ABSTRACT
Knowledge and social learning are inextricable, coming into existence only when relationships with others are constructed that demand reciprocity, exchange, commerce. There are multiple learnings that are open to debate, challenge, cross checking and further learning to construct multi-dimensional accounts. The ground of phenomenological knowledge is in the imagination and senses of individuals pursuing their everyday lives as they negotiate their relations to each other to establish shared understandings that are ‘true’ for all practical purposes. In the intimate, yet public, process of reality testing and truth assessment all the powers of the body are involved in generating valid knowledge to inform decision-making and guide action. The securest knowledge of what is going on is democratically produced and such knowledge is essential in the on-going struggles for freedom and equality. The claim to govern rationally has been critical to the view that given the fall of the Soviet Union, the political philosophy underlying western liberal market democracies won.
