Planning problems as epistemic problems. Notes on the debate about multiple truths in planning

Abstract

How should planning deal with the “brutal plurality of truths” (Davy/Levin-Keitel/Sielker 2023). This is a relevant but also controversial question. In this commentary section, Gerd Lintz pointed out that a “broad concept of truth and knowledge” might undermine the ability to cope with the climate and biodiversity crisis in terms of planning (Lintz 2024). Leaving aside the supposed risks of a social-constructivist dilution of the concept of truth, this commentary focuses on planning challenges that go hand in hand with an “epistemization of the political” (Bogner 2021). Epistemization refers to the challenge of how knowledge comes about and by whom it is produced. At the planning level, the question arises as to where and why various forms of truth and knowledge production are increasingly becoming a problem. For example, it is necessary to deal with the (de)politicizing effects of data-driven spatial development, the denial of planning expertise or the suppression of deliberative procedures for plan qualification. Such “knowledge conflicts” must be reflected upon in planning science—especially in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and work contexts.