Lane argues that Charles Peirce’s philosophy can contribute to contemporary debates about the metaphysical and moral status of prenatal humans. Some participants in those debates view an early embryo as numerically identical to, and as having the same moral status as, the adult to which it gives rise; bioethicists in this camp tend to maintain that our metaphysical and moral judgments about prenatal humans are capable of objective truth. Others argue from the continuity of prenatal development to the view that metaphysical judgments about when beings like us begin to exist and moral judgments about when beings like us attain moral status cannot be objective. Lane argues that Peirce provides the resources for developing alternative positions. Those resources are Peirce’s synechism, according to which continuity is of central importance in philosophy, his scholastic realism, according to which there are real kinds, his basic realism, according to which there is a world that is the way it is apart from how anyone represents it to be, and his pragmatic clarifications of the concepts of reality and truth.

This chapter argues that our subjective experiences – how we experience the world and understand ourselves within it – are just as closely governed as our objective conduct, discussed in Chapter 5. Whether they realise it or not, contemporary teachers are expected to play a significant role in this form of regulation. After all, teachers are now not simply responsible for transmitting a given curriculum and keeping children in line; they are de facto psychologists, responsible for the mental health, regulation and development of their pupils.

This chapter contains a first formulation of the question ‘What is science?’, followed by a brief treatment of realism vs. antirealism and an introduction to how observations can be made more trustworthy. The theory-dependence of ‘facts’ and the resulting fallibility of observations are introduced - how scientific findings can turn out to be wrong. A first brief treatment of how science is used and misused in society is also included as a stepping stone to why some understanding of the philosophy of science matters to everybody.

Chapter 3 provides the first historical case study of the encounter between American lawyers and German-Jewish Marxists and focusses on collaborative writing practices. It traces the invention of the intelligence report during World War II and describes this genre’s characteristics as paradigmatic for the bureaucratic style of the memorandum culture. Franz Neumann (the intellectual head of the OSS’s Research and Analysis branch) and his grand analysis of Nazi Germany in Behemoth is thus considered in close relationship to his work as intelligence analyst collaborating with his European and American colleagues. In this chapter, I describe the medial infrastructures (index cards, transatlantic microphotography) that were used to analyze the distant enemy, and I ask in a reading of the intelligence report “German Morale after Tunisia” what it meant to “understand” the Nazi enemy in 1943.

Chapter 2 starts with a meditation on David Riesman’s concept of “other-direction,” laid out in his classic study The Lonely Crowd as a theoretical baseline for my book, moving from other-direction to émigré-direction to enemy-direction. I consider various paradigmatic experiences of transatlantic migration and their consequences for American sociality, with a special focus on conceptions theorized by Black intellectuals, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Alain Locke, and their consequences for a symmetrical approach to the intellectual history of American-European collaborations in World War II. The chapter provides a theoretical outline for understanding the sources and aspirations of the cool-headedness observed in these collaborations.

This chapter considers how advocacy of press freedom necessarily implicates contested political questions about desirable structures of governance and social interaction. Professor Magarian discusses two political oppositions that strongly influence how the free press functions: objectivity vs. subjectivity and institutionalism vs. populism. First, the chapter describes the late-twentieth-century news media’s heightened commitment to objective reporting. That commitment has strong political resonance with our era’s anxiety about submergence of objective truth in political debates. At the same time, the news media’s push toward objectivity fostered a stultifying homogeneity that prompted dynamic efforts, embodied imperfectly in the Fairness Doctrine, to complicate hegemonic narratives. Present advocates for press freedom must assess which truths the press should propound and which positions it should interrogate. Second, the chapter juxtaposes the institutionalized character of dominant late-twentieth-century news media with the populist fragmentation of news sources in the age of online communication. Institutionalized mass media have inculcated valuable journalistic norms of professionalism and ethics that contemporary online news sources often elide. However, populist mass media present a wider, more diverse range of voices than institutionalized media support. Present advocates for press freedom need to pursue the optimal balance between these opposing virtues.

Impartiality as a property of government is central to many of the major constitutional concerns of liberal democracy. This essay tersely considers the nature and implications of impartiality in three main areas: the rule of law; the distinction between the right and the good; and freedom of speech. Because of constraints of space, each of the discussions in this paper is no more than a sketch of the complex matters that are at issue in debates over impartiality.

According to the value-free ideal of science, scientists should draw their conclusions in a manner free of influence from value judgments. This ideal lends itself to a variety of interpretations and specifications. The ideal also faces numerous challenges that call into question not only whether it can be achieved but whether it really constitutes an ideal scientists ought to use to guide their actions. The chapter considers whether and in what conditions the value judgments of scientists might prevent or facilitate the achievement of scientific objectivity. From the role of value judgments in science the chapter turns to the closely related question of the appropriate role of scientists in the formulation of public policies. In many situations, the consideration of scientific evidence and scientific research bears importantly on questions of policy. The chapter then considers the complicated relationship between the reliance of policymakers on scientific expertise and the goals of democratic accountability and the public good.

This chapter addresses some of the classic problems of historical analysis, focusing on the ways in which the intellectual options that the complex history of the discipline can help historians address the challenges those problems pose. It presents a discussion of the problems of objectivity, bias, and judgment in history. It focuses on historians’ necessarily paradoxical yet coherent conception of their own relationship to history – of which they are, according to the logic of the discipline itself, both students and products. It suggests that postmodern theory about the nature of historical knowledge both recapitulates and deepens this fundamental historicist position. It discusses the standards of evidentiary support and of logical argumentation that historians use to evaluate the plausibility and productivity of historical interpretations. Finally, this chapter explores once again the unique pedagogical usefulness of History as a discipline that is irreducibly and necessarily perspectival, interpretive, and focused on standards of inquiry rather than on the production of actionable outcomes.

This chapter inquires the significance of objectivity within the democratic epistemological framework, tracing its origins to the dual naturalistic cosmology where Nature is perceived as autonomous and humans as impartial observers. Central to objectivity and “disinterestedness” is the belief that the external world remains impervious to subjective influence. This idea is exemplified in the association of objectivity with technological advancements and human-made machinery. Ezrahi contends that despite being a human creation, science has attained autonomous status as a source of truths, reintegrating Nature into Culture and emphasizing the importance of humility, given that science itself adheres to natural laws. He also underscores the complex position of humanity within the Nature/Culture dichotomy, where the human body is part of Nature, while human creations belong to Culture. Nature embodies necessity and unchangeable laws, constraining human freedom, whereas Culture represents voluntarism, freedom, human interiority, and social behavior. The chapter illustrates how scientists and politicians leverage their scientific authority to project objectivity and disinterest, legitimizing government policies while suppressing dissent and effectively depoliticizing decisions. The text emphasizes that the concept of external Nature linked to objectivity is a product of Western cosmology and not universally applicable.

The chapter critically examines the intersection of economics and politics, particularly in the context of behavioral economics challenging traditional economic models. Ezrahi highlights Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s reception by economists, revealing their discomfort with the implications of irrationality and cognitive biases in economic decision-making. The emergence of behavioral economics threatens the perceived objectivity of economists and their claims to enhance rationality in public affairs. The chapter explores how economists striving for professional objectivity, akin to natural sciences, inadvertently align with political and cultural biases. It contends that economics' influence on politics and policy arises from portraying the market as a natural, objective force detached from political interests. The chapter traces the historical evolution of economics, highlighting its separation from explicit moral and political considerations, leading to a focus on abstract models. It contends that economics wields significant influence, acting as both a check on over politicized governance and a veil concealing political choices. The chapter concludes by advocating for a return to political economics, acknowledging and addressing the political dimensions inherent in economic decisions.

In this chapter, Ezrahi argues that the massive discrediting of claims of objectivity has deeply weakened the social authority of professional communities and institutions – governments, scientists, and economists – which have heavily resorted to professionalism in order to seemingly depoliticize decisions and empower their legitimacy. The dual role of objectivity norms and objectification strategies in depoliticizing decisions while concealing value-political choices is scrutinized. The delicate balance between overpoliticization and over-objectification is examined, emphasizing the challenges faced by governments in navigating transparency and political functionality. The chapter traces the interconnected erosion of the transcendental concept of Nature, democratic culture, and the rule of law. The loss of objectivity in law, exemplified by challenges to the Israeli Supreme Court, underscores the broader decline in civic solidarity. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the cultural and epistemological crises facing modern democracy, raising critical questions about resources available for shaping new imaginaries of self-governance and justice, drawing on historical cosmological transformations.

This chapter demonstrates that a researcher is attached to the analytic process in ways that make it difficult to be completely independent and objective when doing research. Issues of objectivity and subjectivity are discussed, which offer a frame to understand the ways in which a researcher’s cultural familiarity with an object of study, as well as their professional vision and institutional positionality, inform the analytic process. After reading this chapter, readers will understand that discourse analysis research is inherently subjective; know that a researcher’s cultural familiarity with an object of study is crucial to doing discourse analysis; be able to identify and adopt multiple analytic perspectives; be capable of applying reflexive practices to the analytic process; and understand, and know how to deal with, the power dynamics that exist in discourse analysis research.