Why did Bernard Williams think science could still seek a single truth despite historical and cultural limits?

Bernard Williams argued that science could pursue a single truth through what he termed the "absolute conception" of reality. This concept posits that while human beings must always perceive the world through their own specific cultural and historical lenses, they can recognize and attempt to compensate for the distortions introduced by these perspectives.1

Williams believed that the goal of scientific objectivity is to move as close as possible to a description of the world as it exists "anyway"—independent of any particular human point of view. Even while acknowledging that human inquiry is inevitably constrained by contingent biological faculties and cultural tools, he maintained that the ambition to understand the world as it is independently of us remains a coherent and meaningful pursuit. For Williams, historical self-consciousness regarding our own limitations is entirely compatible with the idea of making progress toward a single, objective truth.1