Objectivist and relativist science and environmentalism
Part of : Philosophical inquiry ; Vol.XI, No.1-2, 1989, pages 17-27
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17-27
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Abstract:
Objectivist and relativist assumptions of scientific and popular writings need to be clarified by their interpreters. Scientific knowledge is commonly utilized by conflicting interest groups for a confusing array of political reasons. It would be better to state one’s commitment and evidence than to appeal to universal laws of principles of ecology or economics.The major philosophical problems of the twentieth century are also questions of science. Can we cvern know the physical world as it really exists? Does scientific objectivity exist in any real sense? Can truth be described at any time as objective or absolute? Or will we always have to satisfy ourselves with relativist descriptions bound by the cultural constraints of laguage and worldview?These questions simultaneously include problems of language, knowledge, ideologies and culture. Attempts to answer them continue not only for academic reasons but also because science has assumed such a large role in settling public policy questions. People want to know whether or not scientists are telling a slanted version of the truth to government officials who are makking decisions on matters that affect them personally.Thus the two problems are philosophical and political: how much stock can we put in the statements of scientists and how our friends ana adversaries in and our of government are going to use the tatements politically. In a democracy we assume that criteria exist to settle debates among conflicting parties. That assumption rests on the belief that some piece of abiding or passing scientific truth can be discovered to quiet the struggle. “Laws” of ecology have been offered to solve the environmental problems of our day.. Universal human rights have been promulgated by the United Nations in an effort to promote peace in the world. In both cases the reasoning follows the natural law underprinnings of philosophy and religion common in the West until the nineteenth century.Yet there always seems to have been a skeptical view in western thought that we cannot truly know the physical world, much less establish laws about it. The Greeks before and after Plato discussed questions of reality, permanance and change and presented strong arguments for both metaphysical and skeptical viewpoints. In modern times Descartes cast doubt on the human ability to know physical reality by splitting the functions of the spiritual mind and the material body. His thought influenced subsequent thinkers profoundly.
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