Political Analysis)

Philosophical Debate on
Knowledge and Truth

Philosophical Disputes and Debates on Knowledge and Trurh

A. Epistemological Issues Epistemological Objectivists vs.
Epistemological Subjectivists
Epistemology from Greek episteme (knowledge or science) and
logos (the study)
Epistemology the study of the criteria we deploy and by which
we know and decide what does and does not constitute a
warranted claim about the world or what might constitute
warranted knowledge
Epistemology a branch of philosophy concerned with the
nature and scope of knowledge. It questions what knowledge is,
how it is acquired, and the possible extent a given subject or
entity can be known.
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Assumptions of Epistemological Objectivists

1. It is possible to neutrally observe the social world and the
behavior of social phenomena (i.e., without influencing or
distorting what we see by and through that act of observation or
perception).
2. The facts out there can and must be the ultimate arbiter of
whether or not our theories are true and hence can be used to
guide practice. If we cannot use empirical evidence from reality
to judge the adequacy of our theories, we are in danger of being
held in thrall by a mixture of guesswork, dogma, superstition,
prejudice and so on.

Assumptions of Epistemological Subjectivists

1. What we perceive is, at least in part, an outcome of us and
the conceptual baggage that we bring to bear in order to
make sense of what we experience.
2. It is impossible to neutrally observe what is out there
without inevitably influencing what you perceive, because of
the action of a perceptual process that processes the sensory
inputs in variable ways according to, for instance, their
variable cultural backgrounds.

B. Ontological Issues Realist Assumptions vs. Subjectivist

Assumptions
Ontology from Greek ontos (being) and logos (the study)
Ontology is concerned with the nature of phenomena and their
existence the out there.
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being,
existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and
their relations.
Ontology raises questions regarding whether or not a
phenomenon we are interested in actually exists independently
of our knowing and perceiving it.

Realist Assumptions
1. Realist assumptions concern the ontological status of
phenomena we assume to constitute social reality and entail
the view that they exist out there independently of our
perceptual or cognitive structures and attempts to know.
2. We might not already know its characteristics, but this reality
exists, is real, and awaits discovery by us.

Subjectivist Assumptions
1. Subjectivist assumptions concern the ontological status of the
social phenomena we deal with, which, philosophically, entail
the view that what we take to be social reality is a creation
or projection of our consciousness and cognition.
2. What we usually assume to be out there has no real
independent status separate from the act of knowing. In
knowing the social world, we create it. We just probably are
not usually aware of our role in these creative processes.

What science is and what is not?

The positivist stance: The truth is out there and we can
objectively know it.
Assumptions of Positivism
1. Positivists assume that there is a point at which an observer
can stand back and objectively or neutrally observe what
they understand to be an external reality.
2. Positivists think that they can observe without influencing
what they observe provided the correct methodological
procedures are followed. This allows the scientist to test
theory by gathering data, or the facts that can be collected
through observation of an external objective reality.

Positivism combines objectivist epistemology and realist

ontology.
Positivists assume that it is possible for suitably trained
scientists to compare any knowledge claim to the real facts and
through this data collection, judge its accuracy and truthfulness.
Based upon this comparison to the real, if the theory survives
this process of testing, it may then, in principle, be used to guide
practice.

Auguste Comte (1853)

Truth resides in the observers passive

registration of what he called the
positively given meaning of the facts that
we can collect from external reality
through observing it.

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William Buxton
Social scientists strive to search
for truth with only much
objectivity as they could.
Consciously or unconsciously, the
constructs, categories, and
empirical insights made by social
scientists are imbued with
ideological assumptions and tacit
practical commitments. Either
their definition of reality supports
the established order or seeks to

Critical Theory: Alternative Views

Critical theory adopts a phenomenalist position. Its
assumptions:
1. Influenced by culturally derived interpretive process, human
knowing shapes our realities. Reality is thus assumed to be a
social construction, something we cannot avoid doing.
2. The versions or images of reality we deploy are always
changeable because the social circumstances of their production
change. As reality for us changes our organizational practices,
our definition and understanding of organizational problems
also change.

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Critical Theory: Alternative Views

3. Critical theory raises questions regarding whose particular
version of reality is dominant in any particular social context
and how this impacts on what we do.
4. Critical theory also raises questions regarding why a certain
version of reality is dominant and accorded credibility at the
expense of the alternatives that are always possible along with
the alternative practices that those different ways of knowing
enable.

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