CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Nyarko, Emmanuel |
|---|---|
| Title | Objectivity through the Social Lens |
| Summary | Objectivity is a vital feature ascribed to scientific methods, beliefs, individuals, and theories. In this thesis, I argue that social processes within scientific communities secure objectivity in Science. Scientific objectivity is a result of the social nature of the inquiry and not an individual enterprise. Scientific inquiry is a social activity that is practiced by scientific communities. Using objective scientific procedures, scientists make use of each other's perspectives and viewpoints for their hypotheses and theories. The social processes are also reliable for ensuring diversity, equality, and epistemic fairness in scientific communities. I argue against the value-free ideal by claiming that scientific inquiry is a value-laden one, and it offers more than a single absolute perspective of the way things are in the world. I show that it is not free from contextual values and subjective preferences as we would wish it to be. However, the process of interaction and criticisms defuse the problem of contextual values and subjective preferences. |
| Supervisor | Farkas, Katalin |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/nyarko_emmanuel.pdf |
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