ObjectiveKnowledge

Objective Knowledge is usually thought about as one of the following.

• The view from nowhere

• Intersubjectively agreed

The "view from nowhere'' is usually dismissed as unattainable : a pure knowledge of things as they are, independent of our subjective biases or phenomenal categories.

The second is offered as consolation prize; something which, to all intents and purposes, is "as good as" objective knowledge. After all, how could we tell the difference?

In PopperianEpistemology Objective Knowledge (or World 3 knowledge) is neither of the above. But captures some of what we'd like to have of the first; and escapes some of the unpleaasantness of the second.

In the first case : world 3 objects are NOT miraculously free of subjective biases. They are created by knowing subjects, and belong to their culture. The key to understanding is to see that world 3 has the same relation to world 2, as world 2 has to world 1. Just as the physical states in world 1 are vehicles for subjective mental states of world 2; so the world 2 states are vehicles for world 3 states. The world 3 idea is instantiated by the subjective state, but could potentially be instantiated, re-represented by a different one. (Whereas the biases of the subject are essential parts of the world 2 object.)

In fact, it is only this difference in necessity which distinguishes world 2 and world 3.

Remember that Popper is one of the OptimisticEpistemologists. He believes that we (and other rational creatures) can always improve on and overcome our subjective biases. In this way, Objective Knowledge represents the kind of knowledge, abstracted away from our subjective particulars, that any rational creature could hope to acquire, improvement and increasing approximation to reality.

One helpful technique for such improvement, is dialogue and critical argument with others who have different subjective biases. Therefore sociability is valuable. But there's a great difference with the notion of objective as intersubjectively agreed. In the usual understanding of the intersubjective there lurks a bitter pessimism. The community is established on a shared set of biases which define those inside, and those outside. To be intersubjectively agreed is to be something which appeals to these shared biases within the community. But for those in the outgroup who don't share the bias; there is a barrier of incommensuarability through which no communication or constructive argument is possible.

To argue that communication is made possible by shared biases or forms of life, is to argue that transcendence of such biases, and discussion between alien communities, speaking untranslatable languages, is impossible.

As an optimist, I want to deny this. Because we can all change, all communities, however alien, can grow towards communication with each other.

The idea of World 3 knowledge or "objective" knowledge is another way of asserting the faith in the possibility that we can understand the notion of a knowledge abstracted away from our particular biases.