The Objectivity and the Rationality of Science

Abstract

Abstract Facts and truths are termed “objective,” and so are beliefs. There are three strands to our ordinary notion of an objective fact or truth. First, an objective fact is accessible from different angles. It can be repeated by the same sense (sight, touch, etc.) at different times, and it can be repeated by different senses of one observer, and by different observers. The second mark of an objective truth, related to the first, is that there is or can be intersubjective agreement about it. And the third feature concerns independence. If p is an objective truth, then it holds independently of people’s beliefs, desires, hopes, and observations or measurements that p. A fourth and more fundamental characteristic of objective truths underlies and explains the first three features (to the extent that they hold): an objective fact is invariant under all admissible transformations. Which transformations are the admissible ones, for instance, Lorentz transformations, is discovered in the course of the history of scientific investigation.1