This chapter addresses some of the classic problems of historical analysis, focusing on the ways in which the intellectual options that the complex history of the discipline can help historians address the challenges those problems pose. It presents a discussion of the problems of objectivity, bias, and judgment in history. It focuses on historians’ necessarily paradoxical yet coherent conception of their own relationship to history – of which they are, according to the logic of the discipline itself, both students and products. It suggests that postmodern theory about the nature of historical knowledge both recapitulates and deepens this fundamental historicist position. It discusses the standards of evidentiary support and of logical argumentation that historians use to evaluate the plausibility and productivity of historical interpretations. Finally, this chapter explores once again the unique pedagogical usefulness of History as a discipline that is irreducibly and necessarily perspectival, interpretive, and focused on standards of inquiry rather than on the production of actionable outcomes.

This chapter inquires the significance of objectivity within the democratic epistemological framework, tracing its origins to the dual naturalistic cosmology where Nature is perceived as autonomous and humans as impartial observers. Central to objectivity and “disinterestedness” is the belief that the external world remains impervious to subjective influence. This idea is exemplified in the association of objectivity with technological advancements and human-made machinery. Ezrahi contends that despite being a human creation, science has attained autonomous status as a source of truths, reintegrating Nature into Culture and emphasizing the importance of humility, given that science itself adheres to natural laws. He also underscores the complex position of humanity within the Nature/Culture dichotomy, where the human body is part of Nature, while human creations belong to Culture. Nature embodies necessity and unchangeable laws, constraining human freedom, whereas Culture represents voluntarism, freedom, human interiority, and social behavior. The chapter illustrates how scientists and politicians leverage their scientific authority to project objectivity and disinterest, legitimizing government policies while suppressing dissent and effectively depoliticizing decisions. The text emphasizes that the concept of external Nature linked to objectivity is a product of Western cosmology and not universally applicable.

The chapter critically examines the intersection of economics and politics, particularly in the context of behavioral economics challenging traditional economic models. Ezrahi highlights Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s reception by economists, revealing their discomfort with the implications of irrationality and cognitive biases in economic decision-making. The emergence of behavioral economics threatens the perceived objectivity of economists and their claims to enhance rationality in public affairs. The chapter explores how economists striving for professional objectivity, akin to natural sciences, inadvertently align with political and cultural biases. It contends that economics' influence on politics and policy arises from portraying the market as a natural, objective force detached from political interests. The chapter traces the historical evolution of economics, highlighting its separation from explicit moral and political considerations, leading to a focus on abstract models. It contends that economics wields significant influence, acting as both a check on over politicized governance and a veil concealing political choices. The chapter concludes by advocating for a return to political economics, acknowledging and addressing the political dimensions inherent in economic decisions.

In this chapter, Ezrahi argues that the massive discrediting of claims of objectivity has deeply weakened the social authority of professional communities and institutions – governments, scientists, and economists – which have heavily resorted to professionalism in order to seemingly depoliticize decisions and empower their legitimacy. The dual role of objectivity norms and objectification strategies in depoliticizing decisions while concealing value-political choices is scrutinized. The delicate balance between overpoliticization and over-objectification is examined, emphasizing the challenges faced by governments in navigating transparency and political functionality. The chapter traces the interconnected erosion of the transcendental concept of Nature, democratic culture, and the rule of law. The loss of objectivity in law, exemplified by challenges to the Israeli Supreme Court, underscores the broader decline in civic solidarity. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the cultural and epistemological crises facing modern democracy, raising critical questions about resources available for shaping new imaginaries of self-governance and justice, drawing on historical cosmological transformations.

This chapter demonstrates that a researcher is attached to the analytic process in ways that make it difficult to be completely independent and objective when doing research. Issues of objectivity and subjectivity are discussed, which offer a frame to understand the ways in which a researcher’s cultural familiarity with an object of study, as well as their professional vision and institutional positionality, inform the analytic process. After reading this chapter, readers will understand that discourse analysis research is inherently subjective; know that a researcher’s cultural familiarity with an object of study is crucial to doing discourse analysis; be able to identify and adopt multiple analytic perspectives; be capable of applying reflexive practices to the analytic process; and understand, and know how to deal with, the power dynamics that exist in discourse analysis research.

In Chapter 8, I deal with the threat that the present account strips arithmetical knowledge of all the important characteristics traditionally associated with it: apriority, objectivity, necessity and universality. I argue that apriority can be saved in the strong sense of arithmetical knowledge being contextually a priori in the context set by our cognitive and physical capacities. Objectivity can be saved in the sense of maximal inter-subjectivity, while necessity can be saved in the sense of arithmetical theorems being true in all possible worlds where cognitive agents with proto-arithmetical abilities have developed. Finally, universality of arithmetical truths is saved through arithmetic being universally applicable and shared by all members of cultures that develop arithmetic based on proto-arithmetical abilities.

This chapter provides a critical survey of six of the most important interpretations of Carnap’s Logical Structure of the World or Aufbau. I argue that the variety of interpretations of the Aufbau reflect a reasonable pluralism of approaches. This pluralism can be traced to two factors. First, an interpretation of a philosophical text is sensitive to both normative and descriptive elements. Second, there is a reasonable pluralism with respect to the normative elements of an interpretation, especially the philosophical aim that an interpreter attributes to the author of the text. This analysis builds on recent discussions by Beaney of how the history of analytic philosophy should be done. The upshot of the chapter is that a more reflective approach to writing the history of philosophy should help us to acknowledge the plausibility of interpretations of a text that we refuse to endorse.

The misconception of culture is responsible for many difficulties in comparative law. This chapter suggests that a general concept of culture is inevitably distorting or empty, and that any meaningful talk of culture can only take place upon microscopic elements. Cultural elements are different in their relevance to the constitution of the problem of life and accordingly the problem of law; the enquiries into the cultural impacts upon law must be based upon the relevance of a particular element to a particular law. The insider’s view to apprehend culture is a fallacy; the outsider’s view is the only way possible to know a culture. Taking culture as a purely subjective construction is another common misconception while the objectivity of cultural elements is essential for the proper understanding of culture and the methodological improvement of comparative law.

This chapter highlights the importance of newspapers as essential publishing venues for American essayists during the 1880–1920 period. During this time, newspaper columns or editorials were some of the most powerful manifestations of the American essay. A new kind of personal essay emerged, revealing tensions between various categories: the genteel and the modern, progressivism and prejudice, subjectivity and objectivity. While essayistic objectivity aspired to provide verifiable evidence and to be “truthful” in its interpretations of the world, essayistic subjectivity attempted to engage the reader by means of the essayist’s own perceptions and experiences. Significantly, during this period, the essay sought new vessels for authorial subjectivity, be it in the form of fiction or nonfiction, expanding the possibilities of the personal essay. Important essayists, columnists, and editorialists of the period included H. L. Mencken, Anna Julia Cooper, Robert Benchley, Ida B. Wells, and Heywood Broun. For many of these writers, the political and personal are inseparable, and the essay often functions as a form of authorial mediation, of narrative outrage, and a call to social action.

I argue that Either/Or contains a proposal for philosophy of science, and in particular, about the ultimate goal of science (i.e., the ideal epistemic state). Whereas the Cartesian-Hegelian tradition conceived of the ideal state as one of detached reflection – that is, “seeing the world as it is in itself” – the characters in Part I of Either/Or reveal this ideal as leading to practical absurdity. In contrast, Kierkegaard suggests that the ideal state consists in the achievement of equilibrium between the “spectator” and “actor” aspects of the human being. Kierkegaard’s proposal thus sets the stage for Niels Bohr’s “epistemological lesson of quantum theory.”

This chapter shows the limits and ambiguities of the concept of moral clarity even when it is applied with good intentions. Using concrete examples from contemporary politics, it warns that quite often claims invoking moral clarity are an expression of reductionist thinking and tend to overrreach.

Ethical self-formation and epistemic virtues have been a focus of attention in the history of science for over three decades, and yet, despite some important early contributions, anthropologists of science have only recently started to pay more sustained and explicit attention to the ethical. This chapter argues that anthropologists of science could benefit from taking a closer and more systematic look at recent developments in the anthropology of ethics. Conversely it suggests that anthropologists of ethics might gain from a closer consideration of some of the specificities of Euro-American science as an (internally and externally contested, multiple, and perhaps in part fictitious) ethical tradition. The first half of the chapter explores the rather fitful genealogy of an interest in the ethical in the history, sociology, and anthropology of science, and points to some of the elements from which the anthropology of science as an anthropology of ethics might be (re)built. The second half of the chapter gives one extended, ethnographically grounded example of what such a (re)building might produce, and suggests some of the ways in which anthropology’s exploration of both science and ethics might benefit.

In this chapter, I explore the role of the concept of inner purposiveness in the final section of Hegel’s Logic and also the Philosophy of Nature. Hegel defends the claim that the concept is meaningfully applied to living organisms, particularly animals. The concept is actually used precisely where we should expect it, given the argument of ‘Teleology’, both when talking about the internal organisation of animals in parts-organs and when talking about the self-repair or regeneration processes by which they stay alive. By contrast, the concept no longer dominates the description of the natural process that Hegel designates ‘process of the genus’ (or ‘generic process’), in which he considers that natural life is ultimately submitted to externality. I argue that this application and lack of application taken together confirm my views on ‘Teleology’.

This chapter presents the general argument of the book and its main methodological assumptions. The book offers a close reading of the examination of the concept of purpose in The Science of Logic. The concept is understood abstractly, but nevertheless as a causal concept, by means of which we think about what the intrinsic reference to an end means and implies. The chapter clarifies in what sense the approach developed in this book is metaphysical and also what the importance of a better appreciation of Hegel’s chapter on this concept for a correct understanding of the goals and, particularly, the achievements of his entire Science of Logic is.

This chapter develops a novel reading of ‘Teleology’. The chapter shows why there is application for the concept of purpose if an objective process can be conceived of as realising an end. ‘Teleology’ examines what the relevant objective process must consist of. Hegel advocates that where there are causal processes that produce themselves by their peculiar configuration and dynamism, there are purposes that are carried out, provided that such self-production occurs at the expense of objectivity. The implication is that only where there is self-production and because of it, there is purposiveness – inner purposiveness, to be exact. As a consequence, the concept of inner purpose (or end in and for itself) captures the only paradigmatic meaning that the concept of purpose has. In light of Hegel’s argument, the claim that what is made of mechanical processes can truly be an end in and for itself becomes intelligible.

If we accept that transport barriers should be material features for experimental verifiability, we must also remember a fundamental axiom of mechanics: material response of any moving continuum, including fluids, must be frame-indifferent.This means that the conclusions of different observers regarding material behavior must transform into each other by exactly the same rigid-body transformation that transforms the frames of the observers into each other. This requirement of the frame-indifference of material response is called objectivity in classical continuum mechanics. Its significance in fluid mechanics is often overlooked or forgotten, which prompts us to devote a whole chapter to this important physical axiom. We clarify some common misunderstandings of the principle of objectivity in fluid mechanics and discuss in detail the mathematical requirements imposed by objectivity on scalars, vectors and tensors to be used in describing transport barriers.

This essay contrasts Rudolf Carnap’s and W. V. Quine’s responses to the challenge that their positions distort the social nature of inquiry. In Quine’s case, the challenge is the heart of Donald Davidson’s insistence that naturalized epistemology fails to capture the objectivity of thought. In Carnap’s case, the challenge may be detected in Charles Morris’s call for semiotic rather than syntax to ground scientific philosophy. Drawing out the challenge in Morris’s proposal requires considering a neglected influence on this neglected philosopher: his advisor George Herbert Mead’s social theory of mind. Meeting the underlying demand that objectivity be socialized, I argue, requires those of us who wish to pursue Carnap and Quine’s scientific vision of philosophy to recognize the ineliminable role other inquirers play in our own investigations.