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Objectivity
and Subjectivity are always been subject of contentious debates. There is a
saying, “We all are objective in our
subjective ways.” When considered from point of view of ‘scientific method’,
then this enquiry acquires many frames of analysis inspired from sociological,
philosophical, hisotiographical perspectives. Feminist enquiry of growth of
science and technology as a discipline and as a rigorous investigation approach
for descriptive, inductive writings of Science Technology Society has been
lately very much being discussed.
The
concepts of objectivity, truth, and the authority of empirical standards have
come under serious challenge by some critics of the social sciences in the past
several decades. Feminist critics charge
that the concepts and methods of the social sciences reflect an essential
patriarchalism that discredits the objectivity of social science knowledge. Marxist critics sometimes contend that the
social sciences are enmeshed in a bourgeois worldview that makes objectivity
impossible. And post-modernist writers seem to disdain the ideas of truth and
objectivity in the social sciences altogether, preferring instead the slippery
notions of multiple discourses and knowledge/power.
(http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/POSITIV6.htm)
Feminist
thoughts like any other critical perspective challenges hierarchy, patronizing
attitudes and patriarchic mindset which is historically been not absent from
science-technology enterprise. Before someone enters the arena to understand
what feminist enquiry of academic writing in history, STS studies, social
construction of S&T; it would be better to understand a) What is the structure
of academia, b) Whose academia is it?, c) What are the relations between
learned and people learning, d) Interfaces through which knowledge is shared,
disseminated and appropriated. (Donna Haraway, Fox Keller, Erich
Charles Conrad, Helen E. Longino, Peter K. Machamer, Gereon Wolters, Karen
Cordrick Haely, Philip Kitcher, Georg G. Iggers)
Since
the publication of first journal Philosophical
Transactions in 17th century,
it took 300 years for Royal Society to admit women as its prestigious
member. (On 22 March 1945, the first female Fellows were elected to the Royal
Society. This followed a statutory amendment in 1944 that read "Nothing herein contained shall render
women ineligible as candidates", and was contained in Chapter 1 of
Statute 1.)
Androcentrism
in Democracy and University is one of the most prominent threats to free
thinking. Androcentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing
male human beings or the masculine point of view at the center of one's view of
the world and its culture and history. Breaking the walls in access of
opportunities for education remained the pivotal challenge ahead of women
before the development of feminist critic of history of science and technology.
However before going ahead with the conviction of feminist critic of all the
history, understanding the definition of ‘women’ is very essential. Women may
be a universal group of vulnerable people who are always fighting for their
rights, their justice, socio-cultural and economical equality; but considering
the vast array of diverse discriminatory practices in developing countries, the
process of defining ‘Women’ becomes more and more contestable. We just have to
remember that even though there are consistent efforts throughout the history
to treat women as a cohesive group for gaining voting rights, fare wages,
access to knowledge, political representation, employment; still the emergence
of category of ‘universal women’ is far from realized.
Every scholar, journalist, writer, politician, student, marketing person, business developer, artist is a ‘human body with a context.’ A recent essay published in EPW by Anirudh Deshpande describes the objectivity in history vis-à-vis other natural sciences. It says:
“The postmodernists criticize
history for being a subjective narrative imposed on selected facts by historians through the use
of linguistic devices. In the postmodernist submission, since all historical narratives are poetic acts performed by
historians, it is impossible to access
a verifiable objective past through the historian’s carefully constructed imaginary plot of events. Hence, and
logically following the postmodern submission, all history is subjective history, and therefore there
is not much to choose between several carefully constructed interpretations of the past. If history is
thus reduced to a project of cultural relativism
and ideological subjectivism, it becomes easy to first denounce and later
reject it altogether.”
The analysis, either through frame or through any other way, it is necessary to know who is the person arguing, writing and documenting is; from what belief system, vantage point they articulate their opinions. We have to be aware of contexts, situations, personal histories, ideological-professional biases, approach to knowledge creation, method of enquiry etc.
History
and biography both posit a dialectical relationship between life (as
information) and art (as an expression of subjectivity). Both have a ‘truth’
claim and are represented as forms of narrative. If we were to recall some of
the characteristic features of history, we would perhaps expect a coherent, continuous
narrative, with objectivity and sufficient analysis, thereby enabling us to
produce some ‘generalisable typicality’. Even a complex history should yield
points of significance that would enable us to understand/interpret in its
light events, movements, and large sections of time. (Recovery, Recontextualisation
and Performance: Questions on the Margin by Rimli Bhattacharya; Biography as
History, Indian Perspectives; Ed. Vijaya Ramaswamy, Yogesh Sharma, Orient
Blackswan)
In
his more specialized collection in 2009, Philosophy of the Social Sciences:
Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Chris Mantzavinos offers this
description of the field:
“Philosophy of science examines
"scientific knowledge." It tries to illuminate the specific
characteristics of science, the way it is produced, the historical dimensions
of science, and the normative criteria at play in appraising science…. The
philosophy of the social sciences, on the other hand, traditional deals with
such problems as the role of understanding (Verstehen) in apprehending
social phenomena, the status of rational choice theory, the role of experiments
in the social sciences, the logical status of game theory, as well as whether
there are genuine laws of social phenomena or rather social mechanisms to be
discovered, the historicity of the social processes, etc.”
Producing, creating, constructing, shaping scientific facts depends on many attributes of scholarship and their history. Scientific objectivity depends on method of investigation—qualitative, quantitative—understanding of scientific method—grounding in sociological, humanities orientation—setting of arguments in ideological mesh—impact of tools used—influence of different technologies being deployed for finalizing the data collection or field visits etc. Scientific objectivity may be defined as rigorous fashion consistent with any particular philosophy of science. According to Popper, scientific objectivity consists of the freedom and responsibility of the researcher 1) To pose refutable hypothesis, 2) To test these hypothesis with relevant evidence, and 3) To state the results in an unambiguous fashion accessible to any interested person. (from ‘On Scientific Objectivity’ by Emery N. Castle)
