Lorraine Daston and Peter Gallison, Objectivity
Week 6
Daston and Galison’s definition of objectivity revolves around the idea that there is some knowledge unmarked by any kind of prejudice from the knower. Throughout this book, we go through a series of different kinds of understanding on objectivity and how the definition has evolved over time. From Descartes and Kant to the modern understanding of the word, we can say that there has been no consolidated understanding of the term. With this in mind, we can ask whether objectivity is really as essential as we claim it is, and whether it is even achievable.
During the lecture, Dr. Aaron said that he believes it is possible to reach objectivity, but I do not agree. Everything we see and observe is seen and observed by us, through our minds and eyes clouded by subjectivity. We cannot produce any kind of knowledge that is not colored by our subjective prejudices and biases. When studying about the laws of quantum mechanics, we learned that subatomic particles existed in an a priori manner, but when observed, the mere act of observing them changed their state, and so we cannot know their objective state. Similarly, we cannot observe something because the very act of observing it alters its state.
People in the past like Plato are talking about truth but they do not use the term truth to mean objectivity in the way we do now. The kind of objectivity that is being produced by scholars like Daston is at the level of analytical thinking because dialectical thinking is thinking where you are engaging with the sheer plurality, the multiplicity that is there in real reality because once you produce an image that process of becoming, which is spectral representations are here at this level. They are at the level of analysis. Dialectic is where you have all kinds of contradictions and conflicts popping up and you’re engaging with difference. So truth is there, but it has got nothing to do with imagery because for Plato when you talk about reality, that itself is split into the visible eye what is known as the realm of appearance and that which is intelligible.
For decades, social science has been considered inferior to natural and physical science, and because of that, social science has tried to incorporate elements of the hard sciences, such as objectivity. But we cannot really say whether objectivity can be attained through science, so then why must we place such an emphasis on the social sciences to achieve it?
If we cannot agree on what objectivity even is, nor on whether we can obtain it, then perhaps it is time to move past this concept and start thinking of other ways in which to produce substantial and important knowledge.