A thought on perception, 1

I think Maurice Merleau-Ponty conveys the intelligibility of history perfectly in his short but sweet The World of Perception as such:

The physics of relativity confirms that absolute and final objectivity is a mere dream by showing how each particular observation is strictly linked to the location of the observer and cannot be abstracted from this particular situation; it also rejects the notion of an absolute observer. We can no longer flatter ourselves with the idea that, in science, the exercise of a pure and unsituated intellect can allow us to gain access to an object free of all human traces, just as God would see it.

He goes on, however, to suggest that this doesn’t weaken the veracity of science or even the need for scientific research as much as curtail the dogmatism associated with the notion that only science can obtain ‘absolute and complete knowledge.’