Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 235.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2025-11-26 06:15:44+00:00
        From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
        Subject: consensus

Especially in collaborative projects, such as Peter Galison et al., The
Black Hole Initiative, achieving consensus among all involved is
crucial. A quite dramatic presentation of this process is in his
documentary film, "Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know" (2020), on
Netflix. For a philosophical view of this work see his Yip Lecture, 
"A Philosophy of the Shadow" (2019), 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofWFoiKARQ>.

Galison has been working on consensus for a long time, for
which see his How Experiments End (Chicago, 1987). In the context of our
discussions, what interests me particularly is the assumption made, that
there exists a single result or truth to be agreed upon, even if we
cannot be absolutely sure of it. Feynman playfully compared physics to a
game of chess played by the gods, to which humans have only partial
access. Again that assumption: we cannot be sure, but in the physical 
sciences we proceed in the belief that the best we can do is on course 
to reach something as real as rocks.

A fair formulation?

Compare this with the human sciences (humanities, social sciences). In
principle is it not the case that the assumption I've described has no 
place in what we do?

Comments?

Yours,
WM
--
Willard McCarty,
Professor emeritus, King's College London;
Editor, Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts,
   Sciences and Humanities (Berghahn); Humanist
www.mccarty.org.uk


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