Download Review of Objectivity and Its Other, Edited by Wolfgang Natter

Review of Objectivity and Its Other, Edited by Wolfgang Natter, Theodore R. Schatzki and John Paul
Jones III
New York and London: Guilford Press, 1996
by: Robert P. Gephart
Objectivity has become the goal of science, its primary resource, its distinguishing feature, and its
reason for existence. Indeed, objectivity has become a necessary if not sufficient shibboleth for science
-- a pet phrase, manner of speaking and mode of behaviour which presumably distinguishes scientists
and scientific practices and from others. This has been particularly evident for the social sciences
which have used objectivity to warrant their superior or privileged position relative to other forms of
knowing such as 'common sense'.
But precisely what is objectivity? The delegitimation of grand narratives (Lyotard, 1984) has been so
extensive that the grand narrative of progress through objective science is in doubt. As stated by
Natter, Schatzki and Jones in their introductory essay to this volume, "The capacity of objectivity to
specify proper research procedures and disciplinary ambitions has been severely compromised" (p. 1).
The volume thus addresses the nature and meaning of objectivity and the challenges faced by
objectivity. It also addresses the 'others' to objectivity which emerge as objectivity retreats into the
modern past.
This volume contains 10 essays which have emerged from the activities of the Committee on Social
Theory at the University of Kentucky, an interdisciplinary group which spans the humanities and the
social sciences. The contributions and contributors reflect this interdisciplinary, or perhaps more
properly "transdisciplinary" domain. They address two fundamental questions for philosophy of the
humanities and social science: 1) can investigators conduct "objective" inquiries? and 2) can the
products of such research "be true descriptions of a reality that is independent of investigators"? (p. 2).
Historically, inability to answer either or both questions in the affirmative was a certain sign of failure
on the part of science or scientists. The current volume addresses the practicality of the presumption
that objectivity is necessary for science or for effective scholarship, and it does so in a manner
cognizant of the now widely accepted assumption that scientific methods do not and cannot act as
reflecting devices to accurately capture the inherent properties of nature (Rorty, 1979).
In this review, I first provide a summary and overview of the topics and insights from each of the 10
papers in the volume. This detailed summary and discussion are necessary given the unique
contributions of each essay and the complex philosophical nature of many of these. Next, I address
some of the important issues which are relevant, but not fully addressed in the volu me. Finally, I
attempt to clarify the importance and implications of the book to a diverse audience of humanists,
philosophers, social scientists and organizational analysts.
The Essays
"Contexts of objectivity" (Natter, Schatzki and Jones) introduces the volume by reviewing the
challenges to objectivity. First, there have been a multitude of critics of objectivity who have
identified contexts and research practices which diverge from the norm of objectivity and which
thereby make problematic the assumption that objectivity is necessary for science. Second, the
presumed separation of subject and object which is necessary for objectivity has been questioned. A
third challenge, from critical theory and sociology of knowledge, argues that all (scientific) knowledge
is bound to contexts, values and ideology. These contexts include language, the tacitly gendered nature
of world views, and the destruction of a necessary link between the sign and the world it supposedly
represents.
The authors reject a dichotomized view of objectivity and its others. They do not endorse the 'anything
goes' view of science and they reject the despairing view that to retreat from objectivity is to embrace
subjectivism, relativism, anarchy or nihilism. Rather, they quest for "an alternative, well developed
1
conception of objectivity" which will 1) be consistent with the conditionality of thought and inquiry,
2) constitute an alternative to arbitrariness and nihilism and 3) wean scholars from their utopian ideals.
They thus seek to move beyond some traditional ideal to a new, postmodern view of objectivity as a
radically reflexive form of reasoning with attendant social practices.
The difficult nature of these issues is addressed in the second part of the book, "Complex Terrain"
which includes two essays. The first of these, "Signs of Persuasion" by Gunnar Olsson begins by
asking what it means to make sense. For Olsson, making sense is inextricably linked to the
relationship of the senses to signs and in particular to the links among two sets of relationships: 1) that
of the signifier to the 5 physical senses, and 2) that of the signified to the nonphysical meanings which
one constructs. This potential linkage, for Olsson, generates three aspects or crises: the crises of
representation, intentionality and credibility. The issue turns on the separation of the signified and the
signifier and the inevitable gap which these crises reflect. To the extent the gap is closed or dissipated,
this is accomplished through the power of rhetoric. Traditional views of objectivity as sense making
have privileged representation and intentionality, but have failed to adequately investigate the role of
credibility via persuasion, and the underlying aspects of power which engender credibility.
The second essay, "Objectivity Otherwise" by Samuel Weber, reformulates the title of the volume by
playing on the multiple meanings of the title and their indication of the insufficiency of objectivity.
Otherwise...we are left to the others of subjectivity and relativism. Otherwise...we need a supplement
to objectivity. Weber deconstructs Webster's (dictionary) definition of objectivity to find the other of
subjectivity is inherent in the meaning of objectivity hence, paradoxically, objectivity requires a
peculiar subjectivity. It is relational and requires, not displaces, its others. In this manner, objective
becomes the subjective seeking to stabilize itself. Weber then extends his definitional insights to a
reading of Heidegger's Overcoming of Metaphysics. This reading shows reflexivity to be central to
modern philosophical consciousness, and self-reflexivity or "reflective recognition of thinking by
itself" emerges as the "sole medium of truth" (p. 43). Ontologically, the first 'object' to present itself in
the reflexive search for truth is the subject itself. Weber thus finds it important to (re)conceive the
subject, the privileged other of objectivity, as technics (p. 45) which he defines as empowered
emplacement, linked to the unfolding of subjectivity which is self-securing and which involves the
will to will.
The next section of the book addresses "Disciplinary Critiques", that is, investigations of objectivity
and its others in the specific professional domains of history and geography. In "Gender, objectivity
and the rise of scientific history" Bonnie Smith discusses how the discipline of history has constituted
women and gender as its negative or other. This occurs in part through the 19th century turn toward
objectivity and factuality based in archival data, a turn which sought to transcend class and gender.
The pursuit of gender neutral knowledge nonetheless touches on gender both explicitly and implicitly.
Institutionally, women held a marginal or irregular status in the profession, for example being unable
to obtain degrees at Cambridge and Oxford, being excluded from social functions and being restricted
in terms of access to libraries. In this sense, history is constituted through a discourse and set of
practices which reflects a masculine view of the world. These practices leave gendered traces on both
the substance and practice of history and reflect an eroticization of the project of history. This is
evident in the search for heros and in the practice of archival data analysis during which historians
described their tasks in such sexualized metaphorical terms as searching for "virgin" archives. Smith
next reviews the tactics and challenges faced by women who have engaged in historical scholarship.
She notes some of the alternative issues and themes addressed by women historians. She then notes
the difficulties of escaping the ideology of objectivity and she discusses how the tacitly male/gendered
predispositions of objectivity have "heterosexualized, confined and limited" the opportunities of
women. She argues however that it would be dangerous to valorize women historians or to privilege
accounts of womanly actions and practices as historical topics since these would only re-produce the
tacitly gendered structure of the profession. Objectivity in history is thus undermined by the very
practices of gendering which are implicated by objectivity and which constitute it as a separate or
supposedly unique mode of knowing.
2
John Paul Jones III continues the deconstruction of objectivist claims in the context of geography, in
his essay "Making Geography Objectively: Ocularity, Representation and The Nature of Geography."
Here again the topic is the role of objectivity in constituting the identity of a discipline or profession. It
is the "polyvalent" character of objectivity and not its claims to limited, definite meanings which has
given objectivity its force in the constitution of geography as a 'scientific' discipline. The scaffold
which undergirds objectivity and provides its force is composed by the tenets of determinant reality,
investigative rigor, the separation of subject from object, the transparant nature of meaning, and the
teleological nature of science which presumably enables the creation of truths which transcend
particular contexts (p. 70). Objectivity is thus characterized by its excesses relative to subjectivity, and
yet this subjectivity is too complex to be the mere other of objectivity. By examining Richard
Hartshorne's influential work The Nature of Geography, Jones surfaces the features of objectivity
which were basic to discipline making in geography. Ocularity and 'the objective gaze' came to mark
objective or scientific geography, and Hartshorne sought to change this emphasis by arguing for
"distanced re-presentation" rather than visual accessibility as foundational to objectivity in geography.
Objectivity thus becomes detached from ocularity even while utilizing it. Objectivity becomes a
particular subjective view point manifest through textual and narrative practices. Given the importance
of space and spatial difference for geographic objectivity, Jones discusses how ideas from Henre
Lefebvre about social space can offer a "signpost" (p. 84) for an ontology which avoids or transcends
the objective/subjective dualism and its attendant commit ment to omniscience/relativism.
"The American Historian of France and 'the Other'" by Jeremy Popkin is the last essay in this section.
Popkin addresses the peculiar and changing situation of American historians who study French
history. He begins by addressing the different commitments and challenges of historical versus
ethnographic investigations, noting that for both professions the subjects of study are the others to the
historians and ethnographers. Historians studying cultures other than their own, particularly those
addressing Western countries such as France, find themselves in the paradoxical situation of having a
detachment and impartiality which "native" historians might lack, simply because the outsider
historian lacks background knowledge and membership in the studied culture. The perspective of
American historians studying France has evolved over time, moving from the outsider view to that of
writing as a generalized representative of "the modern world" commenting on the processes of
modernization. This provides opportunities for such historians to generate insights that might vary
from those of native historians, but the insights themselves are linked to the epistemology and
knowledge base of the historians and are not "objective" in any simple sense, nor are they
dispassionate and impartial. The American epistemology allows historians to be engaged interpreters
of culture, not mere ciphers. The American epistemology contrasts with recent French vogue egohistoire which addresses how historians relate to their subject, a task unattainable by Americans since
this involves the French historians in using background knowledge of experiences as 'being French' to
inform their study. Popkin concludes on the paradox that differences in the cultures of historians
which themselves produce different epistemological positions may thus be important to enhancing the
vitality of scholarship.
This diverges from the more common assumption, based on the quest for objectivity, which involves
seeking integration in the views which emerge from each perspective.
Part Three of the book is "Reconceptualizing Objectivity". It contains essays that seek to offer new or
innovative framings of objectivity. David Hoy examines "Significant Others: Objectivity and
Ethnocentrism". Initially, these concepts may seem antithetical but Hoy seeks to recuperate a positive
conceptualization of ethnocentrism as juxtaposed and contrasted to objectivity. These concepts are
"significant others" in that they are bonded and interdependent, not opposites but mutually defining
concepts. Examining Bloom's critique of ethnocentrism in The Closing of the American Mind, Hoy
uncovers a paradox: Bloom's assertion that only Western culture is not ethnocentric itself seems
ethnocentric. He then seeks a resolution to this paradox through hermeneutics, the branch of
philosophy concerned with understanding and interpretation. He reminds us that hermeneutics is NOT
opposed to objective understanding but only to denial of an "overly abstract picture of objectivity as a
transcultural, atemporal ideal" (p. 119). He uses the debate on ethnocentrism and multiculturalism as
3
the topic or site for fashioning an hermeneutic conception of objectivity and ethnocentrism as
significant others, and to conceptualize postmodern ethnocentrism in a non-pernicious manner. Since
any interpretation is informed by context, there are no context free -- i.e. non-ethnocentric -- claims to
knowledge. This form of ethnocentrism -- the inherent contextuality of meaning -- is not pernic ious
since there is no closure nor final nor right meaning possible. New interpretations will always be
needed as contexts change, hence hermeneutics pursues an open as opposed to closed horizon model
of meaning. Ethnocentrism is pernicious where it pursues a closed horizon and seeks to privilege the
interpretations from one culture as the final, best or only interpretations, or where it expects and
demands convergence in languages and interpretations.
Theodore Schatzki pursues a similar close relationship between "Objectivity and Rationality" in the
next essay. Objectivity requires close awareness of rationality and overlaps with it in terms of certain
practices. In the scientistic view, objectivity obtains when the knowledge gatherer functions correctly
and hence when the knower's cognition mirrors the world. In contrast, an hermeneutic view considers
objectivity as a set of intellectual virtues which include: 1) striving to become conscious of one's
prejudgements which inform one's understanding; 2) willingness to abandon or revise prejudgements
when these interfere with understanding; 3) to be open to learning from unfamiliar views; and 4) to
engage in sincere dialogue with the 'subjects' of study. These virtues are evident in the conception of
objectivity in science which Thomas Kuhn offers in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Thus
objectivity can characterize social scientists and others, although objectivity is no guarantee of truth.
Schatzki then discusses rationality which provides grounds for objectivity and is defined in terms of
four virtues or practices: instrumentality, consensus, reflexivity and truth. Schatzki concludes that
rationality has strong links to objectivity and indeed, that: "Rationality and objectivity thus coincide
for the social investigator. An objective investigator is one who acts rationally, and a rationally
proceeding investigator is, inter alia, an objective one" (p. 158).
Throughout the book, an espoused other to objectivity has been relativism. Andrew Grimes and
Deborah Rood seek to move beyond this dichotomy to offer "a third response" (p. 162) in their essay
"Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Descriptive Epistemologies". They begin with the concept of
"local epistemologies" defined as ways of knowing shared by inquiring communities which are
normative in content and purpose since they reduce ways of knowing to prescribed strategies and
rules, i.e. epistemology is transformed into methodology. The next level is "descriptive
epistemologies" which emerge from "a sort of reflection not usually endorsed in traditional objectivist
research" (p. 162). This reflection on local epistemologies reveals the extramethodological aspects of
normative or local epistemologies. Since any descriptive epistemology may include several local
epistemologies and any local epistemology may require several descriptive epistemologies, there is no
one to one correspondence among these. One thus needs to move to a third level, "bridging
epistemologies" which identify common elements among descriptive and local epistemologies and
which compare or contrast the epistemologies on these bases. Bridging epistemologies can thus be
used to locate affinities among local and descriptive epistemologies and to provide bases for (partial)
integration of these. Five bridging epistemologies are identified and discussed: limiting notions,
oppositional science, synthesis of partial truths, switching rules and conversation. The authors then
show the application of these bridging epistemologies in empirical research on power, to illustrate how
research can move beyond objectivism and relativism. Research of this nature has four distinct
properties or consequences: 1) theorizing will be epistemological, 2) theory and research will be more
complex, 3) interest will dr ive research and 4) research will become a community endeavour.
The final essay in the volume, "Ultraobjectivity, Cross-Culturally: Interpretive Anthropology and the
Arts of Rereading" by James Boon investigates anthropological research and theorizing to develop
"ultraobjectivity" -- a view which is radically intersubjective and observable. This is "a fuller
objectivity" (p. 180) than that provided by positivism, one which involves a spiralling art of rereading
cultural texts. This is explored through a re-reading of Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture. The
discussion here is a complex reflection on how students and others mis-read Benedict by selectively
noting and recalling certain features of her work and certain interpretations of these while selective ly
'missing' other aspects and interpretations which are evident in the work, in particular her oscillation
4
between relativism and objectivism. These mis-readings arise as a result of the relativist or objectivist
stances taken by readers: either stance misses and de-thematizes evidence of the other view(s) inherent
in Benedict's texts. Boon wishes, through ultraobjectivity, to escape the devolution into singular
epistemic positions which readers take and to retain the "drifting" or "irregular" character of the texts
themselves and the cultures they re-present. Ultraobjectivity requires and involves a spiralling rereading of texts as intertextual phenomena in an effort to transcend the order imposed by one's
interpretive pre-dispositions and commitments.
Missing Links
The essays address objectivity and its multiple others in some detail, offering an overview and
introduction to many important issues and providing contributions to advance our understanding of
what it is feasible to ask of objectivity in future humanistic and social research. The essays are largely
philosophical and use textual examples to illustrate their points. They thus point to but do not
explicitly address certain important issues which have been addressed in social and philosophical
literatures. Here, I mention some of these missing points or links to the broader epistemological
domains of humanities and social science.
First, while the focus is on objectivity and to a lesser extend subjectivity, the topic or problem of
intersubjectivity is addressed only briefly in one or two essays, and the term is not indexed.
Intersubjectivity -- how we know other minds -- is itself a presumed bridging process between
objectivity and one of its potential others, subjectivity. For Schutz (1962) failure to resolve this
'problem' was a scandal in philosophy and the topic to which Schutz and others devoted considerable
attention. Further, objectivity, subjectivity their connection through the processes of intersubjectivity
have been characterized as the bases of the social construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann,
1966). This view avoids the simple dichotomy of subject/object which the authors of the essays in this
volume also seek to transcend. Where intersubjectivity is addressed in the volume it plays a very
important role -- it is the basis for ultraobjectivity. Thus intersubjectivity is a significant other to
objectivity and subjectivity which might well be usefully addressed in a volume of this nature.
Second, and related to the first point, sensemaking is topical in many essays in the present volume. For
example Olsson's essay addresses three crises which give rise to parallel social practices that generate
sense or meaning. Sensemaking constitutes as well as represents social objects and subjective
meanings and makes these intersubjectively meaningful and available. Scholarly studies of
sensemaking (e.g. Weick, 1995) offers insights into how objectivity and subjectivity -- as well as
intelligibility, rationality and other phenomena -- are accomplished in everyday life, and how
intersubjectivity emerges from and connects these. Sensemaking has been addressed in an extensive
and varied literature that itself is often based on assumptions consistent with hermeneutics.
Sensemaking thus offers an alternative or complementary way to frame and address many issues
related to objectivity and its others. And the sensemaking literature itself could also benefit from the
philosophical insights of the present volume, for example by addressing how the virtues of objectivity
are both a textual problem and an in situ accomplishment for philosophical and scientific
sensemaking. There is thus a potential convergence in the interests of sensemaking scholars and those
of the authors of the present volume, which tiself may provide a basis for future scholarly insights
given the two literatures (sensemaking and the current philosophical volume) start from somewhat
different moments in the social construction process: objectivity for the present volume, and
subjectiv ity/intersubjectivity for the sensemaking scholars.
Third, the book starts from and returns to Kuhnian notions of the nature of science and scientific
change. The insights concerning objectivity in science could be extended further by considering the
empirical literature on scientific practices and the sociology of science. Thus while the current volume
engages in philosophical debate concerning the meaning of objective science, empirical research has
sought to represent the sensemaking practices, devices and understandings of scientists themselves as
they 'do' science (see e.g. Knorr-Cetina, 1981). My point is that it is an open empirical question as to
5
what scientists warrant as objective knowledge, and how they do so. Ethnographic and archival
research have been used to explore this issue. Given the inescapable gulf between the signified and the
signifier, philosophical reflection is unable to recover the 'true' meaning of objectivity simply because
it means what members construct it to mean during everyday life science. The gulf is closed, if only
temporarily, through the in situ sensemaking practices of members which presume a certain
relationship of correspondence between the signifier "objective knowledge" and the practices to which
this signifier presumably refers. And while the very premises on which such representation is based
are themselves questionable in terms of the concerns of the present volume, so too the concerns of the
present volume can be re-framed and investigated by attempts to re-present 'actual' scientific practices.
Implications
The book is thus a provocative and useful contribution to the literature on objectivity in humanistic
and social research. It constitutes a postmodern conceptualization of objectivity and its others, and it
explores many important issues which emerge from this conceptualization. It offers a brief and
detailed introduction to scholarly knowledge of objectivity and its others, and it may encourage
readers to give greater consideration to the important role of philosophical (specifically,
epistemological and ontological) in inquiry. The major implications which I see are as follows.
First, the book indicates that objectivity is not 'dead' nor useless but rather it is undergoing a
metamorphosis. Its privileged status as the arbiter and generator of true and valid knowledge has been
questioned, yet in metamorphosed form it still plays a fundamental role in postmodern scholarship. It
seems to me that the volume shows that objectivity is a useful term for describ ing certain subjective
ways of looking at the world, and practices for acting on it, which are themselves considerate practices
responsive both to local and personal contexts of meaning and local knowledge as well as to the
scientific desire to posit abstractions which provide useful insights in multiple contexts. Second, the
volume shows that further advances in our conceptualization of objectivity require detailed
consideration of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. These others are not displaced or dissolved by
objectivity and in fact acquire an ever more important role. We may also require a more sophisticated
nomenclature which describes the nuances and multiple aspects of these perspectival forms. Third, the
book shows that a variety of ontologies can be developed around the concept or idea of objectivity: the
assumption that there is only one ontology consistent with objectivity is itself pernicious
ethnocentrism. And finally, the book shows us once again the importance philosophical issues have for
humanities and social science. Indeed, openness and a multiplicity of possible views possible for the
field offer perhaps the greatest strengths and opportunities for future humanistic, social inquiry. This is
an interesting conclusion, well buttressed by the essays in this volume. And this conclusion stands in
direct contrast to the traditional conclusion derived from ideologically based objectivism which seems
assured that openness and diversity are signs of weakness and decline, and hence are barriers to
overcome on the path to true knowledge.
6
References
Berger, P. and T.J. Luckmann (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Anchor Books.
Knorr-Cetina, K.D. (1981) The Manufacture of Knowledge. Oxford, UK: Polity Press.
Lyotard, J.F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis, MN.: University of Minnesota Press.
Rorty, R. (1979) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Schutz, A. (1962) Collected Essays, I: The Problem of Social Reality. The Hague: Martinus Nijoff,
Weick, K. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
7