Motivation

What's the point in all this?

Introductory Polemic

After some lengthy investigations (cf. over 2000 years) it is arguably the consensus of Western Philosophy (and beyond) that the nature of knowledge is falliable - imperfect and bounded. If there is some certainty to be found in individual knowledge (perhaps the cogito or something similar), it is of such a resticted scope that it lacks the potential for expansion beyond sollopsism. Still the desire for certainty spurs on more complicated recipes for knowledge, e.g. imagining calculi for aggregating experience over groups. The hope persists that where the simple individual did falter the multiple might prosper. But again, there seems no guarantee for success (or consensus) and though the possibility of failure is leveraged it is not banished. This opens the path for alternative epistemic projects which reconcile human limitations with an ambition for applicability.

The epistemic goal can be reoriented from perfection to optimisation - quite certain knwoledge, if not (simply) certain. Scientific theories are often cited as strong cases for good knowldge. Here systems of preference have been developed to emphasise some subset of experience rather than an unfettered mass. Hence, the procedures of experts are considered exemplary epistemic algorithms. Descriptions of Science procedures vary in emphasis can shift depending on interest at issue. Examples of descrtiptive accents include: empirical when considering epistemiology; procedural when investigating decision making; objective when examining output; and, authoritative when placed in in a societal context.

Descriptors such as objectivity and authority imply the defered staus of Science. This deference gifts prestige to be envied and coveted by other disciplines - where is the periodic table of aesethics, and when was the last announcement on the discovery of a literary genre on the news? However, as much as this prestige is envied it must be protected. Threats of descent or contradiction must be managed. Like other institutions myths may be deployed to fortify the current order. Criticisms may be deflected by moving between descriptive interests: empricism keeps the arbitration of knowledge away from human interests and focussed on observation of Nature and hence objectivity is assured; failures in science is the fault of the individual not the procedure.

Following the tradition of Science and Technology Studies (STS) It is the goal of this work to move away from normative labels (e.g. good, bad, etc.) for some monolithic institution of Science. Rather, the interest here is to describe the activity of Scientific agents without offering a justification for their conclusions. Investigating the processes of knowledge production free of an interest in their validity leaves opens avenues of inquery. Questions can be asked (and perhaps answered) without a lens of inevitability, which would otherwise hinder or bias investigations of the historical context of scientific research as destined or doomed.

The tradition of modern Western Science developed (sometime in the seventeenth centuary) in societies where the other major epistemic institutional example was Religion. It seems rational that the advent of Scientific language would be rich in metaphors mirroring the theistic themes of discovering, uncovering and learning things about an objective order. Following easily to a model of directed development and onus on accuracy. However, other institutions were and are available: politics, art, engineering. In these traditions other lexicons are available. What sense is there in speaking of uncovering a poltical policy? Or in discovering a singular solution to a problem given budgetry constraints? What value is there in claiming one artistic movement represents the world better than another. Notions of direction, beyond a historical path, and accuracy, beyond the detail of the problem to be solved, are not required in these accounts.

In modern times we can appreciate evolution without invoking linear progression or defining an end. So let us say that Science evolves and make that unjustified development the object of inquiry.