To understand something you need to

rely on your own experience and

culture. Does this mean that it is

impossible to have objective

knowledge?

Andrea Sánchez Grobet

Lancaster School

Word count: 1581

Culture is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that

shapes and influences perception and behavior (Hirsch Kett, Trefil, 2002, p. 165).

These common understandings consist of our norms, principles, feelings, beliefs and

paradigms. A paradigm is the way we perceive and think about the world; it is very

difficult to change those paradigms in the way we learn and gain our knowledge,

but does that mean that it is impossible to have objective knowledge? Objective,

according to the Reference Dictionary, is “any subject that is not influenced by

personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased.” (Random

House, 2006 p. 1562)

To understand knowledge, both the objective and subjective aspects must be

considered. In the purest of the forms, before it has been understood or analyzed,

knowledge is objective in nature, a “justified true belief”, but there can be no

knowledge without someone who interprets it, consequently, information is then

subjectively interpreted but can be investigated in an objective way.

The beliefs, ethics, morals and ways of knowing such as perception, reason,

language and emotion have a huge impact on the way in which we interpreted our

knowledge. In this essay I intend to explore how knowledge can be subjectively

or/and objectively understood depending on the area which is being studied, in

what way these forms of knowledge cannot be separate from each other and how

these cultural factors are gained by our own personal experiences.

Language is one of the four ways of Knowledge; it has a big influence on how we

analyze knowledge since it is the main way in which we communicate the

information. It is used to represent our thoughts and believes. Different individuals

use different words; the explanations of these words are based on our own

experiences and cultural background. Moreover, language can be easily

manipulated by others to reflect their opinion, it can have a great impact on the

way in which others process and understand the information. There is no such thing

as an absolute truth, that the way you see varies according to what you are looking

for, “that the story depends on who is listening and watching as well as who is

acting and talking” (Lyndly, 2007 p.213). When gaining our knowledge, culture is

fundamental when perceiving the world, we can see these by understanding the

psychoanalytical term “Weltanschauung” (Mattelart, Siegelaub,1983, p. 421) which

conveys a structural way in which we “outlook the world” and how the use of

language, reason, emotion and perception in a society helps to portray the

interaction between the world and the individual; and how this is very important

when looking to our past, present and future on all six areas of knowledge.

In some areas of knowledge such as sciences, neutrality is often necessary to

evaluate and interpret the results as accurate as possible. According to Webster's

New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is "knowledge covering general

truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through

scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world". If Science studies the

physical world, it has to be entirely objective and there would be no prejudices

involved. But, as we have seen throughout History, scientific method has not

always been proven, the results have, may times, reflected personal biases. The

search for knowledge was not just helpful for some scientific goal but constituted a

goal in itself. For example, in physics, there was the creation of the atomic bomb. In

those years, physicians thought that they were creating clean, economical energy

for the benefit of mankind. At that time, they had not sufficient evidence to guide

their actions and they often had to rely on their ethical principals to judge what they

were doing. Unfortunately, the desire for knowledge failed to objectively rationalize

the consequences because ethics and principals are outside this empirical sphere.

In theory, sciences should not work this way, they should have clear objective

technical rules, but the scientist who restrict themselves to only that scientific

system will never get anywhere, in contrast, scientists who have an emotive desire

to gain knowledge and make the scientific process creative, will expand their insight

to a new higher level. “After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved,

science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest

scientists are always artists as well.” (Gaither, Cavazos-Gaither, 2000, p. 315)

Science is the search to describe reality by using perceived observations to develop

generalized concepts; these perceptions are gained by our own senses like hearing

sight and touching; if knowledge could not be interpreted or analyzed without any

cultural prejudices, scientists could have not, for example, sent a person to the

moon. This is an example on how, no matter what the objective or the

consequences, objective knowledge is applied on every day bases.

“Math does make me think of a stainless steel wall… it does look smart, intelligent

in an icy way. But I resent its cold impenetrability, its supercilious glare.” (Bishop,

1982 p.19).

It is said that Mathematics is the universal language. Mathematics can cross the

barriers of language regardless of culture, religion or gender. It is supposed to be

the only Way of knowing which is entirely objective, as the reality is represented

with numbers and symbols. The concepts exist independent of man but are made

by men, so how far does mathematics represent reality? Maths does not represent

love, pain or pleasure, but it only corresponds to what is linear and absolute. The

practice of Maths is completely neutral, but the problems concerning Maths are not,

they are deeply influenced by the activities done in an exact place at an exact time.

Ruben Hersh (1983) once argued that Maths cannot be apolitical, as it cannot be

separated of other forms of knowing. It is ''like money, war, or religion, not physical,

not mental but social.'' (Hersh, 1983 p.248)

“Ethnomathematics is the study of the evolution of mathematics that has shaped,

and in turn shaped by, the values of groups of people” (Hammon, 2000 p. 2).This

study observes how Math experience constant changes depending on a historical

event and has cultural biased ideas. Some people like George Baranes (1988),

believe that mathematics are a cultural problem, but some other like Penrose

(1974, p. 269), see mathematics as biased free, and criticized ethnomathematics.

The study of Mathematics can be dependent on culture, but it is also independent of

it (Rothstein, 2000). And so far, there are no real proofs that Mathematical concepts

are related to culture activities and history.

Denise Levertov once wrote: “I don't think one can accurately measure the

historical effectiveness of a poem; but one does know, of course, that books

influence individuals; and individuals, although they are part of large economic and

social processes, influence history...” (Levertov, 1981 p.123.) History is the

compilation of objective facts about the past, but it is much more than the facts in

it; it requires analyzed interpretations and arguments supported on evaluation of

the evidence, so it cannot be fully objective and there are inevitably biased

prejudices. It is very difficult to have the capacity to explore the history of society

without considering our own predispositions that are built into the ethical or political

beliefs, the ideologies, the morals, the social class and the circumstances

themselves. Biased history shows us how certain people feel about a subject at a

certain time; it also shows us their own beliefs, thoughts and prejudices, which

helps us study a more “real” and “human” History. As we have seen also in History,

the evidence in which historians rely can be biased too, the sources existing may be

not valid or complete. But consequently, “different observes will see events in

different ways, but it also offers a framework by which these different view points

can be reconciled to a consistent and an objective account”. (Lindly, 2007 p. 153)

Art is another area of knowledge where subjective knowledge is necessary as it

seek an emotive or aesthetic response from the audience; art is the way we express

a certain composition of ideas. It has to have content, an intention, and a message,

amongst others. Art can be both confusing and versatile as it can be adapted or

changed depending on personal opinion, ethics, culture, religion and historical

period.

As we have seen in other areas of knowledge, knowledge can be independent on

culture. There has to be certain rules that allow us to understand the (physical)

attributes such as shape and colour of the object that is being analyzed; these

individual concepts that distinguish one object from another are entirely objective.

In conclusion, objective and subjective reasoning cannot exist independent from

each other because to know an object we have to first objectively analyze it, but

knowledge is affected at all levels with subjectivity. Language is the way in which

we express our ideas but it can be controlled by other people to communicate other

information. For many scientists, science has become a way of looking at the

universe, a religion in which a system of beliefs is dogmatically embraced with

passion and devotion; it is objectively seen and subjectively practiced. Historians

can look at the past but cannot overlook their personal prejudices and traditions,

and Maths are entirely objective when studied but when it comes to practice it

cannot ignore the culture that we are all part of.

“In the last analysis, we see only what we are ready to see, what we have been

taught to see. We eliminate and ignore everything that is not part of our

prejudices.” (Charcot, 1882 p. 541)

Bibliography

Science." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science> 23 September 2008

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, James Trefil. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. 2002. (p. 165)

Lindley, David. Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science. Doubleday. 2007. (pp. 213)

Carl C. Gaither, Alma E. Cavazos-Gaither. Einstein, Albert, Scientifically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations. 2000. (p. 315).

Lindly, David. Uncertainty: Einsten, Heisenberg, Bohr and the struggle for the soul of science.2007.

Levertov, Denise. Light Up the Cave. 1981 (p. 123)

Rothstein, Edward. The Subjective Underbelly of Hardheaded Math. 1997

Hammon, Tracy. Ethnomathematics: concept definition and research perspective. 2000 (p. 2)

Hersh, Reuben. What is Mathematics, Really? 1983 (p. 248)

Bishop, Alan J. International Handbook of Mathematics Education. 1982. (p. 19)

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2006. (p. 1562)

Penrose, R. The role of aesthetic in pure and applied mathematical research. 1974. (p. 269)

Armand Mattelart, Seth Siegelaub. Communication and class struggle. 1983 (p. 421)