Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

That social scientific knowledge, once validated and acted upon, can lead to mental liberationand social betterment amongst humanity generally 25 .The post-modernist thesis is that, not only have the structures of modern society begun tochange dramatically, but also that the foundations of modern social thought have becomeobsolete and dogmatic. They are convinced that now more than ever before we need to beopenly uncertain bout the status of al the concepts an results of social science 26 .For Lyotard, the term post-modern condition is reserved for the condition or status ofknowledge about society, knowledge about ourselves in the post-modern age. Like Boyd’sopening essay, Lyotard is concerned with the basic conceptual frameworks that we adopt inorder to understand modern life. Lyotard argues that the Enlightenment model of sciencedoes not apply to current social life, because the main feature of the Enlightenmentapproach to knowledge is its concern to be scientifically legitimate which in this senseimplies objective and impartial knowledge of the world (and perhaps this approach is evenfallacious in the physics.He introduces the term “narrative” to explain that knowledge is the outcome of amultiplicity of discourses, of narratives that are locally determined, not legitimated externally.Different institutions and different contexts produce different narratives, which are notreducible to each other. He argues for a narrative understanding of knowledge portraying itas a plurality of smaller stories that function well within the particular contexts where theyapply. Instead of claiming the impossibility of knowledge, ‘it refines our sensitivity todifferences and reinforces our ability to tolerate the incommensurable’ 27 .Clifford Geertz had also offered this view that knowledge is “local”. In the book TheInterpretation of Cultures (1973) Boyd had read and later in Local Knowledge (1983) Geertzdetailed his view that subjectivity is the phenomenon for anthropologists (and others in thehuman sciences) to tackle 28 . Another author, Jacob Bronowski, too homed in on therestricted validity of the enlightenment method for generating absolute knowledge byhighlighting for instance the power of literature and poetry to provide meaning and todevelop novel insights, thus allowing for a large measure of subjectivism 29 .Lyotard even asserts that the Enlightenment picture of pure knowledge itself is justsuch a narrative and even a myth, because it derives its legitimacy by reference to a higherlevel storyline, which he terms “metanarratives”. Such metanarratives contain hidden valuestatements and particular worldviews. And if the objective grandeur of science actuallyalways turns out to rest upon some sort of metanarrative or other – none of which can beobjectively proved or refuted, but each acting as the philosophical rationalization of humanideologies – then the very claim of objectivity and value-neutrality is spurious, deceitful andself-canceling. Further, if the mantle of objectivity is simply unavailable, then nonemetanarrative is inherently privileged over any other. But if this is so, we need to be veryskeptical about the ultimate truth-claims of all metanarratives 30 .This does not indicate that every individual can stake a claim for truth, nor thatknowledge is an illusion. Knowledge and meaning are constituted through the networked25 One does not have to agree with this description, indeed, the influential German sociologist andphilosper Jürgen Habermas has criticized the post-modernists exactly on their interpretation andsubsequent critique on the Enlightement.26 Gregor McLennan, ‘The Enlightenment Project Revisited’, in Hall, Held, McGrew, pp. 328-330.27 Lyotard, p.xxv.28 Watson, p.674.29 Bronowski (1965)30 McLennan, p.332-333.290