For a decolonial social epistemology

RIGHETTO, Guilherme Goulart; KARPINSKI, Cezar

doi:10.1590/2318-0889202133e200039

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ORIGINAL • Transinformação 33 • 2021 • https://doi.org/10.1590/2318-0889202133e200039 copy

For a decolonial social epistemology

Por uma epistemologia social decolonial

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

The visualization of Information Science as a postmodern science must aim at overcoming borderline dominant models, surpassing simplistic methodological impasses, and covering complex phenomena. In this regard, the article is inserted in the epistemological discussions, selecting social epistemology and decolonial thought as its themes. Its purpose is to identify the possible convergences between decolonial thought and social epistemology and, based on that, to propose, in an essay-like way, a decolonial social epistemology. In the methodological aspect, this is an exploratory, qualitative, and bibliographic research. The technical procedure for the analysis of the bibliography took place using a non-probabilistic approach, by judgment. The main result of this article is the construction of a historical and epistemological panorama that makes possible the approximation of thematics that, although produced in different contexts and interests, converge in a common objective: that of constituting a social, democratic epistemic field and that does not disregard the different subjects of knowledge. Thus, the reflections that combine the proposal of social epistemology with the decolonial thought or movement may bring theoretical panoramas and perspectives closer to the professional practice and research aimed at the 21st century informational context.

Keywords
Decoloniality; Information science epistemology; Schools and philosophical currents.; Social epistemology

Post-positivist epistemology		Sociology of science
Awareness of the human and historical-temporal character of science.		Science is a human activity like any other, being socially and historically determined.
Attention to the “concrete” (and not only logical-abstract) aspects of scientific knowledge.		Science, as a cultural phenomenon, must be understood in relation to the contexts in which it occurs.
The idea that the philosophy of science, without the history of science, is “empty”.		The product of science affects society to the same extent that it is affected by it.
Tendency to root theories in broader conceptual structures, which are the “paradigms” or “research programs”.		What we call scientific knowledge is a product that is socially built, negotiated and applied.
Holistic mentality and rejection of the dichotomies between science and metaphysics, context of justification and context of discovery, theoretical language and observational language, etc.		Research on science must take into account, simultaneously, its institutional forms, its social uses, its practices and also its content.
Denial of a supposed “method” (fixed) of knowledge and any “demarcation” (rigid) between science and other human activities.		The sociology of science must be impartial, i.e., it must take as its object to be explained both what is believed to be true and what is believed to be false, both rational and irrational.
“Strong” interpretation of the theoretical character (theory ladeness) and the exclusion of a neutral empirical basis capable of functioning as a “verifiability” or “falsifiability” a criterion of the theories.		The sociology of science must offer phenomena that observe symmetrical explanations, i.e., to clarify both their positive and negative aspects.
Propensity to consider theories not in terms of “truth”, but in terms of “consensus”.		The sociology of science must be reflexive, i.e., the patterns of explanation that it adopts for its objects must, identically, be applied to itself.
Tendency to insist on the “incommensurability” of paradigms.
Rejection to the traditional idea of scientific progress, either in the positivist way of accumulating certainties, or in the Popperian way of gradually approaching the truth.

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[1] Correspondência para/Correspondence to: G. G. RIGHETTO. E-mail: rghtto@gmail.com.