User:Bbydhyonchord-Switch7/sandbox

Draft of Major Contribution

Standpoint Epistemology:

            In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn argued that scientific progress does not occur through gradual accumulation of correct ideas. Rather, he believed that there were occasionally large revolutions that completely overturned the previous scientific theories. When a crisis occurs within the prevailing theory of a time, revolutionary scientists will challenge them and build new scientific theories. For example, in his view, the transition from the geocentrism of Ptolemy to the heliocentric theory of Copernicus did not occur through a gradual series of challenges and improvements to the previous model. Rather, it was a sudden and complete revolution because it is impossible to conceptualize the theory of heliocentrism within the dominant geocentric theory. Kuhn argued that together, the ideas of Newton, Galileo, and Kepler completed the revolution that Copernicus started. However, most students of science do not learn of the many failed and alternative scientific paradigms. They are taught a version of the history of science where progress is guaranteed and linear. In Harding’s view, Kuhn’s theories showed that all science was situated within its historical context, and that any theory could remain accepted if its believers held power.

Criticism of Standpoint Theory:

           Standpoint theory is often criticized for the lack of evidence available to support it and the ideas underlying it, such as the lack of justification for the underdetermination theory Harding uses. Pinnick, to illustrate her point about Harding's poor evidence, points to standpoint theory’s claim that science is more objective if it is politically motivated, which Pinnick claims runs contrary to what has happened in the past when scientists deliberately injected politics into their theories (she cites eugenics and intelligence test designs as examples of politicized science). She also criticizes Harding for claiming that marginalized groups produce better, less biased scientific results because, according to Pinnick, Harding fails to provide any empirical evidence for this idea.

Articles for consideration:

Feminist epistemology

Sexism in video gaming

Women in video games

Sexism in medicine

Feminist Epistemology Notes:

Organization: Some headings are wrongly put as sub headings. Criticism is scattered throughout instead of being lumped under a criticism section. Some criticisms are for the wrong epistemology.

Postmodern criticism section is nonsense and too short.

Lack of examples of the theories in practice - what biases are present in theories?

Sources:

The talk page lists books by supporters, including about postmodernism and standpoint theory. Find them at [that one ebook site].

Pinnick: Feminist Epistemology: Implications for Philosophy of Science critiques the work of Harding and the "relativist turn" in the humanities. Focuses on standpoints.

Sokal: Fashionable Nonsense (book). Criticizes postmodernism (not in general, their use of scientific terms). Sokal considered himself a hard leftist. How relevant?

Shelton: The Failure of Feminist Epistemology. Criticizes what he describes as attacks on science's imagined masculine bias and on science itself.

Nelson: The Very Idea of Feminist Epistemology supports feminist epistemology without claiming that philosophy of science is "dead".

Pinnick: Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology (book): 14 essays critique the central claims of most feminist epistemologists.

Harding: The Science Question in Feminism and Whose Science Whose Knowledge - Harding is a Standpoint Theorist

Longino - Can There Be A Feminist Science?

Keller - Feminism and Science - Feminist Empiricism

Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Harding used (or misused?) his arguments to build Standpoint Theory

Quine - Underdetermination theory - two theories can account for the same thing despite being completely incompatible.

Possible sentence contributions:

"Feminist epistemology is criticized for being a negative philosophy that makes no positive claims on what to replace "masculine science" with." -Shelton

"In building her standpoint theory, Harding built on the philosophers of science Kuhn and Quine, as well as the Marxism of Marx, Engels, and Lukacs. She utilized Quine's underdetermination theory and Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. However, she rejected Marxism for its epistemology being insufficiently radical." -Pinnick. Possibility for a larger contribution explaining their contributions more widely.

"The physicist Alan Sokal criticized postmodern theory for its misuse of scientific terms in the book Fashionable Nonsense." -Cite book depending on relevance to feminist postmodernism.

A Sentence From The Feminist Epistemology Article:

"Also feminist empiricism theory states that science will correct all the biases and errors in theories about women and other groups by itself." - Never states the problem with this or why it's bad.

Statement:

One article that appears useful is: Feminist Epistemology: Implications for Philosophy of Science. It criticizes the claim that marginalized groups are inherently more objective and provides insights into the origins of standpoint theory.

Annotated Bibliography for work on Feminist Epistemology

MLA:

Pinnick, Cassandra L. “Feminist Epistemology: Implications for Philosophy of Science.” Philosophy of Science, vol. 61, no. 4, 1994, pp. 646–657. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/188340.

Cassandra Pinnick is a professor of philosophy at Western Kentucky University. In this article, she uses responses to quotes and logical arguments to criticize feminist epistemology, specifically the standpoint epistemology of Sandra Harding. The article claims that the idea that every epistemology is rooted in political context is fundamentally incompatible with feminist epistemology's goal to create a more justified "better" epistemology. Pinnick points to Harding's seemingly counter-intuitive claim that science is more objective if it is more politically motivated as being a failure in the past (see the legacies of Lysenkoism, eugenics, phrenology, etc.) Pinnick goes on to state that most of Harding's arguments are either based on unaccepted or debunked philosophy or have no empirical evidence to support them. For example, no evidence has been provided that feminists produce better scientific output than non-feminists, or that two viewpoints are ever equally warranted given the circumstances. Even if the philosophical basis of her arguments were correct, Harding's conclusions do not follow, Social epistemology does not require scrapping objective standards, and Kuhn and Quine do not imply arational explanations. This article is useful because criticism of standpoint theory is lacking on the Feminist Epistemology article and the article cites other papers that may be useful for my work.

MLA:

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Thomas Kuhn was an influential philosopher of science who wrote this influential book to explain his views on how scientific theories begin and evolve throughout the history of science. He points to historical examples of scientific development as evidence for his theory. According to this book, scientific progress does not occur gradually through accumulation, but through large revolutions that completely overturn older theories. His example is the transition from Ptolemy's geocentrism to Copernicus' heliocentrism, which was not a series of gradual improvements but a complete revolution because one cannot conceptualize the new model within the old model. The book argues that Copernicus' theory combined with Newton, Galileo, and Kepler to complete the "paradigm shift" towards heliocentrism. Kuhn claims that once these revolutions occur, the history of science is rewritten to show a linear process of progression and not show the many failed and alternative, unaccepted paradigms. This book is relevant to my project because Sandra Harding pointed to Kuhn and this book as a source for her standpoint epistemology, using Kuhn's writing to argue that scientific theories do not have to be correct to remain dominant, but merely be believed by the scientists in power.

MLA:

Shelton, Jim D. “The Failure of Feminist Epistemology.” Academic Questions, vol. 19, no. 2, June 2006, pp. 82–92. Springer-Verlag, SpringerLink, doi:10.1007/s12129-006-1018-4.

Jim Shelton was a professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Central Arkansas. In "The Failure of Feminist Epistemology", he criticizes feminist epistemology broadly because he argues that it's main points are ethical and not relevant to epistemology. He agrees with the conclusion of many feminist epistemologists that science's male dominance means that scientists tend to overlook some factors in their research, but argues that the scientific method should be self-correcting for these biases. In his view, both feminist epistemology and postmodernism are exclusively negative philosophies that merely criticize the current order without offering any explanation for what the new feminist science should look like. Furthermore, even if gender is epistemologically important as the feminists claim, that does not imply that gender is a standard for correctness. There is little evidence for significant difference between the genders and even less evidence that these differences are relevant to epistemology. He quotes feminist epistemologists and their arguments but concludes that they are making ethical and not epistemological arguments. While these may be perfectly valid, they are not worthy of being called "epistemology". He argues that contextualism, feelings, and empathy are not relevant to epistemology as claimed by some feminist epistemologists and that values interfere negatively with the scientific process. This article is relevant to my work because it presents a different and more general critique of feminist epistemology and furthermore criticizes specific feminist philosophers.

MLA:

Longino, Helen E. “Can There Be A Feminist Science?” Hypatia, vol. 2, no. 3, 1987, pp. 51–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3810122.

Helen Longino is a feminist and philosopher of science who's ideas fit within the feminist empiricism branch of feminist epistemology. In this article, she attempts to answer if it is possible to have a feminist natural science. She uses logical arguments, criticisms of other epistemologies, and examples from scientific research. Unlike standpoint theorists, Longino rejects the idea that feminists and other marginalized groups are inherently better at science ("masculine science" is not bad science in her view). But like other feminist epistemologists, she argues that science is inherently biased based on the convictions of those performing it, and this bias cannot be eliminated. According to her, politics guides choices of scientific models, commitment to a model is highly dependent on values and context, and political context influences what research is actually done. Since this bias cannot be eliminated, science that has it is not "bad science". Because science cannot be unbiased, Longino argues that science should be feminist so it can be used for progressive political purposes. This article is relevant to my work because it provides an explanation of feminist empiricism and criticizes standpoint theory from that perspective.

MLA:

HARDING, SANDRA. “After the Neutrality Ideal: Science, Politics, and ‘Strong Objectivity.’” Social Research, vol. 59, no. 3, 1992, pp. 567–587. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970706.

Sandra Harding is a feminist and philosopher of science who was influential in the creation of feminist standpoint epistemology. In this article, Harding makes logical arguments and appeals to the history of science to articulate her theories of standpoint epistemology and strong objectivity. In her view, there is a type of politics that uses science for its goals by acting through science, while claiming to "depoliticize" science. Because we live in a world where oppression is normalized, most scientists unconsciously integrate normalized oppression into their supposedly neutral work. Neutrality to her is an obstacle to true objectivity because it allows perspectives critical of the dominant ones to be immediately dismissed and can only detect value-laden science when the values differ from the dominant cultural ones. In Harding's view, neutrality has failed, but she does not use this to argue for abandoning objectivity, only what she terms the "neutrality ideal" or "objectivism". She contrasts with these what she terms "strong objectivity" which openly embraces the fact that social contexts influence scientific output. For examples of "weak objectivity" she points to peer reviews with like-minded scientists that amplify assumptions and non-diverse communities that cannot identify the cultural values in science. To achieve strong objectivity, she introduces the idea of standpoints, where one must start from outside the system with the lives of marginalized people (such as women) to detect the values in science. Her view rejects relativism because according to her oppression is an objective fact and the standpoints are used to see objectively existing features of science. By viewing science from the marginalized standpoint of a woman using a feminist analysis, Harding believes the natural sciences can be made more objective and less distorting. Harding's article is relevant to my work because it provides an explanation of standpoint theory in her own words and offers criticisms of both the neutrality ideal and relativism.

MLA:

Nelson, Lynn Hankinson. “The Very Idea of Feminist Epistemology.” Hypatia, vol. 10, no. 3, 1995, pp. 31–49. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3810236.

Lynn Hankinson Nelson was a professor of philosophy at the University of Washington. In "The Very Idea of Feminist Epistemology," she responds to the criticisms of feminist epistemology by both mainstream epistemologists and feminists.She pays specific attention to the criticisms offered by Haack and Code, which Nelson argues are based on incorrect views of epistemology or feminist epistemology. Haack argues that feminist epistemology is contradictory and presupposes that there is an epistemically privileged woman viewpoint and a unique "female way of knowing". Nelson responds by stating that the belief that feminist epistemologists see a "female specific way of knowing" is an open issue among feminists and that the critics fail to acknowledge feminist epistemology as being an ambiguous term that encompasses several broad ideas. Furthermore, what can be considered epistemology is also not a settled case among even mainstream epistemologists. Haack's criticism also relies on a "web of assumptions," such as the assumption that there is an value-free science to be contrasted with feminist science. She also addresses the responses by feminists who argue that they are not epistemologists and that epistemology and the philosophy of science are "dead". According to Haack, this feminist view has the consequence of downplaying the fact that feminist critiques aim to reveal how the androcentric bias of science leads to negative consequences for women. Also, if they are not epistemologists, then their ideas can be safely ignored by mainstream critics. Nelson puts forward an "interdependent" view of feminist epistemology that attacks the false dichotomies of her critics. Nelson's essay is useful because it extensively quotes and responds to some of the most noteworthy philosophical criticisms of feminist epistemology from a variety of perspectives. Because I will be using the criticisms of feminist epistemology in my work, it is useful to see the feminist responses to them.

MLA:

Harding, Sandra. “From the Woman Question in Scicence to the Science Question in Feminism.” The Science Question in Feminism, Cornell Univeristy Press, 1986, pp. 15–29.

Sandra Harding is a feminist and philosopher of science who was influential in the creation of feminist standpoint epistemology. In this first chapter of what is often considered her most important book, she uses the history and philosophy of science to trace the history and development of feminist science criticism through its major branches.She starts with the ideas that form the basis for her work: human creations always contain the influence of their creators beliefs, and gender differences are important to science. According to her, there are five major feminist criticisms of science, all of which are incompatible and offer different solutions to the problem of androcentric bias. She starts with the idea that there are too few women in science, which leads to male bias in the selection of problems for science to tackle. In Harding's opinion, this view seeks the "low goal" of simply equality with men and does not address science's issues with racism and classism. Next, she identifies the criticisms of the sexist uses of science, which assume there is such a thing as a value-free, proper science. Then are criticisms that question the existence of a pure science with no values or biases. Harding argues that if science is always value-laden, then science research that is skewed towards male biases is not bad science in this view. Next, she points to critiques that seek to "read science as a text" and show the biases present in supposedly value neutral science. For example, they point to gendered metaphors and the association of concepts with masculinity or femininity as being more than harmless metaphors but reflecting gendered thinking by scientists. However, these critics never prove that these metaphors in the history of science are relevant to the work of current scientists. After these, she moves on to the three main feminist epistemologies, which all try to show how politicized science can be more objective than neutral science. Feminist empiricism seeks to correct androcentrism by stronger adherence to the scientific method. This view is strategically good because it only attacks "bad science," but Harding says feminist empiricism is actually anti-empiricist because it claims women are more likely to be objective than men. Harding also claims that greater adherence to the scientific method never increased objectivity historically. Next comes Harding's preferred branch of feminist epistemology, standpoint theory. This theory states that marginalization of groups such as women allow them to have more objective, complete perspectives. Feminism turns this superior view into a "standpoint" to view science though. This idea has the consequence of failing to convince empiricists who see identities as unimportant. This leads to the postmodern feminist theory because there may also not be one standpoint due to additional race and class divisions. Postmodernism argues that there is only a universal perspective from the perspective of the "masters" and thus rejects universal claims and grand narratives. Feminism is therefore less distorting than other theories because it is based on alliances between the endlessly fractured group identities. Harding's issue with postmodernism is that because racism, sexism, classism, etc. are allied, it may not be worthwhile to give up on providing a universal feminist narrative. Based on this evolution of thought, Harding explains that feminists shifted from questions on the equality of women in the existing scientific structure to questioning if science is redeemable at all for progressive political goals. This chapter and Harding's entire book is very useful to my work because it provides a history and evolution of feminist epistemology, while also providing some criticisms of the major branches.

MLA:

Keller, Evelyn Fox. “Feminism and Science.” Signs, vol. 7, no. 3, 1982, pp. 589–602. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3173856.

Evelyn Fox Keller is a feminist, physicist, and philosopher of science whose ideas fit within feminist empiricism. In this essay, she uses psychoanalysis and examples from science history to put forth a feminist criticism of science that does not resort to relativism. She claims that even the harshest criticisms can offer liberating potential for science. She characterizes the criticisms as ranging from liberal to radical. The most liberal is purely political and is based on the fact that most scientists are men. More radical than this is the idea that the male dominance leads to a lack of focus on perspectives and issues important to women. Even more radical are criticisms aimed at the bias that male dominance creates in experimental design. All these critiques are aimed at the soft sciences, which allows the natural sciences to dismiss them as as result of the soft sciences being less scientific. More radical still are the criticisms of androcentric bias in the hard sciences, which may require a rejection of neutrality and objectivism. Keller believes that some feminist criticisms may threaten to make science meaningless by denying objectivity itself, which is not her goal. Rather, she wants scientists to be "conscious of the self," aware of the values that they inherently put into their work. At the same time, we must separate objectivity from objectivism, especially when objectivity is sometimes linked with ideas of masculinity, domination, and power. Keller uses the idea that our early development and thus many biases are based on social relationships to question if science is done for the pleasure of seeking knowledge or to dominate nature. Keller examines the output of science and suggests the latter. According to her, western science's ideas of power and control are a reflection of male consciousness and combine with science's perception of nature as being female. She further points to the "hierarchy conflict" in cell biology to illustrate the effect masculine bias has on the selection of theories. Her critique is useful to my work because it provides more unique criticisms from the feminist empiricist perspective. Also, unlike most other feminist epistemologists, Keller is an actual trained scientist, which may give her ideas more credibility.