Mapping the Field: Four Perspectives on Knowledge and Politics

Political theorists in the last decades have repeatedly criticized the longstanding subordination of politics to knowledge. While knowledge has been traditionally conceived as objective and universal, politics takes place in the relationship among multiple perspectives. While by now this critique has been largely successful, new political developments force us to consider the political importance of cognitive standards such as objectivity, validity, neutrality, and truth. Phenomena such as post-truth politics, climate change denialism, and general distrust towards science, make evident that the complete liberation of politics from cognitive categories and practices has destructive rather than strengthening effects upon the public realm. In my paper, I propose to revise the main critiques of traditional epistemology within political theory, with the aim of illuminating different positions regarding the proper role of knowledge in modern politics. My goal is to develop a map of the field that can contribute to orient discussions on the subject. I argue that there are four main positions on the role of knowledge in politics, associated to prominent political thinkers: 1) Knowledge and politics share a common ground (Habermas): political and cognitive activities share a series of communicative procedures that can be used to distinguish between valid and invalid judgments; 2) Knowledge is politically constituted (Foucault, Latour): practices of knowledge are ultimately determined by power dynamics that we usually associate with politics; 3) Knowledge and politics are in tension with yet interrelated to one another (Arendt): cognitive and political practices are radically different and often in conflict with one another, yet they are both necessary for the preservation of the public realm; 4) Knowledge is not in itself political, yet it is essentially intertwined with politics (Lyotard): cognitive activities are not by themselves political, yet the very possibility of this activity depends on political relations that force scientists and academics to engage in politics. The paper reconstructs and compares this fourth positions, illuminating some of their strengths and weaknesses.