Christine told us the story of a particular technological and scientific development in the 20th century, namely the various techniques of "hearing" and "seeing" under water.
They are at least three stages to be considered. The first stage consisted of an underwater-microphone or so-called hydrophone: A sound was emitted and the echo of that sound recorded by a single hydrophone. If the sound bounced back quickly, this serve as an indication that something was there (a German U-Boot, for example). A later stage utilized an array of hydrophones to determine more exactly the shape of the object under water. The technology consisted no longer of a physical device and a simple set of instructions. A host of calculations are needed to transform the information of the hydrophones into an intelligible result. At both stages the technology relied on the ability to distinguish the relevant signal from irrelevant background noise. The engineering effort was basically geared toward the elimination of noise.All this changed at the third and most contemporary step of "acoustic daylight imaging." Engineers moved away from the original model of trying to hear a signal through all the noise. Instead, they modeled the technology on how we see. We don't ordinarily consider daylight "noise" because it is precisely the displacement of daylight which brings objects to view, gives them contour, etc. Instead of eliminating ambient noise under water, these engineers therefore incorporate it and treat under water objects as displacements in that noise: Their acoustic instruments thereby help us see under water.
What does all this have to do with objectivity? As Christine pointed out, that term has many meanings. By 'objective knowledge' we sometimes mean true knowledge (saying how it really is), sometimes we mean knowledge that is obtained in a methodical and disinterested manner (in an unbiased fashion), and sometimes we mean knowledge that is certified by a collectivity of scientists (it is intersubjective or shared and does not hold true for the individual only). Each of these different conceptions of 'objectivity' relies on a different view of how the object is given to us: Is it simply sitting there, waiting for it to be discovered or revealed? Is it at least partially a construct of the mind, something that must be imagined in a rigorous manner under the rubrics of time, space and causality? Does the definition or even the existence of the object depend on our agreement about it?
Since all conceptions of objectivity involve some prior idea of how objects are given to us, Christine proposes a conception of dialectical objectivity: The object emerges and becomes increasingly 'objectified' through our interactions with the initially ill-defined and finally well-defined object and its environment, through the interactions of scientists and engineers among each other about the object, through the object's interactions with its environment, with our instruments, and with us, and even through the interactions between scientists and engineers and the general public. create or crystallize or objectify the object. The more interactions there are, the more we know; and the more we know, the better defined and more clearly apprehensible is the object. Accordingly, Christine views the history of under water imaging as an ever-widening accumulation of interactions. The scope of interactions increased, for example, as ambient noise was acknowledged and incorporated or as the public's interest in TV-images of sunken ships informed the ambition of sonar engineers. The notion of dialectical objectivity thus allows us to view the progress of science in social and cultural as well as strictly intellectual terms. Christine suggests that 'objectivity' is most usefully thought of as 'dialectical objectivity.'
Alfred Nordmann
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