Hossein Jorjani
First publication: 2026 – 07 – 08
Every newspaper reports yesterday’s events. Every photograph shows a moment that has already passed. Even looking across a room takes a small amount of time for light to travel from the object to our eyes. Scientific knowledge is built upon observations that are obtained, interpreted, and organized only after the events they describe.
One of the fundamental assumptions of modern empirical science is that reality and knowledge of reality belong to different ontological categories. Reality is the object of investigation; knowledge consists of descriptions, measurements, models, or theories representing that reality. The two should therefore not be identified.
Knowledge is acquired through a sequence of intermediate steps:
Reality → Observation → Interpretation → Knowledge
Each step requires time. Information must first be observed, then interpreted, and finally incorporated into a conceptual framework before it becomes scientific knowledge. Symbolically, this process may be represented as
Reality(t) → Observation → Interpretation → Knowledge(t + Δt),
where Δt > 0 denotes the time required to acquire and process information.
If reality itself changes during that interval, knowledge necessarily lags behind reality:
Knowledge(t + Δt) ≠ Reality(t + Δt).
The temporal delay, however, is only the most obvious consequence of epistemic mediation. More fundamentally, even if knowledge could be acquired instantaneously, it would still not be identical with reality itself. Knowledge is a representation of reality, not reality itself. The distinction therefore arises not merely from the passage of time but from the fact that representations and the objects they represent belong to different ontological categories.
This distinction is familiar throughout the empirical sciences. In astronomy, telescopes reveal distant galaxies as they existed millions or even billions of years ago. In evolutionary biology, reconstructed phylogenies are hypotheses about historical relationships rather than direct observations of evolutionary history. In quantitative genetics, estimated breeding values are statistical inferences rather than the true genetic values themselves. In each case, scientific knowledge is necessarily mediated and therefore provisional.
Some philosophical traditions adopt a different conception of knowledge. Rather than treating knowledge as a representation of reality, they understand it as an immediate participation in reality itself. In Plotinus, for example, dialectical ascent culminates in participation in the One, a mode of knowing that appears to transcend ordinary epistemic mediation. Whether this participation should be understood literally, metaphorically, or phenomenologically has long remained a matter of philosophical interpretation.
This distinction also bears upon the interpretation of Gurvitch’s philosophy. Throughout Dialectique et sociologie, Gurvitch rejects fixed ontologies and emphasizes the continual transformation of both reality and knowledge. Yet it remains an open question whether his dialectical empirical realism preserves the modern distinction between reality and knowledge as fundamentally different ontological categories. If it does, epistemic mediation—and the temporal delay that accompanies it—would appear unavoidable. If it does not, Gurvitch’s conception of dialectical knowledge may stand closer to earlier philosophical traditions than his critique of them initially suggests.
The issue extends beyond the interpretation of any single philosopher. It concerns one of the central questions of epistemology: Can knowledge ever coincide with reality itself, or must it always remain a mediated representation of reality? Modern empirical science has generally adopted the latter position. Whether dialectical philosophy can fully accommodate that conclusion remains an open philosophical question.
This excursus adopts the standpoint of modern empirical science as it is commonly understood. It does not deny that some philosophical traditions—or even certain interpretations of modern physics—have questioned the sharp distinction between reality and knowledge, or have proposed a more intimate relationship between the two.
Hossein Jorjani 