Report R1.7 Perception of Reality: Everyday and Scientific Seminar Leader: Satish Saberwal, Formerly: Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi saberwal33[at]gmail.com Issues Covered: One way to think of 'getting educated' is to think of it as learning how to achieve a reliable sense of orientation to 'reality'. We need this sense of orientation for several kinds of reasons. What is this 'reality'? There is a continuity between our everyday sense of reality and what is done, academically, in 'science'. The two levels of orientation--everyday and scientific--are in some ways similar, in others different. It is clear that the move into the scientific mode of understanding took a big leap at some point in recent European history--within a particular social context. Orderly social life rests on an agreement between participants in an activity over how it should proceed. Clearly, human affairs are soaked in pervasive conflicts. There is a domain where disagreements can get resolved dialogically. When the various participants in a situation--the various subjects--agree on their understanding of the situation, on 'what things are like', we may speak of 'intersubjective agreement'. However, it has been possible to push the search for agreement between actors and observers--this intersubjective agreement--beyond the limits of a specific culture. For the possibility of achieving this, a commitment to openness, to transparency, is essential. And a scientific tradition is successful insofar as it works out a shared style of doing things, a style which can be expected to generate intersubjective agreement repeatedly. Academia and the sciences cannot be free from disagreements; but when competent academics disagree on something, they're anxious to pin down the exact nature and source of the disagreement. So the agreements and agreements in the sciences are attained through contestation and critical appraisal. The ideal is to try to transcend the particular cultural contexts, except that defined by the particular academic tradition. For a creative scientific community to be possible, the community must be autonomous. There is a need for getting educated--to understand reality from the perception--to know the phenotypic experience of life and genotypic characteristics underlying those. Accordingly, we can distinguish between two levels of orientation: everyday and scientific. Scientific understanding took a big leap in the recent European history. Perception of reality is needed to cope with that reality more adequately, to influence that reality in directions chosen. In various natural and social sciences, perception of reality is needed to be able to describe and appraise it accurately. Various natural and social sciences describe the outside society. Reality has various levels. For example, one level is to see, hear, touch, etc. The level is unconscious or pre-conscious reality (unframed mind). Reality involves facts, values, and preferences. Part of the study is to develop a sense to distinguish between facts and preferences or wishful thinking. There is continuity between our everyday sense of reality classifying into phenotype and genotype experiences (words derived from anthropology). Phenotypic experience of life--based on physical attributes like the shape and size of skull, nose, etc., (which can be said as being formed in one individual’s life) can be compared with genotypic characteristics of life (differentiating on the basis of gene pools). Orderly social practice rests on tacit agreement between different participants in an activity, which can range from agreeing on a matter to uncontrollable disagreements resulting in conflicts. Human affairs are soaked in pervasive conflicts but the discussion in this seminar concentrated on agreements, that is the intersubjective agreements that rest commonly on certain shared cultural assumptions, for example, the Brahminical notion of a person getting polluted by someone's touch. Such agreements are culture-specific. However, over the centuries, it has been possible to push the limits of some of these agreements beyond the specific cultures. Emergence of such supra-cultural intersubjective agreements has been a huge step in cultural history. That is the origin of what we recognize as the scientific tradition. It functions by repeatedly generating intersubjective agreements over some well-specified range of topics. Moving into the scientific mode of understanding took a big leap in Europe during renaissance, reformation, etc. The beginning of this break can be located as early as the 13th/14th century. In a functioning society, everyday social practice rests on tacit agreement between different persons. We have arguments over India-Pakistan partition, Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc. Prof. Saberwal cited a very interesting example in this context. After a summit of the ASEAN nations, two authors gave two different versions of the decision taken at the summit. The editor, on detailed investigation, found out that the two authors had based their accounts on different sources, which were in different languages. The editor allowed the publication of both the accounts, indicating the difference in the information sources used. This characterises the scientific approach; it involves a commitment to openness, transparency, and an interest in examining the steps used in arriving at a conclusion. The importance of quantification in scientific work was discussed next. Quantification adds precision to our statements and thus it can facilitate agreement; but quantifiability is not a measure of significance. Again a very humorous example was cited: that of umbrellology--study of umbrellas! Someone made an in-depth study of various kinds of umbrellas available, their colours, usages, and their pedigree. The study produced some interesting statistical facts and figures. But these were of no significance to anyone. Among pre-modern societies, China was one of the most advanced, having invented gunpowder, compass, printing, and steel manufacturing. It is now known that 11th century China produced more and better steel than 18th century England. Chinese science was arrested because the technical workers were not part of open social groups; they were part of the Confucian bureaucracy. There was much intervention of the state machinery in their life and work. Every autonomous body was viewed with suspicion. However, breakthrough in sustainable and cumulative scientific work happened in Europe. Europe provided a differentiated society with a variety of institutions--hence the possibility of autonomous peer groups developing their thoughts in a self-regulated manner. For example, during the World Wars, the scientists belonging to the warring nations communicated through neutral countries like Switzerland as they all belonged to a peer group and exchange of ideas for them was of utmost importance in spite of the fact that their respective countries were at war. Consequently, a lot of sustainable, cumulative scientific work happened in Europe. One of the questions raised in the seminar was whether beliefs and attitudes are involved in the social sciences. The answer that emerged was that people define their situation and act according to that definition. For example, a cat passing before a car is taken as an unlucky sign in some parts of India. For a social scientist, these are social facts requiring scientific inquiry. There was another question on the reality of science. One answer was the theory that prevails is accepted by a large majority of the relevant scientific community. At the same time, all scientific truth is provisional and revisable. It is not a characterisation of reality that is true and final for all time to come. Another question was about religion. Every religion tries to give an internally consistent account of reality. How is science different from this? It was discussed that faith is essential in religion while, in science, the right to question is the crux. Reference Saberwal, S. (2000). On reality: Its perception and construction. In P. N. Mukherji (Ed.), Methodology in social research: Dilemmas and perspectives (Essays in honour of Ramkrishna Mukherjee) (pp. 126-152). New Delhi, India: Sage.
Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home |
