Hossein Jorjani
First publication: 2026 – 07 – 19
Human knowledge is often described as provisional or incomplete. This incompleteness, however, does not arise from a single cause. At least four independent mechanisms may prevent knowledge from attaining complete correspondence with reality.
Two of these arise from the nature of reality itself. First, reality may simply exceed conceptualization. However refined our theories become, no finite conceptual framework can be expected to exhaust the full richness and complexity of the world. Second, reality is not static. Natural, biological, social, and historical processes continually evolve, so that knowledge, even when accurate at one moment, inevitably lags behind its changing object.
Two further mechanisms arise from the process of inquiry. Observation may itself modify the phenomenon being investigated. This occurs in different ways in different domains, ranging from physical interactions in quantum mechanics to reflexive responses in human societies. In addition, observation is never entirely neutral. Existing concepts, theories, expectations, and models influence what investigators notice, what they measure, which questions they ask, and how they interpret the resulting evidence. Scientific observation is therefore theory-laden rather than conceptually independent.
These four mechanisms are neither mutually exclusive nor equally important in every discipline. In many cases several operate simultaneously. The central task of epistemology is therefore not merely to acknowledge that knowledge is incomplete, but to determine which sources of incompleteness are most significant in a particular scientific or philosophical context.
Hossein Jorjani 