Objectivity Orthodoxy Mug

The established, institutionalized set of beliefs about objectivity that dominate Western epistemology and practice—the often-unexamined assumptions that objectivity is possible, that it requires detachment, that it's achieved through method, that objective knowledge is superior, and that objectivity is the standard to which all inquiry should aspire. Objectivity orthodoxy includes specific commitments: that the knower can be separated from the known, that bias can be eliminated, that neutral observation is possible, that quantification enhances objectivity, that subjective experience is suspect. Like all orthodoxies, it provides a framework for epistemic evaluation, but it functions as ideology when it becomes dogmatic—making a particular conception of objectivity seem like the only conception, obscuring how claims to objectivity often serve power, and delegitimizing alternative epistemic values (subjectivity, positionality, engagement). Objectivity orthodoxy determines what knowledge is considered "reliable," what methods are "rigorous," and who counts as "objective" versus "biased."