2010 Marrow Issue by Camille Buxton

2010 Marrow Issue

The objective nature of science has been denied by Andrew Ross and Bruno Latour and (as I understand them) the influential philosopher Richard Rorty and the late Thomas Kuhn, but it is taken for granted by most natural scientists. (88) Which brings us back to where we started. Plato and natural scientists believe that truth is something real that can be discovered and known. The sophists and social constructionists believe that truth is something constructed by humans in a social setting. In his new book, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy (2004), Bruno Latour states that scientists and politicians need to come together. We must all come out of the Cave, by distinguishing Science from the practical works of science. This distinction allows us to draw another one, between the official philosophy of ecologism on the one hand and its burgeoning practice on the other. (225) Latour invokes Plato’s allegory of the cave in an attempt to unify two diverse groups. Personally, I think that both scientific realism and social constructionism have a place in the description of reality. I believe that 186,000 miles per second is the speed of light and I don’t care if this figure was arrived at by social means. Conversely, I believe that human interactions are not based upon an ultimate “truth” and that individual perceptions are ultimately more important in our day-today dealings with each other than is some overriding principle, although this statement brings up the concept of values. Plato seems to be saying that humans live in a society in which certain concepts such as “the good” or “truth” are valued, which certainly seems correct. The sophists, on the other hand, seem to be saying that values are unimportant and can be molded to fit the situation. I agree that

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people live their lives based upon the values they have adopted as they attain maturity and I