Dynamic Coherentism

The previous chapter introduced two concepts, disinterpellation and mutual mistranslation which emerge at the intersection of two incompatible interpretations of reality: social and natural science. The former refers to the subjective incoherence that can emerge when diagnostic information contests an individual’s gender identity and the latter refers to what can happen when social and natural scientists communicate despite their best efforts and intentions. Addressing the problems of disinterpellation and mutual mistranslation requires the construction of a mechanism that can integrate the perspectives of social and natural science in order to view the complexity of the problem in totality. Drawing on the work of David Hume, W.V.O. Quine, Michel Foucault and Hilary Putnam this chapter constructs such a mechanism through integrating the discourse and fact into a single fabric of knowledge. Employing this as a common metaphysical foundation it is possible to recognise disinterpellation as an epistemic tear brought about by discordance between discourse/meaning/norms and experience/objects/fact. From this perspective it is possible to explore mechanisms that might be used to mend this tear.