The observer is central

When looking at the data field with philosophy in mind, there are few insights that can be projected from philosophy to data. For example, when we look at Immanuel Kant's theory of knowledge.

Kant had the insight to not start from the objects in the world to examine how an observer gains knowledge about them, but the other way around.

He started from the way our human perception works and thus defines the way we see the world. The way our brain and senses work determine what colors we see, what sounds we hear, and even that we perceive things as having a certain position at a certain point in time.

In data this translates to the way we interpret data indifferent ways depending on our position and role in an organization -certainly in a political organization. If we loosely extrapolate from Kant's work and look a bit broader than just business, it also means we perceive the world differently if we have different gender or socio-economic background.

This makes you think about your own background and biases that always play a role in certain decisions, even so - or probably even more - if we are not aware of it.

What biases are you subject to?