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Metaphysics, Teleology, Rules of Explanation and Criteria for Knowledge

National University of Singapore, Kanarwong{at}hotmail.com

Manuel Castells accurately judges the character of the `information age' and its `knowledge economy'. His analysis of the disintegration of the Modern world with its presupposed political philosophy of state-society segregation explains the current stagnation in most post-industrialized nations. Globalization is a new economic strategy that initiates the invention of new profits for the cover of old debts. Resistant groups who refuse identity annihilation and the chaos ensuing from global deregulation oppose empire expansion. Castells encapsulates the surface of the conflict. However, he cannot account for the criteria that would establish the rightfulness of a sensible choice amid a contest of multisystem difference. This illustrates the unanswered question of epistemological analysis that has always escaped the attention of Modern theoreticians. Reference to terms like `information society' and `knowledge economy' requires the theoretical organization of a knowledge discourse that presupposes a competent mastery of its metaphysical underpinnings. Only if a theory can be properly placed in a groundwork of metaphysical rules, accompanied by a teleological account and the rules of explanation that justify the choice of certain models as right, can it be demarcated as a real theory grounded in certainty, not opinion. Unless the question of `knowledge' and its metaphysics of justification are properly handled, any reference to the word only illustrates ignorance and thus further exposes the repressed doubt that has always hidden at the forefront of Modern consciousness. Real progress in knowledge can be attained if doubt is answered by an adequate use of theory. A meta-theoretical analysis is offered for the constructionist paradigm of epistemology to differentiate its concepts of discourse, knowledge and first-person intentionality.

Key Words: constructionist epistemology • globalization • technology and empty self • metaphysics • theory and knowledge discourse • Modern identities • political economy

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