Dominant Frames for Knowledge

Intersubjectivity refers to the perspective that human knowledge has to do with social accord, both implicit and explicit. Collective knowledge is seen to unfold from and be enfolded in individual knowing.

Interobjectivity assumes that knowing is doing is being. That is, knowledge of the world – knowing – exists in agents’ actions and interactions with/in the systems that comprise them.

Subjectivity-focused perspectives frame knowledge/knowing in terms of personal experience. Learning is seen an iterative dance of refining one’s web of interpretations to maintain coherence with one’s unfolding experiences.

Objectivity is the suggestion that real, reliable, truthful knowledge should be object-like, manifesting such qualities as stability, rigidity, inertness, replicability, decomposability, measurability, value-freeness, and situation-independence.

Idealism might perhaps be better dubbed “idea-ism.” It refers to a range of perspectives that assert that ideas are the only true reality. Most Idealisms accept that there is a material world, but that world is seen to be lesser – subject to change, unstable, uncertain, and corruptible.