Hossein Jorjani
First publication: 2026 – 07 – 19
Discussions of scientific inquiry often emphasize that knowledge is acquired, interpreted, and communicated by human beings. This is an epistemological claim: all knowledge is produced within particular historical, linguistic, and social contexts. It concerns how human beings come to know the world.
Such claims should not automatically be transformed into ontological claims about reality itself. The fact that knowledge is mediated by human experience does not imply that the objects of knowledge are constituted by that experience. Stars existed before humanity, geological processes preceded life, and biological evolution occurred long before conscious observers emerged. The historical and social conditions under which knowledge is produced therefore do not determine the independent existence of its objects.
This distinction is especially important in debates concerning objectivity, social construction, and the philosophy of science. Statements about the human character of knowledge are often mistakenly interpreted as statements about the nature of reality itself. Yet epistemology and ontology address different questions: the former concerns how knowledge is acquired and justified, whereas the latter concerns what exists independently of our knowledge.
Recognizing that knowledge is historically situated therefore need not entail philosophical idealism or social constructivism. One may acknowledge the interpretive and social character of scientific inquiry while maintaining that reality exists independently of human observers.
Hossein Jorjani 