Language and Epistemology – Metaphors in Science

Their differences are differences in epistemology, or how we (think we) know what we know. Philosophers write extensively about how language and knowing intersect. You may have heard of Karl Popper, for example, who is well-known for arguing that scientific knowledge is never proven, only ever disproven. What follows is a short summary from a rhetorical point of view—that is, from a point of view concerned with how scientists use language as a social practice.

In a positivist view of scientific epistemology, scientific knowledge is understood to exist independent of language. According to this point of view, language should ideally serve as a neutral conduit for knowledge. Science, so this story goes, is a process of discovering underlying truths about the world through structured observation and experiment. The science happens, and then those truths need to be packaged in words for the sake of communicating them. Language should simply report on the facts as accurately and with as little interference as possible.

This positivist way of thinking rests on two assumptions that studies of language, philosophy, and society say cannot possibly be true. First, truths are imagined to exist independent of language or other human factors. Second, language is imagined to be either neutral or biased.

The problem with underlying truths: A major problem with imagining that truths exist independent of language and other elements of culture is that knowledge can only be evaluated through culturally dependent perspectives. Every person, including every researcher, has a perspective shaped by their particular experiences, values, and other context—their particular position in history, society, and culture. As extensive research in social studies of science demonstrates, context shapes how scientific knowledge is produced, through individuals and through larger institutions.

When someone claims that they can “objectively” assess whether something is or is not true, without accounting for that perspective, they are pretending, consciously or not, that either their perspective is the best (most useful, most important, most valid), or that their view of the world is not limited in the way that others’ views are limited (others who aren’t like them/don’t share their perspective).

In practice, members of a dominant culture—people with the privilege of being able to imagine that their cultural context doesn’t matter—judge what counts as independent truth. They also often hold the power to enforce that authority over others. In recent history, that dynamic has played out as powerful scientific institutions, led by white, Western, wealthy, cis-gender men, being seen (at least by those in positions of authority) as having privileged access to the best form of knowledge—even universal or underlying truths. Simultaneously, other ways of knowing are dismissed by the same powerful institutions as mere myth, “local,” or otherwise inferior.

Neutral language: A similar problem exists with imagining that language can be neutral, and that language that isn’t neutral is biased. Someone has to judge what counts as neutral language!

Scientific knowledge can’t be separated from language. Science can’t be communicated without context-specific language practices—even including mathematical languages, which are also context-specific! Using language means making choices that aren’t simply correct or incorrect.

Because science does not exist outside of language, trying to assess scientific knowledge separate from the effect of language on science is impossible; it’s a meaningless question, like trying to study the physiology of human respiration in the absence of a gaseous atmosphere.

In contrast, according to a social constructivist view of scientific epistemology, scientific knowledge is constructed through social practices, not independently of them. Therefore, social, historical, and cultural context—always including language—shapes how knowledge is made, shared, and codified.

Both positivism and social constructivism are broad umbrellas for many specific ways of understanding how science and language connect. Everything under the social constructivism umbrella, however, shares an understanding that no one group has uniquely privileged, unmediated access to underlying truths about the natural world independent of their social and cultural context.