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Knowledge in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Quick questions on Objectivity and subjectivity in the humanities explained: H2 Knowledge and Inquiry
7short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is distinguishing senses of objectivity?Show answer
Objectivity is not one thing. Ontological objectivity is the claim that there are facts independent of what anyone thinks. Epistemic objectivity is the claim that a belief is well grounded and free of individual bias, reached by tracking evidence rather than preference. Procedural objectivity is the claim that a result is checkable and reproducible by others using shared methods.
What is the threats in human inquiry?Show answer
Several features make objectivity harder to secure in the human sciences than in physics. Many of their key concepts are value-laden: deviance, welfare, exploitation and crime carry evaluative content built into their meaning. The choice of which questions to study reflects judgements of importance. The researcher's standpoint, their social position, assumptions and interests, can shape what they notice and how they frame it.
What is standpoint theory?Show answer
Standpoint theory holds that knowledge is situated: where one stands shapes what one can see. In a crude reading this sounds like relativism, every view as good as any other. But a stronger reading treats certain standpoints as epistemically privileged for certain questions, because they reveal features that a dominant perspective overlooks. On this reading standpoint considerations do not destroy objectivity but enrich it, by widening the range of perspectives whose situated insights are made public and testable, yielding a better-situated collective knowledge.
What is reconceiving objectivity?Show answer
The upshot is that objectivity in the human sciences is best understood not as a view from nowhere, an impossible standpoint free of all perspective, but as something achievable: epistemic and procedural objectivity secured by intersubjective methods. Transparent operationalisation of concepts, explicit statement of value commitments, peer scrutiny, replication, and active search for disconfirming evidence together discipline inquiry against individual bias. So while strong value-neutrality is out of reach, a robust, achievable objectivity is available, and it is what good social science aims at.
What is q1?Show answer
Distinguish epistemic and procedural objectivity. [6 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Explain why value-neutrality is harder to defend than value-freedom in inference. [8 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Explain the difference between a relativist and a constructive reading of standpoint theory. [6 marks]
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