Epistemology—even more than mathematics—is arguably the paradigmatic science of modernity. Critics of modernity, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, and Martin Heidegger, have all in one way or another argued against the modern worry over knowing and have recommended instead “doing.” In light of this, Andrew M. Koch's Knowledge and Social Construction is intriguing. Its inspiration draws from many of modernity's prominent critics. Yet, curiously, as the book's title makes clear, its argument is an epistemological one.

Four models for knowing are outlined: textual exclusivity, textual universalism, inductive universalism, and inductive relativism. Only the fourth model, inductive relativism, is endorsed. Each of the other three models works in some way to foreclose what the author contends ought to be an open, pluralistic, ambiguous, and always-unresolved operation of epistemology. Koch is quick to underscore the political implications of such models, arguing that inductive relativism corresponds well with the ideal of an open society, such as that proposed by Karl Popper (Open Society, 1963). The other models, ostensibly, are at variance with such a vision.

Koch's model of textual exclusivity refers to epistemologies for which a sacred text serves as criterion for truth. Citing religious literalism and fundamentalism as versions of the textual exclusivity model, the author has in mind “religions of the book,” such as Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—although parenthetical references are also made to literalistic approaches to written constitutions. The author's elaboration of textual exclusivity by reference to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, though, is burdened with troublesome interpretations of both thinkers. Biblical text is, obviously, of central importance for both Augustine and Aquinas. However, knowledge and truth for these two very different thinkers are not simply a matter of textual reference. For Augustine, a fair account of his epistemology should consider his arguments about the relation of love and knowledge, sin, credo ut intelligam, and even (pace Foucault) power and knowledge amid the exigencies of life in Augustine's “earthly city.” For Aquinas, one must weigh not only scripture but, equally importantly, reason and reason's capacity to perceive truths and right in nature. Indeed, every rational creature, Aquinas argued, has true and sufficient knowledge of natural law, regardless of whether scripture is available or not. Overlooking such exegetical potholes, however, Koch's theoretical point is sound. The fixedness and specificity of a closed text sets fast and clear boundaries regarding acceptable and substantive truth. Little quarter is granted for question or wonder.

Textual universalism, the second model, has as its base a narrative about the nature of the human subject. Some aspect of that nature (like reason, freedom, language, competition, or many other possibilities) is then raised up such that it becomes the measure of truth and right. Instead of looking outward to scripture or metaphysical form, in this model the look is inward to find the touchstone of judgment within being human itself. René Descartes's cogito seems exemplary, but Immanuel Kant's Kritik is also cited by the author as a particularly good example of this model, perhaps because both Descartes and Kant emphasize a process of private, critical rationality as the formal condition for the determination of truth. The author struggles somewhat to squeeze John Locke and David Hume under this model as well, struggling perhaps because these authors emphasized experience of the external world in the formation of the subject. Koch also locates the thinking of Jürgen Habermas under this model, perhaps overstressing Kantian elements while underappreciating the pragmatist and materialist aspects of Habermas's complex theory. Once again, though, the author's theoretical idea of textual universalism is uncontestable. To say that human nature is such and such, and then to find in that nature the measure or process of truth itself, surely limits the range of possibilities for what counts as truth and what counts as human. Modern history is, sadly, replete with horrors where this has gone badly.

Inductive universalism, his third model, is Koch's account of the epistemology of modern science. Here, truth is always in progress as new empirical facts are tested for fit in the edifice of accumulated knowledge. Inductive here means that the ends of truth remain open and unresolved, much as Koch prefers. The author balks, however, at the positivist assumption of the universal validity of empirical facts themselves. Citing poststructuralists for support, he contends instead that empirical facts are always a product of relations of power, and are not so much universal as they are contingent. Modern science and its kindred disciplines do not transcend relations of power, the author thinks, but rather are instruments of them. Given this, it is interesting that elsewhere in the study, Koch presents the empirical facts of humankind's material existence (the body) as unproblematically “true.” Not true in a universal sense, the apology goes, but true in a local sense—for me, right here, right now. Does this mean that bodily empirical facts somehow escape constitution within the relations of power? That body should be read literally, just like a sacred text, for determining truth?

Inductive relativism, Koch's fourth model, is the one he endorses. The author insists that it is congruent with poststructuralism and deconstruction. Foregrounded in the model is the argument that all truths are local and inseparable from the real conditions of life, meaning that transcendental aspirations and ontological grounds are eschewed. Besides Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida, an effort is made to tuck Karl Marx and Max Stirner under this model, too. Unlike the oppressions of the other epistemological models, this one, we are told, “is an important tool for removing the illusions that legitimate the oppression” and also “creates the epistemological framework to put the future in human hands” (p. 120). Indeed, replacing the oppression of transcendent truth would be what Koch describes as inductive relativism's invocation of “dialogue and discourse” (p. 103).

But is putting matters in “human hands,” invoking human “discourse,” and thereby overcoming “oppression” really a vision congruent with poststructuralism and deconstruction? Foucault and Derrida would have cautioned against such notions. They argued that appeals to ideals of liberation, like any other teleology, worked inevitably to discipline, normalize, and punish. Relations of power and the oppressions entailed, they argued further, could never be transcended, only critiqued and engaged. Likewise, “discourse and dialogue,” though beloved by thinkers like Hans-Georg Gadamer and Charles Taylor, are somewhat worrisome to poststructuralists, for whom famously even words are weapons.

Herein, it seems, a possibly important problem for this interesting study is highlighted. Without appeal to some ground, at the very least to what Stephen White (Sustaining Affirmation, 2000) wonderfully labeled “weak ontology,” a thoroughgoing antifoundationalism of the sort at the heart of inductive relativism cannot yield a substantive political vision. Knowledge and Social Construction is illustrative. At end, only by appeal to such things as human hands, epistemological frameworks, and human discourse does the author move beyond formal epistemological critique to the “doing” of political life. Not surprisingly perhaps, it is in conjunction with such appeals that Koch's book is most compelling and valuable.