Objectivity in epistemology

     Early in Toole's discussion of the ideology's function is Marx's quote that "the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas" (172). This is extended to the idea that these ideas born of the ruling class are soon taken as universal or natural. I understood why this is such a worrisome prognosis as the very benefit of "natural" and "universal" laws is that they are fundamental laws. If ideologies purpose is to serve as a "disappearing act", I wonder if we can somehow create a society without an ideology and what would that look like?

I was most intrigued with Toole's discussion of the bias paradox as an answer to this question. This paradox suggests that if an ideology formed out of self-interest and rationalization, those who critique it are doing so simply from their own separate ideology. This suggests that neither account is objectively right and so neither account can claim the other should change. If the critique does not come from a separate ideology, then it comes from the ideology which it is critiquing and will just fail to truly come up with objectively different ideas. Toole claims to have possibly created a way of working around this paradox through the subject of this paper: Standpoint epistemology.

    It must not claim some other objective basis, but only undermine the objective basis of the operative ideology (Toole 6). I, however, question whether this solves the paradox. Even by undermining the operative ideology instead of claiming some other objetive basis, I see this as implicitly claiming some objective basis. It is essentially impossible to critique something as wrong subjectively and in order to show how an ideology is obscuring some truths of our reality, we must attempt to be as objective as possible. A key part of this argument is Toole's claim that standpoint epistemology helps us see that the ways of understanding provided by ideology are not the singular and correct way me must see the world, but one of many ways (7). If an ideology is in fact obscuring our perception of reality, is it not then actually an incorrect way of understanding? While finding the one true way of understanding is nearly impossible, shouldn't we continue to try? That is not to see there are no subjective "truths", but if they are subjective, they cannot be used as an objective truth to critique and they themselves cannot be critqued for their subjectivity.

 

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