Epistemologies – shorthand notes*

 

Epistemologies – shorthand notes*

 

Under ‘control conditions’,

The Western scientific method achieves the same ‘result’ in any standardised laboratory, anywhere in the world.

Its truths are external to people, as data is ‘housed’ in databases. & these truths can be repeated, generally using machines, regardless of the personal resonances & concerns for/of scientists.

 

In the Aboriginal Australian paradigm(s),

Place (or ‘Country’) is central to truth, as each sacred site has local ‘Dreaming’, lore, law, kinship significance, et al.

& its resonant science is unique & unrepeatable anywhere else:

So, “the aridity of Human objectivity” (Kev Carmody, 2015) does not apply, it’s truth is living & embodied (rather than housed in libraries, databases).

 

Australia’s great cultural wealth is in its containing 3 major working paradigms – the Western, the Eastern & the Indigenous (for want of shorthand);

Together, these paradigms offer us a unique perspective in facing the significant challenges affecting Humanity, now & into the future.

 

 

*Of course I am writing this within the western paradigmatic English language, as a ‘European Australian’, so ok, it’s just a sketch, perhaps worthwhile, perhaps not. All philosophy is provisional. Hence the ancient Chinese scholars preferred knots tied in string to writing. I haven’t here referred to the ‘Eastern paradigm(s)’. I have often done so elsewhere in my writings. I haven’t because as in the words of the Chinese painter Li Jin: “repetition doesn’t frighten me but repetition without feeling is terrifying to me.”

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.