From Truth to Disinterestedness in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

Words have social as well as lexical meanings. This paper traces a semantic shift of the word `objective', and the issues arising from it, in the seventeenth century. A word attaching to the concept of `truth' at the beginning of the century came increasingly to give way to considerations of `disinterestedness'; the restructuring of European intellectual life associated with the Scientific Revolution thus involved the constitution of knowledge-claims from criteria of trustworthiness, rather than from purported criteria of `objective' truth. The change appears to have followed the loss of general credibility of the scholastic educational structure, which brought about the creation of new forms for making knowledge. The career of the word `objective' took a turn away from `truth', a distancing that modern usages actively preserve.

The Commercialization of Research and the Quest for the Objectivity of Science

“…4 For example, in the 13 th and 14 th centuries a thing had an objective being if it existed in some thinking mind-it didn't have to actually exist in space or time (Nadler 2006, p. 92). According to Dear (1992), at the beginning of the 17th century, the word "objective" used to be attached to the concept of "truth", but later became more and more conflated with "disinterestedness". For the history of the concept of objectivity, see also Daston (1992), Daston and Galison (1992) and Porter (1992).…”

Longino’s Theory of Objectivity and Commercialized Research

“…Historical analyses of objectivity (e.g., Daston, 1992;Daston & Galison, 1992Dear, 1992;Porter, 1992) have revealed how the use of this concept has changed during the last few hundred years. As Daston (1992) has stated, in the context of acquiring knowledge, different virtues have been attached to the concept and, thus, the methods that have been taken to secure objectivity have been distinct at different periods of time.…”

Organization Formation as Epistemic Practice: The Early Epistemological Function of the American Medical Association

“…Recent approaches to epistemology outside of philosophy have assumed an empirical orientation, revealing significant historical and regional diversity in epistemological standards. Historical epistemology (see Daston 1992;Davidson 2001;Dear 1992;Porter 1986;Poovey 1998;Schweber 2006;Toulmin 1992) undermines the assumed universal foundationalism of analytic epistemology by temporalizing epistemological categories and standards. Perceived timeless epistemological units like the "fact" are shown to have a history (Poovey 1998).…”