The Objective Within, Not Beyond, Experience
The Objective Within, Not Beyond, Experience
This chapter explores the problem of gaining information about an objective, mind-independent reality while needing to rely on a larger community to know what to accept as true and also remaining committed to fallibilism. It is argued that a workable notion of the objective can be found within experience. The experiential basis of the objective is located in the realization that things are not always what we want them to be or expect them to be. The normative claims about our obligations that follow from this realization motivate an important interest in the concept of “objective knowledge.” Also explored is the notion that the objective and the factual are associated with the experience of rationally compelled acceptance. Being compelled to accept some claims is an important feature of scientific knowledge, but the experience of being compelled is contingent upon the acceptance of epistemological norms.
Keywords: Objective, Reality, Fact, Fallibilism, Obligation, Normative, epistemology
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