Rescuing Objectivity: A Contextualist Proposal

Philosophy of the Social Sciences 48 (4):385-406 (2018)
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Abstract

Ascriptions of objectivity carry significant weight. But they can also cause confusion because wildly different ideas of what it means to be objective are common. Faced with this, some philosophers have argued that objectivity should be eliminated. I will argue, against one such position, that objectivity can be useful even though it is plural. I will then propose a contextualist approach for dealing with objectivity as a way of rescuing what is useful about objectivity while acknowledging its plurality.

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Author's Profile

Jack Wright
University of Gothenburg

References found in this work

The View From Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Objectivity.Lorraine Daston & Peter Galison - 2007 - Cambridge, Mass.: Zone Books. Edited by Peter Galison.
Pursuit of truth.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1990 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 92 (2):280-281.
A Philosophy for the Science of Well-Being.Anna Alexandrova - 2017 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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