This is an example of the epistemic fallacy. The world's
existence does not depend on our knowledge of it. Our knowledge is fallible
and socially constructed. This does NOT necessarily imply our knowledge is
wrong. It simply (1) means that the reality of the world does not depend on
our knowledge and (2) we can always be wrong. Socially constructed knowledge
is not necessarily fiction, although it likely has biases and blind
spots. The practice of dismissing anything but a "God's eye view of the
world" as falsehood is a typical
positivist practice.
Take what you wrote above. Would you say the world according
to Newton's physics was real or not? If it was real, when Einstein came
along did it become unreal? Knowledge changes, grows, and perhaps shrinks.
This does not mean the object of knowledge does so in the same
way.
Newton's
physics was most defintely real and still is. There exists a great falsehood
in much discussion about Einstein's general theory of relativity. Take
Newtonian gravity. Newton discovered the inverse square law and had to rely
on "spooky action at a distance" to explain Gravity. Einstein
explained Gravity as the curvature of space-time but notice that GR
contains Newton as a low energy approximation in much the same way that
M-theory would contain GR as a low energy approximation. Newton was not
displaced, our "knoweledge" of gravity became much more deeper it did not
"change". To see that Newton is "real" just ask NASA-they still use Newton.
One can even derive classical physics from Quantum Mechanics, for instance
one can derive Maxwell's equations from QM. Of course what you assert to be
the epistemic fallacy of course may be false, if one takes the Copenhagen
Interpretation of QM seriously (which a realist would not do of course). But
even if we accept the claim, which we should not, does that mean that
Einstein came up with a new theory becuase he was living in a different
society from Newton? Both Newton and Einstein used the scientific method
that has nothing to do with "geo-historical" processes. Note also that
space and time are absolute in Minkowski's
4-manifold.
To see
that epistemic relativism is false consider Mathematics. Is a mathematical
theorem socially constructed?
There is a big difference between having "nothing
to do with biology ..." etc. and "not being reducible to biology" etc. Take,
for example, water. It consists of hydrogen and oxygen, two substances that
are gaseous at room temperature and sea level and that burn in the presence
of a match. Water, however, is liquid under the same conditions and puts out
fires. While its power to do so depends on the nature of oxygen and
hydrogen, the characteristics of each alone do not explain the
characteristics of water. This argument is essentially one about emergent
powers -- larger level things have powers by virtue of the ways lower level
things are combined and structured within them. It is also one about the
direction of causality: by virtue of what logic do we think societies or
water owe their characteristics to people or oxygen/hydrogen rather than
vice versa? For the atoms, it's possible to have them alone (or at least not
in combination) without water, but for people is it possible to have them
without society? Not!
There are lots of possible answers for your
question about human nature. Besides God, there's social context, history,
accident, and life situation, to name a few.
Why would you think only "the natural is real"? Do
you think your bank account or the U.S. constitution are
unreal?
Human nature is
most certainly not socially constructed. Human social forms arise as a
result of our biological natures. The fact that we can form such societies
must have something to do with our biological/cognitive makeup. This is the
only way can say that human nature is space and time invariant. Are we to
suppose that human nature was different in 1965? That human nature in China
differs from human nature in the US? As for water/steam etc, these
matters can be explained from the atomic hypothesis. It is a well known
scientific fact that Chemistry reduces to Physics, ie Quantum
Mechanics. My bank account is real and the US constitution etc to the extent
that I make them real. They are not real indepedent of human agency. I am
most certainly "natural" and whatever I do can ultimately be explained
through naturalism.
Note that humans
are not the only organism's to have societies so if we assert that there
exists some unnatural form of existience, "social kinds", are termite
societies a part of this unnatural domain? If not, why
not?
An epistemic
relativist has no justification in asserting that anything is real. He is
not therefore a realist.
Marsh
Feldman