Towards Interactive Objectivity in Social Science: Feminist Social Epistemologies, Methodological Debates in Social Science, and Quantitative Literacy

This presentation seeks to provide a closer treatment of the concept of objectivity in the disciplines of social science, especially in response to the conception of objectivity based on "independence of... [ view full abstract ]

This presentation seeks to provide a closer treatment of the concept of objectivity in the disciplines of social science, especially in response to the conception of objectivity based on "independence of individual researchers” or “replicability of research results,” which I argue are inadequate justification for good, or objective, social scientific knowledge. The main argument in this presentation is that “independence” and “replicability” (which I later categorize into value-free objectivity, value-neutral objectivity, detached objectivity, and procedural objectivity) are not good candidates for objectivity in all cases of social science. Indeed, in many cases, the illusion of “independence” and “replicability” prevents important, and sometimes problematic, value judgments underlying the social scientific research from being critically discussed. As an alternative, I propose that we should adopt an interactive conception of objectivity that emphasizes democratic and critical discussion within social scientific communities as part of theory justification. Interactive objectivity would make justification of a scientific theory dependent on rules and procedures immanent in the context of inquiry, and specific to each topic of inquiry. I do not criticize the use of quantitative methods, but do point out ways in which the use of quantitative methods, or the theory justifications of the results of quantitative methods, can be problematic. I eventually advocate an epistemic pluralism of methodological choices that is made (more) possible through adopting interactive objectivity, and positively evaluate the role that the quantitative literacy movement could play to bring out the full potential that interactive objectivity promises.