Woke-Like Orders of Knowledge: An Epistemological Analysis

This paper argues that the epistemic orientation identified by Neema Parvini as a “woke-like order of knowledge” and the orientation analysed by Shuichi Tezuka as “creationist theory of knowledge” can be understood as instances of a broader structure, here termed prescription-first epistemology. Its defining feature is the sacralisation of one or more propositions that are fixed in advance and placed beyond revision. These propositions, therefore, function as covert prescriptions while presenting themselves in descriptive form, and in practice, they set the bounds of admissible inquiry by precluding the exploration of specific hypotheses and theories. This, in turn, can be understood as a collapse of Hume’s is–ought gap, since a fundamental prescription ultimately undergirds all descriptive statements within such an epistemic order. The paper then contrasts prescription epistemology to scientific epistemology and explores further consequences of its deviations from the scientific norm of value-free analysis.