Status of Knowledge
Objectivity
Independence from the particular standpoint of any individual knower. Objectivity is better understood as something a method or a community achieves through checks on individual bias than as something a single knower can simply decide to have.
How secure or true a claim is. These concepts ask what we are entitled to say about a claim once it is supported: whether it is settled, whether it could be wrong, and whether its standing depends on who is asking.
Situations that raise objectivity
All 12 situationsReal cases a class can argue about, where this concept is what is actually at stake.
- Restoring murals nobody saw paintedIndia
- Restoring what you cannot seeEast Asia
- Rewriting yesterday's growth rateIndia
- The economy that does not count the householdGlobal
- The cloning papers that unravelledEast Asia
- The inflation statistic nobody believedLatin America
- The satellite data that cost a director his jobLatin America
- The economy that grew 89 percent overnightAfrica