There have been many attempts to deal with sceptics and relativists who dismiss objectivity as a basis for grounding beliefs. It has almost become common to assume that no such attempt can ever succeed because some version of the infinite regress argument can always be deployed.
In short, whatever is claimed to be true, it can be asked by what criteria that claim is assessed to be true and why those criteria should be accepted as the correct ones. To claim that it is true that those criteria are the correct ones would trigger again the question that challenges the basis for making that claim, and so on. Either this goes on ad infinitum without any ultimate justification, or it ends abruptly at some arbitrary point. The sceptic would take the former as pointing to the futility of looking for objective validation. The relativist would take the latter as a reflection of one’s personal or cultural perspective as the definitive point of reference, beyond which there is no scope for settling any difference in claim assessment.
However, if we stick to the real world and recall how agreement is reached after divergent views emerge, we will come to realise that the most relevant criterion for differentiating the credibility of rival proposed solutions is the effectiveness of each in dealing with the problem they are meant to tackle.
Historically, cooperative problem-solving first emerged through the utilisation of shared intelligence amongst primitive groups who found that bringing people’s ideas and perspectives together led to better outcomes than having one individual trying to work everything out on one’s own. Its development was disrupted, unfortunately, by the rise of rigid hierarchies, the imposition of dogmas, and the spread of superstitions and prejudices.
The impetus for a resurgence of cooperative problem-solving came in the 16th/17th centuries during a period when the tightly knit power dominance of the monarch, the church, and elite scholastics was challenged by thinkers and practitioners who drew attention to the consistently greater effectiveness in finding what would work well – in governing society, guiding ways of living, evaluating claims about the world – when critical deliberations were carried out by people in collaboration, rather than unquestionable pronouncements issued by a few individuals.
From the 18th century on, cooperative problem-solving became increasingly more sophisticated and extensively applied. It came to characterise scientific research, underpin the organisation of democratic decision-making, shape societal reflections on and shifts in customs, permeate investigative procedures in civil and criminal cases, and steer diverse practices such as teaching, engineering, and reporting. In different spheres, it was discovered that the more people could cooperate in finding ways to deal with the problems they faced, the better chance they had in arriving at workable solutions.
Furthermore, as the approaches were being taken forward and refined, a number of conditions were found to be particularly important. If people were to participate to the best of their ability in cooperative problem-solving, they needed to be accorded respect as fellow participants; freed from deception, intimidation or bribes; and given meaningful opportunities to make informed contributions. These conditions would in time be recognised as essential for people to flourish together as a community.
For much of the 20th century, cooperative problem-solving was applied to more situations where conflicting views and incompatible assumptions needed to be resolved. At the same time, it was so taken for granted that hardly attention was given to raising public understanding of its central value. Consequently, people who aspired to the old authoritarian ways were able to mislead large numbers of people into believing that cooperative problem-solving processes such as democratic participation, scientific peer assessment, judicial examination, journalistic verification, were all dispensable when ‘decisive leadership’ was put forward to deal with demonised scapegoats and imaginary threats.
There is an urgent need to explain why cooperative problem-solving approaches and the conditions they have found to be vital for constructive co-existence are essential for the healthy functioning of society. Without them, we would be pushed back towards an unaccountable few dictating to us what we must believe and how we should act, all to fit in with the whims and self-centred interests of authoritarians who despise consensus and cooperation.
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For more information on the historical background and contemporary applications of cooperative problem-solving, see:
The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas: https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030265571
‘Cooperative problem-solving: the key to a reciprocal society’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2012/10/cooperative-problem-solving-key-to.html
‘Paradigm Lost’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2018/01/paradigm-lost.html
‘Question the Powerful’: quincentenary of the 1514 watershed’:
https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2014/01/question-powerful-quincentenary-of-1514.html
‘Learning from the Civic Cooperators’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2021/12/learning-from-civic-cooperators.html
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