Desideratum of Epistemic Vigilance 

The progression of history moves towards freedom from ‘external determinations’, this complements the Hegelian notion which regards history as an intelligible process moving towards a specific condition, i.e., the realization of human freedom (Little, 2007), wherein “the question at issue is therefore the ultimate end of mankind, the end which the spirit sets itself in the world (Hegel, 1894).” This process and progression can be understood with the history of the ‘word’ and how it’s monopoly has been challenged over the course of history to assert that every human being is a thinking being and possess the ability to reason, the acknowledgement and establishment of this realization in ground reality is also a process which is social, economic and political. This socio-economic and political process is drastically influenced by the knowledge produced in each of these epochs as much as the knowledge production is shaped by the socio-economic and political realities of one’s times, hence there is a dialectical relationship between knowledge produced in an epoch and the epoch that existing knowledge creates. Looking into this aforementioned process which is furthering the realization of human freedom, one encounters a plethora of challenges which center around the notions of ‘what is truth and can it ever be defined’, ‘what is progress and how have the developments led to it or lack thereof’, ‘what is desirable from an individual or collective stand point and does giving too much importance to either have an inverse impact on the other’, ‘what is the actual meaning of liberty, equality and justice and how has the progression of history abetted our understanding as well as instated the means for actualizing these concepts in ground reality’. These challenges have inherent paradoxes which are moral, ontological and epistemological in nature because our response to such challenges and paradoxes inherent in them over the course of history has been overtly decided by our moral, ontological and epistemic worldview. Considering that our moral and ontological viewpoints are premised on ‘what does one know and how does one know’, though the question of ‘how do we know what we know’ (epistemology) is the real test of credibility as it interrogates the ground on which our knowledge really stands, due to a variety of reasons which can be lack of time and resources (amongst many others), one most often overlooks and undermines this inquiry into the epistemological foundations of one’s knowledge. Due to the tendency of undermining this vital inquiry, we are susceptible towards “gullibility”, because in the conditions where one doesn’t address the need to verify the information that is being disseminated and created, or is rather unable to gauge the epistemological assumptions that are subsumed behind any assertion, then one’s ability to discern fact from fiction is limited. For instance, playing an active role in ascertaining the credibility of the information being disseminated averts the crisis of gullibility, whereby gauging the validity of knowledge is a manifestation of one’s own “agency” in the face of existing body of knowledge (which is akin to “structure”). Hence, epistemic vigilance is crucial for the realization of an individual’s relationship with the collective and establishing the role of individual’s agency in the foundation and formation of the structure which is an open-ended as well as a perpetual process, through this realization one can free one’s self from external determination and impose limits on the oppression on individual liberty through promoting harmonious dialogue and deliberation as a principle for negotiation between contending expectation between the individuals and collective.

The need of epistemic vigilance also lies in distinguishing different modes of thinking which can be broadly classified as (i) tradition based thinking; (ii) charismatic based thinking; and (iii) reason based thinking. These aforementioned modes of thinking translate into different forms of authority which can be inferred and correlated with Weberian theory of bureaucracy which espouses the idea of authority that is based on tradition, charisma and rational-legal based sensibilities, wherein different societies and various forms of organizations as well as institutions can be categorized under this classification. Traditional authority is derived from wisdom, norms and practices which are exemplified in religion, culture and various practices that are undertaken over long span of time and across generations; charismatic authority is based on ‘the cult of personality’ where the authority of an individual on account of their reverence, status or power hold within certain groups or society; rational-legal authority is based on certain forms of standardization and establishing norms of minimal coordination through rules and laws which are universally applicable for all members of society who are under the purview of this legal set-up. All these forms of authorities are somewhat based on ‘class, status and power’, hence they employ different modes of reasoning, they are founded on the basis of knowledge. All forms of authority are based on knowledge though the point of contention here is 'if authority is instituted through knowledge or knowledge has been construed to aid the legitimation of authority, hagiographies are an example of later’, and that is common across these aforementioned types of authorities but what distinguishes them is the relationship between knowledge and power which is peculiar for each type. Different modes of reasoning can create legitimization for different ways of understanding which in turn can affect the ‘social construction of reality’ [the assertion that our understanding of reality is socially constructed furthers on the notion that an individual’s idea and imagination of ‘reality’ is drastically affected by the lingual, cultural, societal, political and overly influenced by the level of knowledge at any given time, which is just as true for the collective as well, for instance, language is not just a means for communication but also a way through which our understanding and thinking is shaped as well as how a culture associates certain sounds and symbols with certain meanings, across different cultures ‘the sound that frog emits is perceived differently’, as in, onomatopoeia which is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound it describes, such as, the sound of a clock may be expressed as ‘tick tock’ in English, ‘tic tac’ in Spanish and Italian, ‘di da’ in Mandarin, ‘kachi kachi’ in Japanese, or ‘tik-tik’ in Hindi (Lichtenstein, n.d.); these slight variations of the same sound exemplify how various concepts can have different meaning and significance in different socio-cultural and linguistic contexts, hence, the ‘thing in itself’ and its conceptualization can have differences on account of how it is socially construed and perceived. Another example of how reality is socially constructed with regard to level of knowledge available and validated on a certain subject-matter, is how ‘atom’ was considered to be the smallest building block of all chemical structures until it was found that ‘atoms’ comprises of electrons, neutrons and protons which shed light on how the smallest unit of matter is made up of even smaller components (subatomic particles) which are made up of elementary particles called ‘quarks’, this progression of further splitting up atoms narrates how realities social construction is not static but rather dynamic.] The reason why is it necessary for us to distinguish between different forms of thinking lies in how different types of thinking are construed from different epistemological assumptions and in the process,they construe different ontological realities, one of the example of which is patriarchy (which is the result of traditional mode of thinking) as well as Nazism which led to Holocaust (as an outcome of the charismatic mode of thinking). Both traditional and charismatic mode of thinking require forms of external determination for them to be able to instate themselves, although ‘reason based thinking’ is transparent and free from the need of any external determination as it is independent of any legitimation because it is inherent in the thing in itself, this mode of thinking acknowledges the relational and associational nature of not just knowledge but also between human beings, nature and all animate as well as inanimate objects because nothing exists without reason (law of sufficient reason). Through this acknowledgement of knowledge being associational and our behavior being conjoint, reason actualizes itself. Hence, the commitment towards reason and realizing it's authority as a constitutive element of ontological reality is a crucial reason why 'Epistemic Vigilance' is important because it helps us identify the larger consequences of one's own belief and how they are enmeshed with a system of knowledge (which can be a product of different modes of thinking/reasoning).

Discrediting and disregarding certain forms of knowledge because they don’t adhere to the supposed conventional status quo within academia and society at large is the gravest form of oppression where one’s right to have a voice is violated, this happens at various levels which maybe in the form of institutional elitism, class, caste, creed, race or sexual identities etc., the history of ‘reason’ which can also be understood with the analogy of the history of ‘academia’ narrates various forms of exclusion where people pertaining to different identities were denied entry or one’s knowledge was discredited on account of challenging or questioning the existing legitimacy of the existing order, for instance, Galileo heliocentric model of the solar system which allegedly questioned the authority of the Church’s cosmological view and discredited, which led to his execution. The monopoly over “word” which is indicative of how hegemony over the production of knowledge was perpetuated through ‘gatekeeping’ and the use of ‘instrumental mode of reason’ which was at the heart of colonial expansion of empires and appropriation of planet's resources and people for certain section of the people where ‘class, status and power’ were the key determinants of what knowledge gains credibility as well as who gets the opportunity of knowledge creation is decided. This gatekeeping has gone through immense transformation over the course of history and became much more porous towards people from all walks of life but it prevails till date, epistemic vigilance is needed to acknowledge and address this sort of exclusionary practices and instate the primacy of reason to overcome the hegemony over knowledge and this hegemony that perpetuates through “othering” where certain forms of knowledge and certain sections of people institute hierarchies through advocating the primacy of certain disciplines of knowledge over other (where the whole is divided into parts ‘vivisection’ such that there is no interaction between parts of the whole). Reason democratizes the “word” by making it accessible to more and more ‘thinking beings’ with every stage of its development, not having the access and agency of the ‘word’ is at the core of oppression and ‘othering’, the endeavor of reason is to enable one with the ability to make their own statements and not rely on statements made by others, in this process ‘reason’ facilitates ‘freedom’ through allowing one to determine their relationship with the world.

Quest for “Truth” in Knowledge: The Relationship between ‘Thing in Itself’ and ‘Social as a Category’ 

Philosophy has riddled with the nature of “Truth” since time immemorial and struggled with the question of ‘what sort of things can be true’, whether if truth can be contained within ‘sentences’ (linguistic entities) or ‘proposition’ (nonlinguistic, abstract and timeless entities); even though there is certain consensus on ‘truth being an objective feature of proposition, instead of subjective’ and that truth-value of declarative (i.e indicative) statements should be assessed because these kinds of sentences are propositions (herein, certain exceptional cases where propositions are: (i) sentences containing non-referring expressions; (ii) predictions of future events; (iii) liar sentences; and (iv) sentences that state moral, ethical or aesthetical values) (Truth, n.d.). None of the theories of truth have been able to devise a unanimous definition of “Truth”, for instance, corresponding theory of truth is criticized for not accounting for mind-independent statements; linguistic theory of truth is questioned on the lines of ‘had there been no language, would there be no truth?’; semantic theory of truth has been limited by not accepting noncontingent propositions; coherence theory faces an objection for being only concerned verifiability instead of truth; and the pragmatist theory of truth merely shows we have a problem with knowledge, but it doesn’t show that the meaning of “true” doesn’t now involve hindsight from the perspective of the future (Truth, n.d.). Although these aforementioned theories of ‘truth’ aid and abet the process of unfolding 'what is truth' and present very valid arguments upon it but defining 'Truth' is a very difficult endeavor because it is rooted in the very nature of things, making it a 'thing in itself' but that doesn't make the pursuit of 'Truth' futile because of its open-endedness. In this line of argument wherein, "Truth" is a 'thing in itself' and a part of what Kant in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals calls 'noumena' (pertaining to world/thing as it is) instead of 'phenomena' (the world/thing as we know it).

Hence, “Truth” is analogically similar to the boulder in the “Myth of Sisyphus”, the quest to find it is similar to pushing the boulder up the hill (the process of inquiry, discovery and inferences which entail the movement of thought towards transformation of ‘noumena’ into ‘phenomena’), with every revelation of the facet of truth there are a new set of questions that arise which is same as the boulder rolling back down again (the transformation of ‘noumena’ to ‘phenomena’ is never-ending and an all encompassing, all pervading realization or revelation wherein the mystique of ‘thing in itself’ prevails through reflecting the limitations of knowledge about ‘thing as we know it’). Every form of knowledge is the a quest to unveil “Truth’ in its own capacity but just as Chemistry as a discipline bears witness that the search for smallest unit of matter is a perpetual and never ending quest because the the discovery of atom led to the discovery of its constituent parts namely protons, neutrons and electrons which led to the discovery of ‘quarks’ which form ‘hadrons’ and fundamental forces namely weak and strong interaction, electromagnetism and gravitation which too would further be broken down and unveiled with further studies undertaken upon it but the nature of ultimate subject matter (i.e. reality) is such that the attempt to know it in entirety has never been realized but has rather always been a process where every new revelation opens up a pandora box of questions. Such is that case with "Truth" where it cannot be defined in its entirety and all the theories upon it describe certain facets of it which overlap and expand the idea of truth but don't ever quite define it in itself, common understanding of the features of "Truth" as something that is 'reliable and dependable'. Every being and every branch of knowledge is concerned with the “Truth” and its realization but each of them have different tools, methods and techniques which is why they engage with the ultimate subject matter (i.e. reality) differently, just as epistemic and technical knowledge are concerned with the the question of ‘why’ and ‘how’ respectively, similarly different disciplines are concerned with different aspects of ultimate subject matter that is reality, for instance geography is concerned with the study of the earth, physics studies the structure of matter and how the fundamental constituents of the universe interact, biology is regarded as the ‘study of life’ (engaging with structure, function, growth, origin, evolution and distribution of living organisms), sociology is regarded as the study of society (wherein, the relationship between human beings and the society that they live in) and all other disciplines (as well as subdisciplines of knowledge) are essentially dealing with the ‘epiphenomenon of nature’ and ‘nature’ as a ‘thing in itself’.

Considering that irrespective of separation and bifurcation of disciplines, their ultimate subject matter remains the same because they are dealing with independent occurrences and existence of objects {or ‘thing in itself’, herein it means that the object needn’t necessarily be tangible (i.e tree) but can very well be intangible (i.e. Truth)} upon which the meaning of  perception and epistemic significance of perception lies, among such objects are mechanisms, events and activities which are categorically independent of experiences. Bhaskar explicates the aspects transitive (dependent on antecedent knowledge and human activity) and intransitive (independent existence) within the process of knowledge production within the philosophy of science. Science is not an epiphenomenon of nature, nor is nature a product of man (Bhaskar, 2013). As ideas are associated and relations (between ideas) are the nerve of science that correlate with the association among things, hence, we observe that qualities of associated things are displayed only in associations, since only through interactions can true potentialities be actualized. The more numerous and varied the forms of association into which anything enters, the better basis we have for describing and understanding it, for more complex is an association the more fully are potentialities released for observation (Dewey, 1928). Mechanisms, events and activities constitute 3 overlapping domains of reality: (i) real (as ‘thing in itself’ exists independent of how it is perceived); (ii) actual (as how real is actualized and internalized as understanding of the ‘what is real’); and (iii) empirical (the sense perception of reality, i.e real as it appears to our senses). For instance, “sun rises in the East and sets in the West” is an inference from the domain of empirical; “Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the Sun” is an inference from the domain of real; and “Sun appears to be rising in the East and setting in the West because Earth is revolving upon its axis creating the distinction of day and night with regard to which side of the Earth is facing the Sun as well as the difference of size between Sun and Earth” is an inference from the domain of actual. Thing present themselves to us in such a way that narrower and wider ranges, simple and complex aspects are readily distinguishable such that ‘metaphysical description’ and understanding is demarcated as the widest and fullest range of associated activities which are open to observation, creating ‘degrees of reality’ wherein associations and range of associations as determining ‘degrees of reality’ which becomes the point of acknowledgement of ‘social’ as a category which plays a very important role in informing our understanding of the “Truth” as a ‘thing in itself’ while enabling us to make phenomenological inferences about “Truth” through inquiry, observation, reflection, inference, deduction or abduction. 

‘Thing in Itself’ is a point of reference which is navigational to determine and discern between ‘right and wrong’ in regard to ‘objective reality’ of everything, the notion of how reality is independent of how does one observe it and the socio-cultural as well as epistemological frame of observation that is resorted to in the process of this discernment, it is the “Truth’ that is not contextually derived but rather exists in its own right and is ‘reliable and dependable’; from the vantage point of different disciplines of knowledge. Discerning the ontology and epistemology of what is ‘reliable and dependable’ which is in the very nature of ‘thing in itself’ is vital to ensure if any claim on something being ‘reliable and dependable’ is credible in the first place. As ideas are associational and human behavior is conjoint, the understanding of ‘social’ aspect in the very ontology and epistemology of what is ‘real’ and ‘how do we understand it’, process of knowledge making also entails associations across various forms of knowledge and vicissitudes within society itself which is perpetually transforming and even the conflicts and dissenting vantage points stimulate knowledge production and our understanding of the world, the category of social flourishes through acknowledging differences and open-endedness. All social order is based on one element that doesn’t change, which is the idea of dependence, conjunction and associations which are at the root of everything because everything under the sun (and sun itself) has antecedents and doesn't exist entirely independently.

Operationalizing Epistemic Vigilance as a means to Justice

Epistemic vigilance lies in the acknowledgement of motion and dynamism in thought, reason and logic because the principles of Logic (also, thought and reason) namely: principle of identity, principle of noncontradiction, principle of excluded middle and principle of sufficient reason are to be assessed and gauged against the problems of logic which are namely: (i) problem of abstractions; (ii) problem of dualism; (iii) problem of incommensurability; and (iv) problem of boundaries(Pratt, 2010). The principles are the positive conception of reason and the problems are its negative conception, which is not to say that principles and problems are at odds with each other but rather have dialectical relationship because reason is progressive and any assertion or claim towards an axiomatic statement needs to assessed on the basis of its epistemic considerations and ontological semblance.

Epistemic vigilance is vital because ‘reason’ (thought or logic) can be used to instrument one’s worldview and “instrumental reason” can be oppressive because it is exclusionary, as it is premised on the notion of establishing certain opinion or phenomena as a ‘thing in itself’ (as in, something that exists in the very nature of things), for instance, patriarchy (also, racism, casteism and elitism) which uses the instrumental form of reasoning to establish itself as the ‘natural social order’ by establishing the terms and conditions of ‘relationship that one entity have with others’, such an establishment is based on the notion of class, status and power or pertains to the status quo within any given society which is oppressive and exclusionary as it is based on impropriety, often perpetuated through violence and oppression because it doesn’t stand on its own feet (as in, it needs external determination for its validation), the exclusion is regimented by monopoly over ‘reason’ which is practiced through “Othering” and suppressing different point of views (often undertaken by vilification of any form of dissent). This mode of reasoning violates ‘freedom’ (which doesn’t mean ‘isolation’ or only ‘absence of constraints’ but rather the ability to determine one’s relation with the world) which is the most important aspect of reason, because ‘reason’ enables one to make one’s own statements and not rely on statements made by others. Hence, epistemic vigilance is concerned with gauging credibility of ‘what is being said/written’ independent of ‘who is saying/writing it’. 

जाति न पूछो साधु की, पूछ लीजिये ज्ञान, मोल करो तरवार का, पड़ा रहन दो म्यान।

(Don’t ask a priest’s caste, rather ask what they know, assess the sword, let the scabbard go.)

-Kabir

Epistemic Vigilance is a means to save one’s self from impropriety which can be manifested in different forms in various walks of life, for instance in academica, one of the forms of impropriety is ‘biased gatekeeping’, it becomes a means through which we can uphold the mirror where one would see the “othering” of studentship. The objective of epistemic vigilance is “upholding studentship” in all walks of life because through questioning ‘how do we know what we know’ we are embarking on a journey of self-reflection as well attaining a better understanding of the external world (and reality, ‘thing in itself’ as it is independent of the violation and acknowledgement of different forms of violation like infringement, irreverence or desecration). “Upholding Studentship” is crucial for ensuring academic propriety, ‘otherness’ becomes a relationship premised on dominance, hegemony and violence but ‘that what shows us the mirror’ is worthy of respect and reverence. Hence, differences don’t make us unequal but rather strengthen and flourish ‘social as a category’ because through engaging with different points of views, we become closer to the “Truth”.

Epistemic Vigilance is operationalized by ‘observation, discussion and contemplation’, which is undertaken through and corresponds with ‘reading, writing and reflexivity’. Observation is akin to reading the world as it is because our senses can be deceptive and the information obtained from only our sense perception is not always reliable because “Truth” is often masked such it cannot be noticed through our naked eyes but reading as an approach of observation enables us to magnify and study in great detail which aids in the process of sharpening and expanding our perspicacity. Discussion is closely related to writing wherein one is able to share their worldview and understanding with others through which one is able to get responses regarding how it corresponds to or is distinguished from the other as within the act of writing one is able to get much more clarity regarding their thoughts and ascertain one’s own relationship with the text, through the act of writing, one is also becoming more certain about what they think, perceive or feel and assess the role of ‘other’ in their own understanding. Contemplation is the aspect of ‘reflexivity’ wherein the one’s own biases and inclinations towards one’s epistemological and ontological assumptions which shape their worldview and this is the aspect where one acknowledges that one’s understanding is based on these biases and assumptions play an active role in not just one’s understanding of the world, but rather the world as it is (as in, as it appears and shapes ontologically for them).

End Notes

•  Nieztche’s declaration during 1865 in a letter addressed to his sister about his apostasy.

• The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was established by a group of natural philosophers and physicians with the commitment to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation (Paz, n.d.). 

•  This paper makes an argument for “Truth” as a ‘thing in itself’ and holds it ‘as a value which gives value to all other values’ and regards it as the ‘uncaused cause’ (law of sufficient reason) which exists in itself as an inevitable feature of truth. This paper makes a distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘Truth’, wherein ‘truth’ with the lowercase ‘t’ refers to ‘truth’ as we know it (as in, truth in the realm of phenomena which can be inferred through inquiry) and ‘Truth’ with an uppercase ‘T” refers to “Truth” as it is, as a ‘thing in itself’.

•  Bertrand Russel and Ludwig Witgenstien established that the formal relationship between facts and true propositions as isomorphic (logical atomism), also, in Sociology, an isomorphism is a similarity of the processes or structure of one organization to that of another, which may be the result of imitation or independent development under similar constraints, it is typified as normative, coercive or mimetic.

• Epistemic Fortitude encapsulates “being sensitive to what everyone says but not losing one’s own ground”, wherein we need to be cautious against the fallacy of ‘othering’ (as in, creating and perpetuating a hallucinatory conception of the other on the basis of which one’s observations are discredited) as well as being ‘othered’ through the means of rigorous understanding. 

•  Hereby, the “end of mankind” refers to the teleological purpose of Humankind which according to Hegel is the realization of itself, the ‘geist’ is in a constant process of realizing itself wherein ‘being’ is perpetually ‘becoming’ until the being cease to exist and it only stops ‘becoming’ when it doesn’t exist anymore.

•  Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman argue that ‘reality’ is socially constructed and the task of sociology of knowledge is to analyze the process in which it occurs. Reality in this regard can be understood as having a being independent of our volition. It exists independently of one’s own free will and we cannot thereby wish them away. Knowledge on the other hand can be understood as the certainty that phenomena are real and incorporate certain characteristics. It is the accumulated and passed on understanding of reality for societies. Reality and knowledge “pertain to specific social contexts”, instead of emphasizing on the erstwhile theories based on theoretical and scientific knowledge alone; one must rather focus on common sense knowledge to understand what reality is. Knowledge in this regard is rooted in everyday life (Luckmann & Berger, 2011).

•  ‘Whole’ refers to the body of knowledge in totality and ‘Parts’ refer to branches of knowledge, i.e disciplines arguing how ‘instrumental mode of reasoning’ advocates and perpetuates this bifurcation between parts of knowledge but ‘reason’ futhers the cause of the unity between the parts and the whole of knowledge by engaging in the dialogical process as well as acknowledging the open-endedness of knowledge as a whole where the dichotomy between fact and value is bridged, this division between ‘parts’ and ‘whole’ is not just limited to across disciplines but prevails between disciplines as well, for instance, ‘macro sociology’ and ‘individual sociology’. Each academic discipline has a vocabulary to make sense of the world as a ‘whole’ from the perspective of the ‘part’ that it engages with, the dialectical relationship between ‘parts’ and the ‘whole’ entails the undertaking of conceptual clarity wherein each discipline ‘use concepts to refine concepts and make them more rigorous often through borrowing concepts across disciplines’, this is the interface of ‘interdisciplinarity’. The more numerous and varied the forms of association into which anything enters, the better basis we have for describing and understanding it, for more complex is an association the more fully are the potentialities released for observation (Dewey, 1928). 

•  Noncontingent truths are said to be true by definition, or as a matter of conceptual relationships between the concepts at play within the propositions, or – yet another (kindred) way – as a matter of the meanings of the sentences expressing the propositions (Truth, n.d.). 

•  The conceptual or formal order reflects the prejudices and hierarchies of those making the divisions, and also amounts to a means “with which to impose one’s view on others” (Nye, 2019).

•  Dualism is a complex multifaceted relation that begins with division but becomes “a relation of separation and domination inscribed and naturalized in culture and characterized by radical exclusion, distancing and opposition between orders construed as systematically higher and lower, as inferior and superior, ruler and ruled, center and periphery” (Plumwood, 2002).

•  The idea that division is necessary leads to the problem of incommensurability. If there are divisions (but not dualistic relations) between cultures, genders, races, or even sciences, one wonders whether the differences make communication across (Schutte, 1998).

•  The boundary is some thing, but its logical status is ambiguous. Despite its ambiguity, however, the boundary remains necessary if there are to be both black and white. The same logical relation seems to emerge in the concerns raised by the idea of personal identity and its implications for society (Pratt, 2010).