Political Science · Political Theory
UGC NET December 2019 Political Science
Passage
Post-modernist thinkers hold the view that there cannot be objective knowledge of social issues. For the post-modernist, knowledge is not simply a cognitive factor; knowledge is also normative and political. Power and knowledge are mutually supportive and they directly imply one another. The post-modernists are critical of classical liberals as well as contemporary positivists who believed in objectivity and the superiority of science. Through deconstruction, the post-modernists want to look at every accepted or settled idea with new lenses.
According to Post-Modernist thinkers, which attribute of knowledge does not exist?
ANormative
BCognitive
CPolitical
DObjective ✓ Correct
Correct answer: (D) Objective — According to postmodernists the attribute of knowledge that does not exist is objectivity, so the answer is option 4.
Explanation
★According to postmodernists the attribute of knowledge that does not exist is objectivity, so the answer is option 4.
★Postmodernists deny that there can be objective, value-free knowledge of social reality, as the passage states.
★For them knowledge is always cognitive, normative and political at once, shaped by the standpoint of the knower.
★Power and knowledge imply one another, so what passes as truth is bound up with relations of power.
★This is why they reject the classical liberal and positivist faith in the objectivity and superiority of science.
★Spotting cue: in any postmodern passage the word objective marks the quality being denied, since subjectivity and construction are the constants.
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