Causation and the Postmodern Critique of Objectivity
Author(s)
O’Meara, J. Tim
Abstract
Advocates of what are loosely called interpretive, critical, and now postmodern theories reject the possibility of objective knowledge and instead assert the subjectivity of knowable phenomena. I argue, however, that the critique of objectivity mirrors the scientism it rejects by conflating two very different types of facts and realities. I conclude that the critique is correct for one of those types, but not the other. My basic argument is that the critique of objectivity and the social and cultural scientism it rejects both err in making a simple category mistake that is founded in turn on an empirically incorrect, Humean account of causation, and that as a result, they both err in taking objectivity fundamentally to be a matter of inter-subjective agreement. I draw two primary implications from this argument. First, the critique of objectivity helps to undermine fatally attempts to construct an objective science of ‘social facts’ and ‘social reality’. Second, the critique is irrelevant to carrying out an objective science of physical facts and physical reality.
