The Organization of Knowledge Construction and the Defense of Inexact Sciences

Abstract

To understand the essential structure of the critique of the claim of exact science, which is being offered in this epistemic structure, it is useful to look at the organization of the knowledge-production process and the rationality of the knowledge acceptance in general. Knowledge construction is a problem-solving process that is executed through an organization, particularly when the problem solving involves two or more cognitive agents. The organization of the knowledge construction, in this respect, may be viewed as containing the organization of science whose focus is solving problems either through an empirical or axiomatic system of knowledge search and knowing. The task is to affirm or to change the set of existing conditions in support of what is claimed as knowledge or knowledge items. In other words, the organization of the knowledge construction is an integral part of the human problem-solving and decision-choice processes. The general human problem solving both at the level of knowing and otherwise, in turn, involves decision-choice processes where cognitive agents, with goals and objectives, are integral parts but not outside of the organization of knowing. The cognitive agents are the instruments of organization of knowing and the construction of the knowledge system. They are also the beneficiaries of the efficient functioning of the organization and the outputs of the knowledge system whether such outputs have negative or positive effect. Our contemporary scientific intellectual works and the knowledge production, on the aggregate and unlike previous periods, are extremely consciously collective activities organized to accomplish defined social goals and objectives. This does not exclude the unconscious part of the knowledge seeking process where positive accidents may work in favor of the knowledge seeking process. The knowledge-production process is a socio-economic activity of complex nature that works through the socio-economic boundaries of societies. These boundaries are established by the set of the institutions of economics, politics and law that shape the problem selection in terms of its relevance for the knowledge-production enterprise. The exactness of the knowledge production in general, and that of specific sectors of the knowledge enterprise will depend on the exactness of the creation and management of these institutions and the manner in which they are organized within the social setup.