THE CONCEPT OF OBJECTIVITY AS A PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5840/eps20256211Keywords:
scientific objectivity, historical epistemology, scientific community, objectivism, opennessAbstract
The article examines the contemporary contradictions surrounding objectivity in the philosophy of science. On the one hand, historians and philosophers of science regard objectivity as a criterion of scientificity, a marker of scientific value, and a scientific virtue. On the other hand, they highlight its contested status, irreducible complexity, and question its continued relevance. The article proposes a framework for engaging with the concept of objectivity, one that reveals the historical problems it addresses, traces its transformations over time, and demonstrates how the diversity of its meanings as well as doubts about its significance remain relevant today. This approach bridges the philosophy of science and historical epistemology while also illustrating the growing community of stakeholders invested in preserving objectivity. In this analysis, objectivity is explored in three key dimensions. First, it is examined in its origins as a concept that addresses the problem of connecting the elements of cognition, emphasizing its mediating function. Second, objectivity is interpreted as a regulative ideal, the pursuit of which seeks to overcome the subjectivity of the knower. Third, it is analyzed in its historicity, understood as its capacity to renew itself in response to evolving challenges. The article identifies the weakness of the concept, which leads to skepticism about objectivity, as its tendency to devolve into objectivism. Conversely, its strength lies in its potential to engage the modern scientific community and researchers of science, particularly through interpretations that do not seek to eliminate subjectivity but rather to expand its boundaries.
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