Status of Knowledge
Objectivity
Independence from the particular standpoint of any individual knower. Objectivity is better understood as something a method or a community achieves through checks on individual bias than as something a single knower can simply decide to have.
How secure or true a claim is. These concepts ask what we are entitled to say about a claim once it is supported: whether it is settled, whether it could be wrong, and whether its standing depends on who is asking.
IA prompts this concept is central to
The wording is the guide’s, exactly. Quote it as it stands.
- IA prompt 12Is bias inevitable in the production of knowledge?If bias is inevitable then objectivity cannot mean its absence, and the prompt pushes towards objectivity as something a community builds rather than an individual achieves.
- IA prompt 28To what extent is objectivity possible in the production or acquisition of knowledge?The prompt is a direct interrogation of the concept, and its bite is in the distinction between objectivity as a method and objectivity as a view from nowhere.
Prompts where it is a useful second angle
- IA prompt 09Are some types of knowledge less open to interpretation than others?Fields taken to be less open to interpretation are usually those with the strongest community checks, which is objectivity as method rather than as absence of a viewpoint.
- IA prompt 23How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge?Tools are often credited with removing the observer, which is worth testing given that the tool embodies the choices of its designers.
- IA prompt 35In what ways do values affect the production of knowledge?If values are internal to knowledge production, objectivity cannot mean value-freedom, which is the tension the prompt sets up.
Objectivity under the knowledge framework
Only the elements where this concept has something substantive to say. An empty pairing is left dimmed rather than padded.
A community with a narrow range of standpoints can be internally rigorous and still systematically blind. This is why the diversity of perspectives inside a discipline is an epistemic matter and not only a political one.
Objectivity in practice is a set of methodological checks on individuals: blinding, pre-registration, peer review, replication, adversarial review. It is built into procedure precisely because it cannot be achieved by an individual resolving to be unbiased.