Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

about knowledge intersect in powerful
Questions
complex ways with questions about politics.
and
example, what we know about the world,
For
we know it, and who can make claims
how
it are entangled with questions about who
about
the power to make and maintain order in the
has
The answers to these questions form what
world.
call a “epistemic-political system”, and vary
we
historical and geographic contexts. Our
across
system has been called a modern-liberal
present
and is being challenged by various
system,
cultural, economic, spiritual and
ecological,
way out of these crises might require
The
answers to better questions about
different
way we think about the relationship
The
knowledge and politics is still
between
influenced by a debate between
strongly
Hobbes and Robert Boyle in the
Thomas
century. The debate concerned what
mid-17th
as knowledge, and where, how and by
counts
the boundaries of legitimate knowledge
whom
drawn. Boyle and Hobbes had opposing
are
approach reflected the emerging
Boyle’s
sciences and he argued that
experimental
like scientists, could objectively agree
people,
“facts”, if they followed strict processes and
on
disinterested in outcomes; Boyle’s “facts”
were
to a “nature” that existed outside
related
“society”. In contrast, Hobbes doubted
of
people could be objective or sufficiently
that
with the political dimensions of
Grappling
and knowledge-sharing
knowledge-making
an urgent challenge for us today: in being
poses
of ideology that masquerades as fact,
suspicious
of a new system. It is an exciting and
emergence
time to be coming together to overcome
urgent
divisive issues and wicked problems of the
the
today.
world
book explores and examines the processes
This
which facts are arrived at, scrutinizes
through
people and motivations behind fact-making,
the
traces the implications of accepting or
and
something as fact. We have all heard
rejecting
times, “these are the facts”, but can
many
speak for themselves? Matters of fact are
facts
disinterested, neutral, independent,
supposedly
in other words, beyond politics. But what
or
the ideas in the past that shaped this way of
were
and believed that all human
disinterested,
was political.
activity
notion of communities organized
“Boyle’s
their own methods and rules but
around
by limited domains not only
bounded
to the creation of different scientific
led
but, more importantly,
disciplines
science from politics and religion
separated
The final consequence of this would be
…
power, faith … and knowledge would
that
separated, each with its own institutions,
be
and procedures.” (Stalder 2019)
rules,
idea defined the modern-liberal era but
This
appears to be breaking down, perhaps
now
Hobbes’ suspicions that knowledge
vindicating
always political and that disinterestedness is
is
do we guard against dismissing legitimate
how
Howdo we distinguish between
knowledge?
I. Scope
I. Scope
I . S C O P E
political crises of our own making.
thinking about facts?
knowledge and politics, and even the
Box 2.1: Hobbes and Boyle on knowledge, power and faith
views on this subject.
impossible.
ideology and knowledge?
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