Ontological Tragedy of Epistemology

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Keywords: Polanyi’s Double Movement dialectic; operationally defining nomenclature and terminology of the policy economy of sustainable development; meta-analysis of literature covered in class; holistic and nomothetic modeling; linguistics relativity; opinion dynamics 

It is time to unpack the mouthful that is, “The Ontological Tragedy of Epistemology”. American ecologist Hardin’s 1968’s Science publication “Tragedy of the Commons” illuminated the detriment of social individualism on shared resources, they giving way to the resources’ inevitable depletion. Communication and knowledge tradition through language, either written or spoken, is as well a cooperative endeavor of sender-receiver feedback loops: a feedback loops susceptible to unintentional and intentional misuses. Ontology––henceforth, the philosophical study of existential categorization––and Epistemology––henceforth, the philosophical study of the structure and dynamics of knowledge––present strong toolkits, with which theorists and practitioners may may collaborate to optimize policy language around sustainability goals (and at this point, informed consent event). Popular terminology––such as “sustainable”, “development”, and “resiliency”––can be considered dominant problematics, or commonly used nomenclature without strong definitions foundations nor consensus. 

As Vermont-born American philosopher John Dewey suggested, in order to undergo an ontological reduction––or, an investigation of the origin of a word’s quiddity––of our threshold variable (i.e.; sustainability), we must first accept the proxy function by means of the modal argumentation––that is, sustainability is an attainable condition, regardless of its epistemological status as a dominant problematic. However, since the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are in theory due to be accomplished by 2030, such philosophical debate runs a course of reductio ad absurdum; therefore, spectral projection––reminiscent of Hegel’s dialectic and Polanyi’s cyclic double movement––may be most fruitful for situational diagnostics and protective prognosis. The following paper, therefore, outlines these semantic trade-offs and how policy decision-making is vulnerable to knowledge management falling victim to parties of self-interest, thereby shifting terminology categorization and meaning uncooperatively across the Overton Window––in other words, the ontological tragedy of epistemology. 

Throughout the assigned readings investigating the emergent properties of complexity in SES and relationship, one may become confused by the change in meaning and or weight or certain ontologies. The pruning and molding of semantics is historically catalyzed by “power and economic value…” which “are a paradigm of social reality” [Polanyi, p. 267]. Periods of war, resource paucity, threat to genetic fitness and posterity, and other event-based factors––remembering, “… history is not shared by any single factor [Polanyi, p. 227]––give rise to opportunities, either by malicious intent or “[t]o fit in with the change of events…”, for “words… to change their usual meanings” [Thucydidies, The Peloponnesian War (Warner), Book 3, p. 82].

Although multivariate in nature, these semantic perturbations are linked to power dynamics, which has a goal of conformity and is sourced from opinion, and economic security, which is sealed by producible goods and sourced by human wants [Polanyi, p. 267]. Borrowing from the phenomenological convenience of Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons (1968, Science), this change- (and/or) market-dependent phenomenon will be referred to in this and future reflections as, the Ontological Tragedy of Epistemology (OTE). For example, whether or not sustainable development can be considered development or classified as sustainable would be strictly dependent on provided operational definitions and theoretical frameworks.