How do we know what we know, and how is that knowledge translated into power? By what means do we acquire sufficient and adequate certainty for making important decisions of global importance? Epistemology is more than knowing how to know, it entails a practical, theoretical, and philosophic inquiry into the nature and basis from which knowledge is established. Importantly, it is also an investigation of validity and the limits of knowledge, which also includes knowing what we don’t know—that is, knowing what is overlooked.
Knowledge, of course, is power. What we think we know, that which has been established as norms and values, form the basis for decision making. This ‘common’ knowledge shapes and controls the way issues are talked about and in so doing forms a ‘regime’ of control which can heavily influence outcomes. Thus, such regimes of control form foundations of political power.
“Civic” epistemology implies a social process that varies with context and scale from the local to the national level and importantly, it is and has been developing at the global level—beyond the bounds of national sovereignty. Civic epistemology, being a public and collective action, involves scientific and political communities who construct, review, validate, and deliberate, to produce knowledge to be translated into action, thus constituting the epistemic foundations of public life (Miller, 2008). Sociologist and political scientists are well familiar with this process within the domestic confines of government, but what about global governance?
In his 2008 paper “Civic Epistemologies”, Clark Miller outlines the major factors which tie together the pluralistic nature of decision making as a conflictive process characterized by many social actors having different ideas and values, each being motivated by self-interests. “Norms and values are determined largely by cultural context within established traditions which vary widely across geographic boundaries.” “Knowledge is tied to aspects of political life; identity, authority, legitimacy, and accountability.” (Miller, 2008)
He continues, "As the globalization of policy problems increasingly blurs the boundary between domestic and international politics, questions about knowledge and democracy will blur as well.” Importantly, “International knowledge institutions will increasingly gain relevance, even in domestic policy decisions, as we are currently seeing in relation to energy policy and climate change.” Yet, this transition will likely increase conflict over the epistemic standards of international institutions.
Miller further ties the factors of legitimation and accountability to the works of Yaron Ezrahi. In Ezrahi’s 1990 book “The Descent of Icarus”, he emphasizes the centrality of science in the theory and practice of modern liberal-democratic action. He examines the role of science and technology in political strategies of defining and legitimating actions as well as holding actors accountable in the context of public affairs. He diligently supports the claim that the practical nature of scientific inquiry is central to the theory and practice of modern liberal-democratic action, which rely on the principles and mechanisms of instrumentalism, objectivity, legitimation and accountability.
The liberal-democratic tradition is associated with an open society, freedoms of speech and association, tolerance, and the decentralization of political power. These principles are upheld by a political epistemology that is based upon scientific and technical standards of action which function as a means of accountability and are, as he writes, “…a principal factor incorporated into liberal-democratic rituals of legitimation” “…a crucially important move towards the public constitution and validation of knowledge” (Ezrahi, 1990).
Ezrahi not only asserts the validity of scientific instrumentalism as the fundamental framework for modern liberal-democratic polity, but he also claims that it is in decline. If it is to be believed that there is a decline in the faith of scientific knowledge then this threatens to undermine, as the author claims, the conditions necessary for maintaining freedom and order and constitutes an attack on the source of validity of knowledge, this also being an attack on any claims of a special authority to act in the ways we are accustom. He claims, “Skepticism towards an instrumental scientific conception of public actions, previously limited to counter-enlightenment circles, has now become nearly universal.” There has been a, “…decline in the cultural force of science” and “…of beliefs in the existence of objective external reality and the possibility of universally valid scientific knowledge has led to a decline in a whole range of political constructions.” (Ezrahi, 1990)
Weather we are experiencing “counter-Enlightenment” as Ezrahi suggest is open to some debate and is beyond the scope of this short blog. However, still relevant today, as in the seventeenth century, remain the challenges of what Robert Boyle described as the, “…vulnerability of the uneducated to the corruptive effects of evocative spectacles and the tricks of demagogues.” Short of open rational public discourse we can expect increasing centralization of political power and decision making on a global scale. But with the increase of many voices competing and contributing to public knowledge, perhaps there is some remedy to those who would fall vulnerable to such demagogues. As the French philosopher Condorcet wrote, ’The more men are enlightened, the less those with authority can abuse it and the less necessary it will be to give people of authority social powers, energy and extent. Thus truth is the enemy of power, as of those who exercise it. The more it spreads, the less they will be able to mislead men the more force it acquires the less societies need to be governed.”
Ref:
Ezrahi, Y (1990), The Descent of Icarus: Science and the Transformation of Contemporary Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), Chapters 1-3.
Miller, C (2008), Civic Epistemologies: Constituting Knowledge and Order in Political Communities,” Sociology Compass 2(6): 1896-1919.
No comments:
Post a Comment