GLOSSARY - Making Sense of Nature - page 293

Ontology is necessarily linked to epistemology. This is because statements
or beliefs about what exists require us to make statements or hold beliefs
about how we can know what exists .
Politics The process of debating, justifying and acting on different values,
means and ends. In a formal sense, politics is conducted inside institutions,
and in arenas, expressly designed for the job, e.g. the public sphere or a
political party conference. However, politics happens in most other institu-
tions and arenas too. Regardless of its location, there is a difference between
politics carried out in the open and politics that proceeds by stealth, i.e. in
situations that are said be 'above', 'outside' or otherwise separate from pol-
itics. Ideally, politics conducted openly always has two aspects. The first is
bargaining with others to get what one wants. The second is deliberating with
others so that one might, perhaps, change one's belief in what one wants.
Polyvalent discourse A discourse produced by an epistemic com-
munity that has effects on distinctly different groups of people outside
the community simultaneously. For instance, a piece of ground-breaking
research into rates of permafrost melting may influence the environmental
ministries of Canada and Russia, while affecting public perceptions about
the rate of global climate change.
Positive scepticism A disposition among individuals to question
knowledge, information, argument, etc. hailing from other people. Unlike
cynicism, positive scepticism empowers people to hold to account those
whose claims about the world may have serious implications for their
day-to-day life. It is a facet of 'active citizenship' as opposed to passive
citizenship.
Post-normal science Any kind of scientific inquiry whose findings are
hedged around with uncertainty, whose topical focus is manifestly pro-
found in its implications for whole societies, and where the need to act
practically on the science is urgent. Climate change science is quintessen-
tially post-normal because it analyses highly complex and physically large
'open systems' and helps humanity divine the distribution and degree of
environmental change on the medium-term horizon.
Post-politics A condition in which political debate and policy decisions
are narrowly circumscribed. Some critics argue that contemporary 'democ-
racies' are scarcely worthy of the name because far too much is excluded
from political discussion.
Pragmatism An approach to understanding all forms of reference (lin-
guistic, graphic, aural, etc.) that inquires into their practical goals. For
instance, pragmatists challenge the idea that 'truthful' statements are lin-
guistic 'mirrors' of the physical properties of the social or natural worlds
(see mimesis). They argue that 'truth' is a word we attach to statements to
allow us to achieve things that, for now at least, enough of us deem to be