Worldviews
Philosophy time! Is there an objective reality?
How much knowledge can we have about this objective reality if it exists?
If there is no objective reality, then how do we say what is true or not?
These are certainly philosophical questions, but often, especially in STEM, those philosophical questions are left to the philosophers. And maybe it's bigger than STEM. I've often experienced that describing a conversation as "philosophical" means that it is unintelligible, unimportant, nitpicky or impractical. But I do think these questions are important, and their answers have practical consequences for STEM. As engineers, we would like to make engineering decisions and develop engineering designs based on things that are true. All decisions require an understanding of the truth (as well as a set of priorities and constraints). And we design something because we think that there is truth to that something's form or function. It does what we think it does. It communicates what we think it communicates. But these questions highlight that a definition of truth and the extent of our knowledge of that truth is not obvious and that there is no default answer.
Perhaps as a scientist reading this you are inclined to say that there is an objective reality and that we may have limited knowledge of that reality, but what we do know can be objective.
As an undergraduate in an engineering program, I thought this way. It is known as post-positivism.
But then, asking these questions, especially if you are a social scientist, you may have a different definition. If someone believes in demons and acts as though one exists, are demons real? On one level you could say yes. You might call demons real in a metaphysical sense. You can take this further, perhaps there is no consistent definition of reality. If well-reasoned scientists can disagree about the nature of reality (see String Theory), are some closer than others? Or perhaps there are mutually exclusive, conflicting definitions of reality that can co-exist, where one is no more right than the other. The idea that truth is dependent on who you are, and generally on your culture, is relativism. And the idea that what reality there is can conflict with itself, that there is no single, capital T Truth that is possible to know, is post-modernism.
I started considering these in graduate school as I learned more about social science.
I think either is presumptuous.
Why should there be one objective reality? And if there is one, who has ever known it? Who has ever been born without bias, limitations imposed by our thinking or even our biology? Who has ever perfectly seen, when our eyes cannot see the whole electromagnetic spectrum? Who has ever perfectly heard, when there are a limited range and resolution of frequencies we can hear?
the idea that there is one truth seems to rest on an assumption that it could be found if only we were not biased. And we are biased.
On the other hand, to describe everything as relative is also presumptuous. Does gravity not apply to everyone? Is mercury not poisonous? Even if we use constructivism, which is partly based on relativism, to make constructivist claims about things like racism, or about culture, can we make those claims if we are biased? Should we trust those claims? Relativism presumes that nothing can be deeply established because we are biased.
I'm not happy with either, though I think both have merits. And with my struggle this semester about these questions, I think I have found a worldview that I am more comfortable with: Realism.
I started talking about it without knowing it in my previous blog post "Let's not yield to relativism"
The idea with realism is that there is a objective and a social reality that interact with each other, and as social actors we build social realities on a decent foundation of an objective reality. It presumes that there is an objective reality, but acknowledges that this presumption is a socially formed one. Our "biases" are part of the model, not besides it. What we believe to be true is not without having some root in an objecctive reality, and our definition of an objective reality is not without some social component. What is considered established happens as a relationship between the two. Gravity is real but let's not forget the flat earthers.
How much knowledge can we have about this objective reality if it exists?
If there is no objective reality, then how do we say what is true or not?
These are certainly philosophical questions, but often, especially in STEM, those philosophical questions are left to the philosophers. And maybe it's bigger than STEM. I've often experienced that describing a conversation as "philosophical" means that it is unintelligible, unimportant, nitpicky or impractical. But I do think these questions are important, and their answers have practical consequences for STEM. As engineers, we would like to make engineering decisions and develop engineering designs based on things that are true. All decisions require an understanding of the truth (as well as a set of priorities and constraints). And we design something because we think that there is truth to that something's form or function. It does what we think it does. It communicates what we think it communicates. But these questions highlight that a definition of truth and the extent of our knowledge of that truth is not obvious and that there is no default answer.
Perhaps as a scientist reading this you are inclined to say that there is an objective reality and that we may have limited knowledge of that reality, but what we do know can be objective.
As an undergraduate in an engineering program, I thought this way. It is known as post-positivism.
But then, asking these questions, especially if you are a social scientist, you may have a different definition. If someone believes in demons and acts as though one exists, are demons real? On one level you could say yes. You might call demons real in a metaphysical sense. You can take this further, perhaps there is no consistent definition of reality. If well-reasoned scientists can disagree about the nature of reality (see String Theory), are some closer than others? Or perhaps there are mutually exclusive, conflicting definitions of reality that can co-exist, where one is no more right than the other. The idea that truth is dependent on who you are, and generally on your culture, is relativism. And the idea that what reality there is can conflict with itself, that there is no single, capital T Truth that is possible to know, is post-modernism.
I started considering these in graduate school as I learned more about social science.
I think either is presumptuous.
Why should there be one objective reality? And if there is one, who has ever known it? Who has ever been born without bias, limitations imposed by our thinking or even our biology? Who has ever perfectly seen, when our eyes cannot see the whole electromagnetic spectrum? Who has ever perfectly heard, when there are a limited range and resolution of frequencies we can hear?
the idea that there is one truth seems to rest on an assumption that it could be found if only we were not biased. And we are biased.
On the other hand, to describe everything as relative is also presumptuous. Does gravity not apply to everyone? Is mercury not poisonous? Even if we use constructivism, which is partly based on relativism, to make constructivist claims about things like racism, or about culture, can we make those claims if we are biased? Should we trust those claims? Relativism presumes that nothing can be deeply established because we are biased.
I'm not happy with either, though I think both have merits. And with my struggle this semester about these questions, I think I have found a worldview that I am more comfortable with: Realism.
I started talking about it without knowing it in my previous blog post "Let's not yield to relativism"
The idea with realism is that there is a objective and a social reality that interact with each other, and as social actors we build social realities on a decent foundation of an objective reality. It presumes that there is an objective reality, but acknowledges that this presumption is a socially formed one. Our "biases" are part of the model, not besides it. What we believe to be true is not without having some root in an objecctive reality, and our definition of an objective reality is not without some social component. What is considered established happens as a relationship between the two. Gravity is real but let's not forget the flat earthers.
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