dialogue and debate in a post-normal practice of science: a reflexion

Futures 31 (1999) 671–687www.elsevier.com/locate/futures

Dialogue and debate in a post-normal practiceof science: a reflexion

Martin O’Connor*

Centre d’Economie et pour l’Environnement et le Developpement, Universite´ de Versailles-SaintQuentin en Yvelines, 47 boulevard Vauban, 78047 Guyancourt Cedex, France

Abstract

Scientific activities are always embedded in the cultural matrix that gives purpose to theenterprise, and so we need to develop a rich and meaningful view of social reality. In doingso we realise that we all live different lives, but each of us can broaden our knowledge ofthe social world through dialogue with others. If scientific questions, which relate directly tosociety, were researched in a ‘dialogical’ manner, ways would be sought to understand theconcerned individuals, populations or stakeholders. While never rejecting concern for internalcoherence and rigour, science can cope better with future uncertainties, and better solve theproblems of those peoples that make up society, by extensively utilising social dialogue.1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The approach of post-normal science advocates the enrichment of abstract demon-stration by interpersonal dialogue and debate. Why should this be necessary, in mat-ters concerning science? And further, how might we hope or expect quality in scien-tific knowledge to be enhanced from an essentially political process?

In effect, post-normal science poses the question of how the pursuit of knowledgequality can be framed in relation to the challenge of reconciling different points ofview. This is well known in the philosophical domains of ethics and political theory,and in the social science domains of cross-cultural studies and diplomacy. These

* Fax: 1 33-1-39-25-53-00; e-mail: [email protected]

0016-3287/99/$ - see front matter 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S0016 -3287(99 )00026-9

672 M. O’Connor / Futures 31 (1999) 671–687

questions show how post-normal science has touched on some of the deepest issuesconcerning knowledge and action in society. And the variety of answers to themwill reopen philosophical debate on perennial questions, in a new and relevant form.

In this essay I develop a reflection around these themes, using materials fromcontemporary theory in the social sciences, particularly building on insights of aFrench colleague, Serge Latouche. These will take us to places that, notwithstandingsome ideals of the scientific community, are not the habitual terrain of discourse inmost academic productions. There we will find the need for reciprocity, hospitalityand fraternal coexistence in debate.

2. Ways of knowing: justifying a participatory social/policy science

For a given social preoccupation or policy problem there are always, both theoreti-cally and in practice, many feasible procedures for obtaining scientific and policy-relevant information. This implies the permanent possibility of considering the sameobject or method of enquiry from two or more quite distinct normative and epistemo-logical positions.

An emphasis on plurality does not mean to say that all methods and perspectivesare assessed as ‘equally good’. Rather, the question arises, how to assess the meritof different insights, claimed insights and knowledge claims? How might we decidewhat constitutes mere opinion, erroneous belief, ideological preconception, scientificobservation, hypothesis or inference? And how—out of this morass of claims andconvictions—might we develop a useful knowledge base for policy action?

It is an observed fact that a great variety of justifications and ‘tests’ of adequacycan be invoked in relation to claims about any given situation. These include tra-ditional scientific quality criteria such as internal coherence, falsifiability, ability toaccount for observed phenomena, and fecundity for orienting research. They alsoinclude considerations that we would term religious, cultural or social, and thatanswer in various ways to such considerations as perceived usefulness for the dailybusiness of life, guidance as to right action, effectiveness for conflict resolution,convenience in the exercise of power …

So, judgements about pertinence and adequacy of knowledge claims do not relatejust to the scientific quality (or defensibility) of the knowledge, information or opi-nion as assessed by scientific criteria alone. They relate to the roles that can beplayed by (and claimed for) different sorts of knowledge in their diverse cultural,social and policy contexts.

This raises the question, to what extent is it appropriate to be attentive to differentpoints of view? To what extent and in what sense might ‘integration’ of differentopinions, understandings and perspectives be desirable? In what terms might thisintegration be attempted?

It is useful, in this regard, to contrast two notions of integration, which are basedon contrasting notions of reconciliation.

O The first seeks reconciliation of all knowledge within the terms of a single andinternally consistent conceptual framework.

673M. O’Connor / Futures 31 (1999) 671–687

O The second seeks reconciliation of perspectives and understanding as coexistingin society in their (irreducible) plurality.

The first of these perspectives we will call Laplacian, the second Dialogical. Tosee the contrasting implications of these two approaches to the nature of scientificknowledge and its purposes, let us mention two correlated epistemological perspec-tives that, for convenience, may be called Cartesian and Complexity (see Table 1).

O The Cartesian perspective privileges a disciplined (and usually disciplinary) devel-opment of axiomatic foundations as a basis for obtaining theoretically organisedknowledge about reality. It is, obviously, close in spirit to the Laplacian notionof integration.

O The Complexity perspective starts ‘in the middle of the road’ with a willingnessto work with several analytical perspectives simultaneously in a sort of permanent‘conversation’ seeking mutual understanding (even if not full reconciliation)across the many points of view. It is, evidently, allied to the Dialogical notionof integration.

In the Cartesian/Laplacian perspective, the tendency is to privilege the role ofscientifically trained experts in organising the pursuit for knowledge, constructingthe valid categories of knowledge, arbitrating about Truth and opinion, and furnishingreliable information inputs for policy based on a future envisaged as (ideally) calcu-lable but (unfortunately) plagued by uncertainties. The scientists are the sifters, dis-covers and ‘integrators’ par excellence; they push back the frontiers of knowledgeand, progressively, tame the uncertainties.

In the Complexity/Dialogical perspective, the emphasis is on reciprocal communi-cation and the mutual learning capacity of persons-in-society. The starting point inany (social) scientific enquiry would be to seek to understand the ways that the

Table 1Epistemological/ethical stances:

Control Reciprocity

ILaplacian reconciliation: All knowledge shall, IDialogical reconciliation: A diversity ofideally, be integrated within a single and internally perspectives and modes of understanding coexistconsistent conceptual framework. in an irreducible plurality.

IThe ‘Cartesian’ epistemology: privileges IThe ‘Complexity’ epistemology:postulates an‘objective’ description (leading to universal irreducible plurality of pertinent analyticalknowledge), and explanation based on axiomatic perspectives for a situation of enquiry.formulations of categories for system descriptionand behaviour.

IDomination ethic: knowledge is conceived in IHospitality ethic:knowledge is pursued andinstrumental terms, allowing the knowing subject exploited based on forms of courtesy and dialogue.to act upon, and control the interaction with, the Tolerance of tensions, admission of (legitimate)object. Calculation, prediction and contractual antagonisms that may imply (mortal) combats.certainty are privileged. Dignity is important.


concerned individuals and populations (or, in a policy context, the stakeholders)themselves understand and account for events and for their own actions, preoccu-pations and opinions. In this approach, scientific enquiries and analyses are to bejudged—validated or invalidated—only partly by reference to their ‘internal’ normsof coherence, fecundity and rigour. What is as fundamental is to situate knowledgeclaims and processes by reference to the ‘social’, ‘cultural’ and ‘stakeholder’ con-siderations relating to the particular situation and circumstances of the enquiry.

Now, many pragmatic reasons might be given for adopting a ‘participatory’ per-spective on research and integration of knowledge. But these possible reasons arenot all on the same normative and epistemological planes. For example:

O It may be argued that attention to and respect for the way that different ‘stake-holders’ view the problem can be important as a basis for good public relations—that is, for effective communication of research results to the interested policy-makers and public.

O Moreover, such attention might be essential in order to achieve high publicacceptability of scientific work and, hence, a reliable and durable policy usefulnessof the work.

These sorts of reasons, while increasingly acceptable in current European policycircles, nonetheless do not yet provide a decisive justification for the Dialogicalperspective on integration. On the contrary, it would still be possible to argue, in apaternal or condescending sort of way, that ‘science knows best’ but that for greatesteffectiveness it is useful to cloak the science/policy process with a ‘participatory’veneer. In this paternal view, the real Laplacian/Cartesian integration of knowledgeby the experts should be allowed to go on, if necessary beneath a vernacular palaverdesigned to maintain the adherence of the politicians and the masses … The dailytabloid The Sunthat best-sells in England is, everyone knows, not a ‘serious’ news-paper … whereas opinions expressed inNatureor Sciencecarry the weight and forceof authorised scientific tradition … So, the argument will go, appeals to views aboutreality expressed inThe Sunas justifications for policy are perhaps politically astutebut should in no way be misconstrued as an exploitation of expert scientific advice …

For a fuller justification of the Dialogical perspective on knowledge integration,something more is required. We need to enquire and reflect further on the character-istics and conditions of social science knowledge and of (scientific) knowledge aboutreality as it might be produced within a society. The task here appears as one ofexplaining how inter-subjective communication integrating scientific as well as ‘non-scientific’ knowledge is irreducibly constitutive of the sort of knowledge base neededfor assuring robust public policy decisions.

As has been suggested in the themes of post-normal science, where decision stakesare high and there are scientifically non-resolvable uncertainties, value-plurality andsocial controversies over decision criteria tend to emerge as glaring social facts.What this means is that many different points of view can be expressed, none ofwhich is wholly convincing (to everybody, all of the time …), none of which dealsentirely adequately with all aspects of the situation, but none of which can be whollyrejected (by everybody) as having nothing at all relevant to say about the situation


and about what should be done and why. Moreover, claims of knowledge and opinionare bound together with sentiments about meaning and significance—the properlysocial dimensions—and science has to find its roles in this sea of meanings andpassions and aspirations and convictions.

3. A social science epistemology for social life as a voyage

French social philosopher Serge Latouche inLe Proces de la Science Sociale(which we may translate asThe Trial of Social Science, but also asThe SocialScience Process) [1],1 sets himself to offering a response to the question “What issocial reality?”—a question which, he suggests, can more usefully be formulatedwith a double change of emphasis, as “What is asocial reality?”

As regards what is a social reality, the first line of response is simple ([1], p. 120).We don’t have any choice: we are put in a situation of having to search to getacquainted with social reality through the imperatives of life-in-society.

We do not have to speculate on the nature of man in order to comprehend theworld, but we do have to make our way through the debris of knowledge of thesocial that are presented to us, to attempt to put a bit of order in it all and tounderstand something of what they might mean. The ontological problem of whatsocial reality is therefore does not have to be treated by us as a starting point. Inreality, we have not the need to construct our field of enquiry out of nothing. Thestarting point is given to us by the very mass of discourses which criss-cross us.This ‘given’ is not the positivist immediateness, but rather arises in the acceptanceof our ‘being-in-the-world’. We are summoned by our participation in society.We accept these questions and feel concerned by them …

The first step in social science, says Latouche, has to be one of deciphering inwhat ways we learn and know about our being-in-society. “It is a matter of situatingourselves in this discursive universe, and exercising our critical sagacity vis-a`-visthe materials that surround us.” Social reality is not a thing or a set of data or facts;rather it is a process, the life of human societies. Heraclitus of Ephesus, more than2000 years ago, affirmed that “everything is movement” and “everything perishes”and, in an image that he made famous, “We bathe and we do not bathe in the sameriver”. Social reality is thus the reality of a living society; it is a process that isunlimited and indefinite in its unfolding. Men and women come to be, and cease tobe, endlessly and ceaselessly in history. Knowing about social life (and death) wouldthus be a more appropriate term than knowledge of social reality ([1], pp. 121–125).

In this view, it is not a matter of considering measurable objects and outcomesalone, but also of understanding people’s gestures, behaviour and shared symbolicrepresentations. Indeed, the ‘object’ of social science is a curious amalgam of the

1 Some comparable reflections, differently expressed, may be found in Borges [2].


real and imaginary, of something that exists and that might come to exist, of dubiouspropositions about what might never exist, never have existed or even never bethought to exist or to have existed.

Human activity, says Latouche, is to be distinguished from purely physical pro-cesses (such as volcanoes) and from merely ‘animal’ behaviour inasmuch as itincludes symbolic representation as one of its dimensions ([1], pp. 127–135). If wemay simplify a little, whereas the ordinary animal is guided essentially by ‘instinct’,the human being is moved by pulsing which do not have a fixed objective.2 Theselatter arise within a social context or culture; and the culture arises and changesthrough the pulsions of its participants. A process of representation, symbolisation,visualisation, etc., whether conscious or unconscious, is at the heart of humanactivity. And, because the structures of meaning, symbolic reference and so on are‘cultural’ forms, this symbolising dimension is what makes human activity specifi-cally ‘social’ in character. Symbolic representation is not, as some empiricists havewanted to argue, a brute impression of reality. On the contrary, it is a ‘discursive’process, somehow grounded in what is, but expressed irreducibly through symbolicelements and signs in contexts of communication, social relations and so on.3

This is why social life can be (and has to be) understood in the sense of meaningand significance, whereas the phenomena of the ‘natural’ world can (to some extentanyway) be explained in the sense of physical laws and measurable regularities. Thesocial science envisaged by Latouche is thus very different from the normal thrustof prediction-oriented explanation. The latter is premised on being able to identifyfeatures in social life that are of a repetitive or law-like character. Vilfredo Pareto(as cited by Latouche, translated by us) put this view succinctly in hisManual ofPolitical Economy:

Human actions present certain uniformities, and it is only thanks to this propertythat they can be studied scientifically. These uniformities have another name; onecalls them laws.

Yet, the indubitable fact that there are some degrees of regularity in socialphenomena does not entail that the exclusive focus of study should be these regu-larities, nor that study should be conducted exclusively with a view to establishingsuch law-like properties. In this context it is worth observing that the valorisationof predictability is a very much stronger thing than simply an interest in specificpredictions. Even accepting, for a moment, this characterisation of ‘positive econom-ics’, it does not in any way follow that social phenomena will, generally, be predict-able. From time immemorial, observes Warren Samuels, human beings have sought

2 This simplification, purely didactic, has as a consequence that some animals—most certainly thedolphins and whales, for example, are themselves not merely animal.

3 Thus, for example, Corne´lius Castoriadis [3] asserts, “the institution of society is the institution of aworld of significations”, and these significations are “supported” by a reality which, while permittingmany worlds of signification, also shows a “resistance” in the sense of not tolerating just any or everydiscursive claim …


after a sure knowledge of the future, and have sought this in full face of the difficult-ies, “first, that the desire for absolutes does not conclusively guarantee that an absol-ute exists, and second, that what people take as ‘fact’ may not actually constitute‘reality’”.

So, a desire for congruence between epistemology on the one hand, and glaringphenomenological facts on the other, encourages us to develop some knowledgeperspectives along planes that are orthogonal to prediction. For Latouche, under-standing of social life is through the attempt to “grasp the sense of what is happening”in its contingency and historical specificity (see also [1], pp. 31–54). This meansseeking to understand, in their specificity, the actions, ideas and motivations thathave been part and parcel of the social reality that has been—and continues to be—constructed.4 Economic and scientific activities are always embedded in a culturalmatrix that furnishes the sense of that activity.

Knowledge in the sense of inter-subjective understanding is thus to be dis-tinguished from the sort of knowledge obtainable through measurement of objectsand physical processes and the scientific prolongations such as modelling based onlogics of deductive explanation or geared to prediction. Two irreducible dimensionsalong the plane of social science knowledge are, first, the need to interpret socialevents and their significance, and, second, the need for this knowledge to beexpressed socially, that is, shared and communicated. (And this interpretative processof gaining and sharing—or disputing—social knowledge is, also, a process of rep-resentation that contributes in its turn to social life …)

This view of social science knowledge and social science practice thus reposeson a particular view of the social life process; and this view of the social life processis what, in its turn, underpins the deep justifications mentioned in Section 2 for thesignificance of participatory research. Equally, this is a social sciences epistemologysupport for the role suggested by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz in their post-normal science for an ‘extended peer community’ in scientific quality assurance andpublic policy evaluation.

We can summarise some of the important features of social life and, hence, ofsocial science practice, in terms of a set of key themes which, like entries in a well-organised dictionary [6], are interlocking, cross-interrogating and interdependent—notions such as inter-subjectivity, methodological pluralism, rigour as critique, ironyas rigour, and the dialogical character of social knowledge and social life (see Section4 below). This will lead us on (in Section 5) to the questions of human conflict andperspectives of possible coexistence.

4 This orientation is also expressed in some strands of philosophical pragmatism that in turn have beeninfluential in American Institutionalist economics. For a review see Philip Mirowski [4]. See also WarrenJ. Samuels [5], who recognises the affinities with the critical ‘hermeneutic’ traditions of ContinentalEuropean social science.


4. Entries in the philosophical dictionary of everyday life

4.1. Inter-subjectivity and reality

Saying that social life is essentially ‘symbolic’ can provoke misunderstandings toan Anglo-Saxon audience. Insistence on what the French would call the ‘imaginary’dimension of experience and social life (meaning the culturally contingent process ofvisualisation, conventions, metaphysical and mythological referents, common-sensemeanings, collective purposes, etc.) does not mean that human experience can bereduced to nothing other than a mass of pure representations, illusions and images.To say that it is symbolic is, certainly, to insist that it must be understood, compre-hended or interpreted—but it is also to advise that the gestures, objects, discoursesand so on all point towards something other than themselves. If we insist, on theone hand, that this ‘something’ is not necessarily a ‘true reality’ in a naive realistsense, we should insist, on the other hand, that social life is not only a matter ofwords. There are also actions, events and gestures that imply a beyond or a besidesin the animal dimensions of behaviour or in tactile reality. After a conflict in thestreet or in the boardroom, there is blood on your nose or there is not, irrespectiveof the connotations given to it. (In William Shakespeare’s famous phrase, a rose byany other name would smell as sweet …) So social life happens through and beyondthe ideas, intentions and words.

We can see this, strikingly, in the passage from personal representation to concreteaction. This is, very often, the moment of confrontation of the subject (individual,group, social class, political party, nation, etc.) with the ‘other’ or, as it were, withthe rest of the world. This confrontation, somewhere related to what Freud ratherironically called the ‘reality principle’, is often a source of learning and excitement,but also quite often a source of resentment, irritation, inconvenience, pain or frus-tration. The following through of an idea or a plan may be a complete success, atotal failure or, most often, a forced compromise with other intentions. Men (andwomen) make history/ies, but not usually—never quite and never only—thehistory/ies exactly that they had in mind …

What must be emphasised, on a plane roughly orthogonal to the frustration, isthat whether or not a desire is realised, whether or not an idea, hope or claim provesvalid or invalid, in any case it contributes to social life. Young people waiting fora film star to appear at a Paris hotel contribute to a traffic jam, whether or not thefilm star turns up … A Minister of Finance’s declaration about the credit-worthinessof Russia or of a Korean bank can materially affect many people’s lives, irrespectiveof whether or not the statement is coherent, and irrespective of whether or not anyperson individually believes one word of what the Minister has to say … Social lifeis, of its essence, a process of cumulative causation through concatenation of projectsand contrarieties, and irreducibly inter-subjective in this sense.

4.2. Irreducible pluralism

Latouche ([1], pp. 19–21) asserts that “The plurality of incompatible and antagon-istic discourses is a situation that cannot be gone beyond.” The diversity of opinions


and knowledge claims is an unquestionable social fact, but in what sense can it beargued to be anecessaryplurality, a situation that cannot be gone beyond? No absol-utely decisive proof can be given, but the assertion can be motivated on both epis-temological and pragmatic grounds.

To start, the very plurality of divergent, incompatible discourses evident in allwalks of life and, more particularly, the failure of many centuries of attempts toweld them into a unified form or to extract a universally acknowledged leader ofthe pack, suggests pragmatically that this is the condition of life, “that the referentof discourses on the social is in a state of perpetual crisis” [6]. At the very least,one’s own experience is generally full of cracks and dislocations and—with or with-out turning the other cheek—one habitually runs up against more or less irreconcil-able differences with others. If we want to do ‘policy-relevant research’ therefore,it would seem reasonable if not imperative to work with(in) this perpetual crisis inthe terms that it presents itself to us.5

Moreover, at the epistemological level, the assertion of plurality is comforted bythe observation that no stance on knowledge seems able to avoid the dilemma ofeither presupposing what it wants to establish (vicious circularity) or admitting alack of a ground.

Thus, says Latouche ([1], p. 12), both in street-wise fact and in philosophicalterrains, “different texts interrogate each other without any legitimate hierarchy”.This statement can thus be taken as apodictic, an assertion of the way things are.But (!) care here is required. The assertion of a necessary plurality, while plausible,cannot be warranted absolutely by an appeal to the facts of life, as this would be torely on an empiricist position, itself contestable. Nor can it be given an unassailabletheoretical foundation. For this, “one would have to demonstrate that several (at leasttwo) of these discourses are both incompatible and ‘true’; or that all are false (i.e.,that it is impossible to create a true discourse)” ([1] see also footnote 7). Applyingthe caution of internal coherence and rigour, the best that we seem able to say is:

O that this assertion of an irreducible plurality of ‘incompatible and antagonisticdiscourses’ has a certain specificity and heuristic/scientific fecundity, and

O that this assertion is compatible with itself, viz., it provides for the possibilityof its own existence as one of many conceivable ‘incompatible and antagonisticdiscourses’. In short, it is not self-contradictory, which we can consider to be agood thing.

4.3. An ironical usage of axiomatic reasoning

It is easy to present the scientific (and social scientific) enquiry process in a waythat makes clear how the formal methodological (pre)cautions such as logical rigour,replication of results, testability and falsifiability cannot, in themselves, point unam-

5 See Section 5, on the tensions between control and reciprocity, domination and hospitality, mistrustand cooperation.


biguously towards the True, the Good, the Best, or even a commonly agreed WayForward. When well-structured tools of scientific (or social scientific) analysis areemployed in a process of enquiry, a two-way learning process is set up.

On the one hand, the application of a conceptual framework or method of analysisgives structure to an enquiry. This structuring can go as far as seeking to ‘test’ towhat extent a chosen axiomatic construction can render intelligible the phenomenaldomain in question.

On the other hand, the researchers—if they have their ears, eyes and wits aboutthem—also learn about the reality that concerns them through ‘listening to’ what issaid about the situation and about the research method and its foundations from‘other points of view’.6

This gives rise to what we might formulate as the ‘ironical usage of axiomaticreasoning’ and the “paradoxical usage of scientific instruments …” [8]. Conceptualframeworks are employed in an exploratory adventure, with a view to learning aboutreality partly through learning about the limits to a given framework’s explanatory(and predictive) power.

Examples of an ironical use of axiomatic reasoning in economics are (a) the theor-etical models of “general equilibrium” (Sraffa, von Neumann, Arrow-Debreu) thatfurnish tidy algebraic solutions to “the problem of value”; (b) the formulations of astochastically optimal choice for decision making in the face of risk, based on ident-ifying conceivable states of the world and assigning a ‘value’ to each of them alongwith a probability of occurrence; and (c) Arrow’s famous Impossibility Theorem,which highlights the difficulty of establishing universally agreed ‘first principles’ forresolving problems of social choice.

The exploitation of an appropriate axiomatic structure is here understood not asa manner of definitive (expert) problem formulation in order to establish definitivelythe rational response (via an algorithm for the ‘Pareto optimal’ or ‘highest expectedvalue’ or ‘best’ social choice), but rather as one contribution to the exploration ofwhat the problem(s) might be understood to be. As systems analyst Rittel has sug-gested, an analyst is like a “midwife of problems”, helping to raise into visibility“questions and issues towards which you can assume different positions, and withthe evidence gathered and arguments built for and against these different positions”[9]. The solution criteria of axiomatic systems, together with moral/political ‘firstprinciples’ and the like, may be considerations having weight and standing (that is,furnishing some insight regarding reasonable and justifiable courses of action) with-out being taken as sufficient. This returns us, again, to the central question: in whatsense a reconciliation might be sought between diverse, and often divergent, formsof justification and counsel—as will be addressed in Section 5.

6 Of course this learning is enriched with attention to what is learned through the five senses and tosentiments, anxieties and emotions and so on, as well as the measurements and ‘findings’ of the scientificapparatus in its own terms. See, in this regard, the critical materialist epistemology developed by ArielSalleh [7].


4.4. Logical rigour as an arm of critique

Even if there is no such thing as a decisive truth discourse (that is, unassailablecriterion of valid and pertinent knowledge), one cannot say just anything one likes.Irony does not mean that ‘anything goes’. Quite the contrary. Considered as knowl-edge claims, some statements work, and others don’t. More particularly, some worksome of the time, to some degrees, in some situations better than others, and so on.

Various criteria of validation can be evoked. Some are essential, ‘internal’ to agiven ‘reasoned’ discourse. We can call ‘false’, suggests Latouche [1], propositionsabout reality that are contradicted in their own terms or are self-contradictory, orthat contravene their own standards of validation and that, further, mask over thesecontradictions ([1], pp 125–127):

It is unacceptable to pretend that one can say just anything, while banishing allrigour and rationality in what is said under the pretext that it is all part of ashifting reality. Some semantic side-steps are inevitable … but these should beconscious, explicit and acknowledged. … The concepts employed should be care-fully defined so as to highlight what is changing in what is being referred to.… Rigour is not the most important criterion for knowing about social reality,because it is a requirement that tends to be sterilising; fruitfulness (or fecundity)is much more central, even while the effort at rigour is a norm from which nolearned person can escape. It follows thus that intellectual honesty is not absentfrom the scientific attitude. The impossibility of subordinating discourse on socialreality entirely to the tribunal of logic means, however, that is impossible to guardcompletely against some criminal deviations …… The role of formal logic thus remains considerable. Even if social reality doesnot conform to formal logic, the theories of those ‘scientists’ who postulate eitherthat reality does so conform or that there is no reality, can be hauled up in courtand confronted with the principle of self-contradiction. Logic is, therefore, anextremely effective weapon of criticism. The demonstration of contradictions inan opponent’s discourse (e.g., in dominant ideologies) has a double function. Onthe one hand, it tears the ideological curtain that cloaks the oppressive social order;on the other hand, it permits to glimpse what is hidden behind the contradiction …

4.5. The dialogical nature of social knowledge

As Hegel expressed it, the subjects of history are diverse peoples. Each person,each social group, and each ‘people’ has—to some degree—a collective conscious-ness; and the specificity of this consciousness has, as its corollary, an inevitabilityof ignorance, misunderstanding and incompleteness of knowledge [me´connaissance]of others’ consciousnesses ([1], p. 147).

A substantial part of this ‘mis-knowledge’ we each have of the reality/ies of othersstems from the fact that no subject has lived or can possibly experience the totalityof social reality. Society as an inter-subjective phenomenon starts from this fact, and


the famous problem of cross-cultural dialogue has its roots in the same fact. Yet,and this is what makes all the difference, a certain acquaintance with non-livedexperience is indeed possible—on the basis of being in dialogue with others. Knowl-edge of social reality is thus essentially dialogical in character.

The presumption here is that such dialoguing can indeed take place, but that itdoes not lead to a single whole and seamless knowledge. This is, as Latouche insists,a specific anthropological postulate, that is, a proposition about the nature of humanbeings and of human communication—while it seems reasonable, even self-evident,once again there is no absolute ‘proof’.

On the one hand we do observe that, notwithstanding the diversity of its startingpoints, humanity is able to make itself understood through language(s). On the otherhand, it is a matter of fact that any person or social group is inevitably ignorant ofor ill-acquainted with whole sheets of past and present history, and irremediablyso—not just because there is no written record but because, in a quite trivial sense,no dialoguing took place. ([1], p. 156). Moreover, the dialoguing that gives rise tosocial knowledge and a broadening, changing and sharing of experiences is ratherlike a conversation between deaf people. Easy and full understanding seems rare.This indetermination of human communication can be seen—as Latouche remarksironically—at the United Nations every day ([1], p. 157):

There, in spite of the diversity of races, regimes, cultures, interests and so on,everyone communicates with each other. It would be risky, certainly, to pretendthat they always understand each other, but no more or less than two neighboursacross the backyard fence at odds with each other.

What matters, concludes Latouche ([1], p. 158), is that the epistemic subject canaccede, through dialogue, to something other than him or herself. The (indisputable!)reality of the shredded character of social reality can be dimly (or plainly) perceived… The other party can be (mis)understood as different through his or her speech—the same faculty of speech that, nonetheless, establishes the person as a speakingsubject just like you or me.

5. Reciprocity versus control? Options for coexistence

The social sciences epistemology, evoked here, puts our attention on understandingactions in the social process of making histories. Part of this attention may, certainly,be organised as an enquiry into measurable elements and regularities (such as priceand quantity information in economic analyses of markets, services and commodities,or emissions levels and concentrations of pollutants in the atmosphere that mightprovoke climate change …). Yet, in social science the interest in measurement isdeveloped from the point of view of understanding significance and meaningsattached to the items under scrutiny. She loves me she loves me not … Is there anadequate strategic petrol reserve? Is there food in the cupboard? Has the stock marketindex risen or fallen? Will it rain today? Social science is not primarily about finding


laws and making predictions; rather it is more about understanding the whys andwherefores of people’s attempts at predictions. Social science would want to portraythe ways that hopes, enthusiasms, anguish and uncertainties about the (possible)future lead people to speak, choose and act as they do.

We touch here on a central tension of scientific knowledge about social life: wesay that societies are changing, they are unfinished symphonies, sometimes catas-trophes. The dimension of unpredictability is inherent in the very notions of choice,decision and action themselves. So, how can we learn and know about a processfrom the point of view of its indeterminacy? How can we establish policy evaluationand governance that both affirms and (partially) resolves indeterminacy? In thisregard,

O It is reasonable to allow that different people (or collectivities) can give differingreadings to history. As Latouche sums up ([1], p. 29), “History makes sense inmany respects, but the meaning is not unique. The unresolved character of realityleaves room for a plurality of discourses and to insoluble conflicts of interpret-ation” ([1], p. 29). This is polysemy (multiplicity of meanings).

O It is reasonable for different people (and collectivities) to envisage divergent (andsometimes mutually exclusive) prospects about the future. If we make the(common sense) assumption of the contingency and efficacy of human action, itfollows also that, even if agreement were achieved as to the present and past,there may well still be conflicting prognoses and plans.

We are, thus, always confronted with the constructed yet eternally unfinishedcharacter of social reality. As with road works, refurbishment, marriages, divorces,the washing up and the rest, things are never quite done, always breaking down,being repaired, jettisoned, transformed, but never quite what they used to be. Theknowledge(s) we can have, and share, about this shambolic reality is more like con-catenation than any grand synthesis. Most of social life is a permanent constructionsite like in Brussels, where archaic grand buildings are jostled by the traffic jamsand the shovelled asphalt of new enterprise …

In this context, the tunnels and windows of ICT ‘virtual reality’ become aseductive image, a metaphor for our experiences of reality. Each morning we wake,in a room with its doors, halls and windows. We drink our morning coffee on theterrace (if we are lucky) in the morning sun, walk through the park or drive throughthe traffic jams, work and play. Each space, landscape, environment constitutes aplace and way of experiencing the world—always incomplete, always biased by theparticular physical constraints and by human preoccupations, yet an experience thatis in some ways real. There is no way of ‘aggregating’ together all this informationwithout losing quality, and finally we neither want nor need to wholly aggregate.Each situation is a moment of being, opening onto other moments, places andtheir perspectives.

So, this view of life in society and of social knowledge ‘legitimates’ controversyin the sense of admitting it as an inexorable fact of social life.

Social (and policy) science is required to explore the fact of controversy inasmuchas it has a goal of understanding and justifying the action and events in which the


researchers themselves are immersed. Emphasis is placed on the irreducible pluralityof considerations—theoretical and moral—that might be brought to bear on anysocial action problem.7 Traditional scientific criteria for evaluation of the quality ofpropositions are not rejected. Quite the contrary, as has been seen in Section 4 above,concern for internal coherence (rigour) and a spirit of disciplined enquiry into ‘thefacts’ (through, notably, an ironical usage of axiomatic reasoning …) are two keydimensions of knowledge quality evaluation. But the epistemological enquiry intoknowledge quality will not, on its own, resolve all problems of social conflict andconcatenation. The great advantage of this social sciences epistemology is that itputs clearly on centre stage the problem of coexistence for individuals and societiesinhabiting (despite differences of opinion on almost everything) more or less thesame world.

The philosophical assertion of indeterminacy—in the sense of difficulties anddilemmas of attempts at prediction, non-reconciliation of motives and actions—entails ethical and existential dimensions of reflection. The admission of divergentand antagonistic discourses is already a statement of one’s own realisation of a prob-lematical coexistence—implying, for the researcher, a personal participation in asocial process where rights and wrongs are not easy to decide (there are too manyadmissible but unreconciled criteria) and where correct courses of action and interac-tion are the subject of ‘reasonable’ conflict and debate. Life is a stormy ‘voyage-in-common’, a sort of risky collective passage through one problem situation afteranother. The inevitability of this being an ‘argumentative’ process comes from thefact that it is indeed a collective passage—with inevitable dimensions of social learn-ing, forced adaptation, compromise, pain, emergence of new sense and relin-quishment (not always willingly) of formerly held beliefs and claims. How will thepains be resolved?

According to the Domination ethic, knowledge is conceived primarily in instru-mental terms, as allowing the knowing subject to act upon, and to control the interac-tion with, the object (which may be nature or human). Calculation, prediction and—with regard to other people—contractual certainties, are the privileged forms of infor-mation. In the extreme cases of this ethic, the person or group concerned may haveindifference, hostility or (at best) nothing other than a strategic self-interest in theaffairs of the other parties.

According to the Hospitality ethic, knowledge is pursued and exploited based onforms of courtesy and dialogue. There is tolerance of tensions, admission of(legitimate) antagonisms, but a desire for a coexistence not merely reduced to astrategic self-interest.

If there is good will on the part of the parties involved (and if ecological constraintsare not too severe), one has the prospect that a coexistence may continue amiably.Unlikely friendships will develop (alongside, no doubt, frictions, misunderstandings,

7 This is not to say “every point of view is equally right”, nor that everyone has the ‘right’ to theirown point of view. The first statement is incoherent, since there is no prior agreement about the termsin which ‘equality’ will be established; the second statement is impossible to implement and is just anopaque way of admitting the problem of coexistence, not a principle for its solution.


and feuds). There will need to be adjustment, waiting and listening. This shows thesense in which courtesy and hospitality can be seen as correlates of the ‘Dialogical’mode of reconciliation under the Complexity metaphysics. Equally, such attitudescan be seen as an ethical support for ‘sustainability’ understood as the coexistenceof rich forms of economic, ecological and cultural diversity. One is concerned not somuch with ensuring a ‘progress’, or with a measurable ‘equity’, as with an unendingreciprocity (see, for example, O’Connor and Arnoux [10] and Salleh [11]).

Cornelius Castoriadis expressed this sentiment well, when he remarked on thedisposition of his Greek forebears ([12], pp. 225–226):

My grandparents’ generation had never heard of long-term planning, externalities,continental drift or expansion of the universe. Yet, still during their old age, theycontinued to plant olive trees and cypress trees, without posing themselves ques-tions about the costs and benefits. … They did not think in terms of infinity—they would perhaps not have understood the meaning of the word; but they acted,lived, and died in a time properly without end.

One finds pleasure and utility (it might be said) in one’s contribution to the flowof life, not only from what one manages to take and obtain from life. In a socialand ecological context, this translates as an attitude of hospitality.

Yet, an attitude of courtesy, hospitality, welcoming in a spirit of coexistence can-not be taken for granted, and does not spell a magical harmonisation. The clash andencounter of divergent views, events, actions and interests is real. And reality is notconsensual. By the same token, the contradictions are always somehow resolved, inthe sense expressed by Funtowicz and Ravetz, that ‘hard’ decisions with irreversibleconsequences are arrived at, based unavoidably on ‘soft’, flimsy, and arguableassertions.

We should not glibly pretend that courtesy and generosity would be the order ofthe day. It is, again, a kind of Prisoners’ Dilemma. We are all residents together onthis planet, this is for sure. But why should I love my neighbour? What has myselfish, self-centred, bigoted, snotty-nosed, uncultivated, snobbish (etc., etc.) neigh-bour ever loved in me???

Hostility, defensiveness and mistrust are the order of the day. Yet, as British for-mer poet laureate Ted Hughes put into the mind of his archetypal figure Crow,

Crow realised God loved him—Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.So that was proved.Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heartbeat.

We are justified, like Crow, to reflect on the prospects of an amiable coexistence.As a metaphor of hospitality, consider an example of a highly stylised form of dia-logue, Japanese renku poetry. Renku, or linked verse, is the mother of the well-known haiku form—a verse in three lines, where the third line expresses, often ina surprising way, a tie-up between the images, which may seem unrelated, presented


in the first two lines. A haiku poem is a single verse of a long series—typically 36(more or less) verses. In the full renku form, several poets take turns composingverses, one at a time. Each one in their turn is challenged to: (1) understand all theverses composed up to then; (2) find a link between the two immediately precedingverses; and (3) write an autonomous verse that creates a new world between it andthe verse before it. As commentated by John Maraldo [13] (see also Shizuteru Ueda[14]), it is as if each poet challenges the next in line:

Can you reinterpret my verse so that you can escape my world and disclose anew world of your own? If you are not able to do so, you will remain only apart of my world; you will not be yourself.

This is a challenge and an invitation to autonomy and creation in the world. Con-versely, it implies a courtesy on the part of the preceding poets [13]:

The challenging poet quite selflessly places his verse at the disposal of the nextpoet, allowing him [or her] any interpretation he would give it. He is preparedto accept any interpretation, even the most surprising, in the hope that in an unfam-iliar reading he will discover himself anew.

As Maraldo concludes [13], renku depends on the interplay of autonomy andselflessness (generosity), and “grants full space (empty space!) for the emergenceand self-expression of the other”. The autonomous poet, in writing, has to be givenover to exploring the sense(s) of what is presented to her or him. This is an ‘equity’of sorts.

The celebration of diversity—which, we have seen, may be expressed in epistemo-logical, cultural and ecological terms—implies a particular sort of tolerance, a will-ingness to make space for the other. The question will always be asked, how farcan this ideal of selflessness be pushed, in a world that is marked sharply by intransi-gence and closure (a closure moreover axiomatised in economics as the assumptionof self-interest)? An ethic of hospitality is not a matter of deciding, for others, whatshould be practised or what criteria should be applied. Not all people will adopt sucha view and so very real differences of standpoint and ethical attitude will remain. Yet,we face, today, the dramatic and rather appalling implications for social and econ-omic life around this planet if such commitment to reciprocity in one form andanother is not present—aggravated conflicts, demolition of planetary life systems,chronic non-development and cultural disintegration, and so on. So, suggests Latou-che [15]:

As there is no hope of founding anything durable on the short-change of a pseudo-universality imposed by violence and perpetuated by the negation of the otherparty, the venture is warranted that there is indeed a common space of fraternalcoexistence yet to discover and construct.

These are the seeds for an ethic of tolerance that sets out courtesy, dignity and


interest in others’ lives as a tentative basis for sustaining diversity in (today’s andfuture) social life. To assert tolerance as a virtue, in this regard, is to find virtue innecessity, the ancient wisdom of accepting things as they are.

References

[1] Latouche S. Le proce`s de la science sociale: introduction a` une theorie critique de la connaissance.Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1984.

[2] Borges JL. In: Yates DA, Irby JE, editors. Labyrinths: selected stories and other writings. Harmond-sworth (UK): Penguin Modern Classics, 1964.

[3] Castoriadis C. L’Institution imaginaire de la socie´te. Paris: Seuil, 1975. English translation as: Theimaginary institution of society. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press, 1987:321.

[4] Mirowski P. The philosophical basis of institutional economics. Journal of Economic Issues1987;21:1001–38.

[5] Samuels WJ. Essays on the methodology and discourse of economics. London: Macmillan, 1992.[6] Borges JL. The library of Babel. In: Labyrinths: selected stories and other writings. [English trans-

lation edited by Yates DA, Irby JE]. Harmondsworth (UK): Penguin, 1970:78–86.[7] Salleh A. Ecofeminism as politics: nature, Marx and the postmodern. London: Zed, 1997.[8] O’Connor M. Complexity and coevolution: methodology for a positive treatment of indeterminacy.

Futures 1994;26(6):610–5.[9] Rittel H. Systems analysis of the ‘first and second generations’. In: Laconte P, Gibson J, Rapoport

A, editors. Human and energy factors in urban planning. NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series.The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982:35–63.

[10] O’Connor M, Arnoux R. Ecologie, e´change ine´luctable, et e´thique de l’engagement: sur le don etle developpement durable. Revue du MAUSS 1992; 15/16(April): 288–309.

[11] Salleh A. Living with nature: reciprocity or control? In: Engel JR, Engel JG, editors. Ethics ofenvironment and development. London: Belhaven Press (Pinter), 1990:245–53.

[12] Castoriadis C. Re´flexions sur le ‘de´veloppement’ et la ‘rationalite´’. In: Mendes C, editor. Le mythedu developpement. Paris: Seuil, 1973:205–40.

[13] Maraldo JC. Zen, language and the other: the philosophy of Ueda Shizuteru. Kuroda Institute,Fall/Winter 1989:21–6.

[14] Ueda S. The Zen Buddhist experience of the truly beautiful [Maraldo J, Trans.]. The Eastern Buddhist1989;22(1):2–30.

[15] Latouche S. L’occidentalisation du monde. Paris: La De´couverte, 1989:139.

dialogue and debate in a post-normal practice of science: a reflexion

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