The Failure of "Objectivity" as an Epistemic Ideal - Devora Shapiro
Rather than noting the need for a diversity of viewpoints to expand the discursive space, and create new and innovative solutions to standing problems, traditional approaches in philosophy hammer home the need to improve “objectivity” so that we might better discern a truth that “we” – the privileged knowers – are uniquely suited to “discover.” At times a feminist approach appears to turn on its head the standard assumption that “objectivity” will lead to justice; feminist work in philosophy demonstrates repeatedly the ways in which such assumptions have only served to erase experience, and demean situated knowledges, offering many fruitful suggestions and alternative frameworks for addressing injustice. And yet, again and again philosophers – feminist and other, alike – insist on preserving this notion of “objectivity,” against all odds and, I will suggest, our “better” judgement.
Herein, I want to dig deeper into our commitment to “objectivity,” generally, and specifically within the context of education. Rather than define “objectivity” – there have been numerous definitions, concepts, referents of this term – I want to identify what “objectivity,” as a normative concept, is doing. It is clear, as I will discuss, that objectivity has a sordid history; it has been used to demean, and silence, it has been used as a masque to obscure the workings of power. It has also been developed as an ideal with apparently noble goals in mind: democracy, equality, and transparency. These goals, in fact, are often referenced as justification for the immense industry of “standardized testing” as providing “objective measures” of student achievement and educational “success.”
I will assert, however, that objectivity, as traditionally conceived, fails. That is, that the ideal of the detached, all-seeing, ahistorical, disembodied, unbiased, and unemotional view or agent does not exist. I will also assert, as a slightly more controversial claim, that feminist attempts to salvage, re-imagine, or resuscitate objectivity, are misguided. They are misguided not because the approaches and methods they suggest to do the work of objectivity are ill-conceived, but rather because the work they conceive a revived objectivity might do can never be done by “objectivity.”
Herein, I want to dig deeper into our commitment to “objectivity,” generally, and specifically within the context of education. Rather than define “objectivity” – there have been numerous definitions, concepts, referents of this term – I want to identify what “objectivity,” as a normative concept, is doing. It is clear, as I will discuss, that objectivity has a sordid history; it has been used to demean, and silence, it has been used as a masque to obscure the workings of power. It has also been developed as an ideal with apparently noble goals in mind: democracy, equality, and transparency. These goals, in fact, are often referenced as justification for the immense industry of “standardized testing” as providing “objective measures” of student achievement and educational “success.”
I will assert, however, that objectivity, as traditionally conceived, fails. That is, that the ideal of the detached, all-seeing, ahistorical, disembodied, unbiased, and unemotional view or agent does not exist. I will also assert, as a slightly more controversial claim, that feminist attempts to salvage, re-imagine, or resuscitate objectivity, are misguided. They are misguided not because the approaches and methods they suggest to do the work of objectivity are ill-conceived, but rather because the work they conceive a revived objectivity might do can never be done by “objectivity.”
