Feminist Epistemology as a Local Epistemology Author(s): Helen E. Longino and Kathleen Lennon Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 71 (1997), pp. 19-35+37-54 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Aristotelian Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4106954 Accessed: 24/10/2010 20:44

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http://www.jstor.org FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCAL EPISTEMOLOGY

Helen E. Longino and KathleenLennon

I-Helen E. Longino

I

ntroductoryremarks. The very idea of feministepistemology throws some philosophers into near apoplexy. Partly this is social and psychological:an aversionto the revisionistchallenges of feminism abettedby a healthyif residualmisogyny. Partlythis is intellectual: how could a politically and intellectually partial form of inquiryhave anythingto say aboutepistemology, which is or ought to be about very generalquestions concerning the nature of knowledge?The formeris worthnoting, but not discussing;the second, however, goes to the heartof what feminist epistemology is. This essay pursuesone line of thoughtin feminist epistemology with a view to sorting out the relation between it and general epistemology, and between it and other approachesin feminist theory of knowledge. FirstI shouldnote whatfeminist epistemology is not. It is not the study or defence of feminine intuition, of 'women's ways of knowing', of subjectivism;it is not an embraceof irrationalityor of Protagoreanrelativism. Although feminist philosophers have celebratedthe female subject,have arguedfor the constructiverole of emotion in knowledge, and have criticizedstandard accounts of objectivity and rationality,attacks on feminist epistemology tend to ignore the argumentsfeminists offer and insteadgo after straw women. As they misrepresentthe feminist work they purportto criticize, they do not deserve any kind of detailedresponse, but do impose on feminists a burdenyet again to say what we mean.Also, contraryto the apparentview of many of its detractors,feminist epistemology encompasses a number of different directions of analysis some of which are,others of which arenot, mutuallycom- patible. In addition,themes andpositions in feministepistemology 20 I-HELEN E. LONGINO overlap with themes and positions in philosophy generally.Thus some of the tensions within feminist epistemological thought are mirroredby tensions in other areas of philosophy,while some are peculiar to it. For example, many commentatorstake feminist epistemology to be a species of naturalizedand social epistem- ology, but just as there are ways of naturalizingand ways of socializing epistemology, so there are ways of doing feminist epistemology. Feminist epistemology has both critical and constructive dimensions. Critical dimensions include the demonstration of forms of masculine bias at the heart of philosophicalanalyses of such topics as objectivity, reason, knowledge, and rationality. Constructive dimensions include carving out a space for specifically feminist programsof inquiry,identifying or defending epistemic guidelines of feminist inquiry. Among constructive programsfeminist standpointtheory and feminist empiricismhave been the most visible, but feminist forms of pragmatismare also findingfavour. (See Lloyd 1984, Code 1991, 1995, Harding1986, 1991, Rooney 1994, 1995, Anderson 1995, Solomon 1995, also Alcoff and Potter 1993, Lennon and Whitford1994.) Most feminist epistemologies (those named above) have been feminist adaptationsof extant philosophicalorientations. Another way to start thinking about feminist epistemology is to consider what feminists engagedin inquiry,in the productionof knowledge, have to say aboutknowledge, to investigatewhether and how they think feminist practices of inquiry might differ from standard practices. Feminists standing back from and reflecting on their practices have had quite a bit to say about moral dimensions of practices of inquiry; about the development of mutual respect among researchers, about the desirability of cooperation as opposed to competitionamong researchers,about the desirability of respect for, even love of, the objects of one's research,be these social or natural,about issues of responsibility.(See Hubbard1990, Martin1988, Birke 1984, Stanley 1990) Feministsin the course of working throughparticular research programs, whether empirical or analytical,have also defended,elaborated, or invoked a variety of cognitive or theoreticalvalues, desirablecharacteristics of the outcomesof inquiry.Thinking about these values and the roles they do or mightplay in inquiry,can initiatea chainof reflectionsleading FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 21 to a somewhatunorthodox, but ultimately, I believe, quite fruitful, characterizationof epistemology.I will discusssome of thevalues thathave been endorsedby feministthinkers and their relation to traditionalepistemic values and move fromthis discussionto a considerationof therelation between an epistemologyfocused on feministcognitive values and general philosophical epistemology and betweenthis formof feministreflection on knowledgeand other,perhaps more familiar, directions in feministepistemology. II

Feminist Values in Inquiry.In a series of earlier papers, I have exploreda set of values individuallyand severallyinvoked by feministresearchers (Longino 1994, 1996).They probably do not exhaustthe valuesthat feminist researchers do or couldendorse but they do exhibita suitablerange. To simplifymatters, I treat these as theoreticalvirtues, i.e. as characteristicsof theories, models,or hypotheses,that are taken as countingprima facie and ceterisparibus in favourof theiracceptance. The virtuesI have discussedin this capacityinclude empirical adequacy, novelty, ontologicalheterogeneity, complexity or mutualityof interaction, applicabilityto humanneeds, and decentralizationof power or universalempowerment. While empiricaladequacy is held in commonby feministand non-feminist researchers, the remaining five contrastintriguingly with morecommonly touted values of consistencywith theories in otherdomains, simplicity, explanatory powerand generality, fruitfulness or refutability. I shall briefly say somethingabout each of thefeminist virtues, excluding empirical adequacy. Feministsendorse the novelty of theoreticalor explanatory principleas protectionagainst unconscious perpetuation of the sexismand androcentrism of traditionaltheorizing or of theorizing constrainedby a desirefor consistencywith accepted explanatory models.The novelty envisioned is not thenovelty of discoveryof new entities(like the top quark)predicted by theorybut rather of frameworksof understanding.For example, some feminist scholarshave criticized the articulationof femalecentred models of evolutionby feministprimatologists as remainingtoo much withinthe framework of sociobiology,and thus, perpetuating other noxious values of that theoreticalapproach. Novelty, thus 22 I-HELENE. LONGINO understood,is contrary tothe value of conservatism aspropounded by Quineor of consistencywith theories in otherdomains as describedby Kuhn. The embrace of novelty may be conjoined with a hopeof ultimatelyseeing or engineeringan overturning of the theorieswith which a new viewis inconsistent,or withmerely makingsalient aspectsof experienceor realityhidden or marginalizedby presentlyaccepted theory. Feministswho endorseheterogeneity as a virtueindicate a preferencefor theories and models that preserve the heterogeneity inthe domain under investigation, orthat, at least, do not eliminate it on principle.An approachto inquirythat requires uniform specimensmay facilitate generalization, but it runsthe riskof missingimportant differences-so the maleof a speciescomes to be takenas paradigmaticfor the species (as in 'Gorillasare solitary animals;a typicalindividual travels only with a femaleand her/ theiryoung'). Or, via the conceptof male dominance,males are treatedas the only causallyeffective agents in a population.The embraceof heterogeneityextends beyond humanand animal behaviour,however, and is also invokedin the contextof genetic and biochemicalprocesses. Feminist researchers have resisted unicausalaccounts of developmentin favourof accountsin which quite differentfactors play causal roles. Heterogeneityis thus opposedto ontologicalsimplicity and to theassociated explanatory virtueof unification.Under the guidanceof these lattervirtues, similaritiesbetween, rather than differences in, the phenomena wouldbe stressed. Mutuality or reciprocityof interaction,sometimes more generallycomplexity of interaction,is somethingof a processual companionto the virtue of ontologicalheterogeneity. While heterogeneityof ontologytolerates the existence of differentkinds of thing, complexity,mutuality, reciprocity characterize their interactions.Feminists endorsing this virtueexpress a preference fortheories representing interactions as complexand involving not just joint, but also mutualand reciprocalrelationships among factors.They explicitly reject theories or explanatorymodels that attemptto identifyone causalfactor in a process,whether that be a dominantanimal or a 'mastermolecule' like DNA. This virtue favoursaccounts of fertilization,or gameticfusion, for example, FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 23

whichtreat the processas an interactionbetween egg andsperm, ratherthan the activesperm acting on thepassive egg. Manyfeminists also endorse the idea that science should be 'for the people,'that research that alleviates human needs, especially thosetraditionally attended by women,such as careof theyoung, weak,and infirm or feedingthe hungry,should be preferredover researchfor militarypurposes or forknowledge's sake. While not rejectingcuriosity altogether as an appropriateaim of research, these feminists place a greater emphasis on the pragmatic dimensionof knowledge,but only in connectionwith the final virtuein thiscollection-decentralization of power.Thus forms of knowledgeand its applicationin techndlogieswhich empower beneficiariesare preferredto those whichproduce or reproduce dependencerelations. Both the feminist pragmatic virtues and their traditionalcontraries, fruitfulness and refutability, have to do with the expansionof a theoreticalapproach in an empiricaldirection. Butthe relevance of theempirical in thetraditional view is within a self-enclosedresearch context. Applicability and empowerment, by contrast,are directed to the socialand practical milieu outside the researchcontext. III

Feminist and traditionalcognitive values. One might ask why the virtuesI've just sketchedshould be given equalstatus with the moretraditional epistemic virtues with whichthey contrast.But this questionbegs another-whatis the statusof the traditional epistemicvirtues? While these are quite frequentlyinvoked as factorsclosing the gap between evidence and hypotheses revealed by underdeterminationarguments, it's not at all evidentthat they arecapable of discriminatingbetween the more and less probable, let alonebetween the true and the false. Consistency with theories in otherdomains, for example,only has epistemicvalue if we supposethese other theories to be true.While they presumably are empiricallyadequate, additional considerations in favourof their truthwill have to consist of other assumptionsor theoretical virtues.The probative value of consistency,then, is relativeto the truthof the theorieswith which consistency is recommended. Simplicityand explanatory power fare no better.While there is anunderstandable preference for simpler theories when contrasted 24 I-HELEN E. LONGINO with theories or models loaded with entities and processes and relationshipsthat do not add to the predictive capacities of the theory, it is not clear that simplicity generallycan carryepistemic weight. As is well known, simplicitycan be interpretedin different ways. The interpretationcontrasting with the alternativevirtue of heterogeneity is ontological-the fewer entities the better, or no more entities than are requiredto explain the phenomena.As a caution of prudence this has much to recommendit, and it may even be a useful heuristic. But for simplicity as an epistemic standardthere are at least three problems: i. This formulationbegs the question what counts as an adequate explanation. Is an adequateexplanation an account sufficient to generatepredictions or an accountof underlyingprocesses, and, if explanation is just retrospective prediction, then must it be successful at individualor populationlevels? Eitherthe meaning of simplicity will be relative to one's accountof explanation,thus undermining the capacity of simplicity to function as an independentepistemic value, or the insistence on simplicity will dictate what gets explainedand how. ii. We have no a priori reason to think the universe simple, i.e. composed of very few kinds of thing (as few as the kinds of elementary particles, for example) ratherthan of many different kinds of thing. Nor is thereor could therebe empiricalevidence for such a view.

iii. The degreeof simplicityor varietyin one's theoreticalontology may be dependenton the degree of variety one admits into one's description of the phenomena.If one imposes uniformity on the data by rejecting anomalies, then one is making a choice for a certain kind of account. If the view that the boundaries of our descriptivecategories are conventionalis correct,then there is no epistemological fault in this, but neitheris there virtue. Explanatorypower andgenerality also lose theirepistemic allure underclose examination.Indeed the greaterthe explanatorypower and generalityof a theory,i.e., the greaterthe varietyof phenomena broughtunder its explanatoryumbrella, the less likely it is to be (literally) true. Its explanatorystrength is purchasedat the cost of truth, which lies in the details and may be capturedthrough the FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 25

filling in of an indefinite series of ceteris paribus clauses. (Cartwright 1983) Explanatory power and generality may constitute good reasons for accepting a model or theory if one places value on unifying theoreticalframeworks, but this is a value distinct from truth and has to be defended on other grounds. Mutualityor reciprocityof influencein an explanatorymodel is less likely to be generalizablethan a linear or unicausalmodel which permits the incorporationof the explanationof an effect into an explanationof its cause. The explanationsof multiple interacting causal factors branch out rather than coalescing. Rather than a vertically ordered hierarchy culminating in a master theory or master science, one is confronted with a horizontally ordered networkof models. Finally,what Kuhn called fruitfulnessand the feministpragmatic virtues are not really contraries in their epistemic relevance. Fruitfulness of a theory is its ability to generate problems for research.This can be given a somewhatnarrower interpretation as refutability,that is, having (falsifiable) empirical consequences. This does not arguefor the truthof a theory,but for its tractability, that is for its capacity to have empiricaldata brought to bear on it. Both refutabilityand fruitfulnessmay be less intrinsicfeatures of a theory,than a matterof the instrumentsavailable for producing relevant data, as well as other theoreticaland empiricaldevelop- ments in associated fields that make articulationof the theory possible. The feminist pragmatic virtues do not reject the importanceof empirical consequences but seek them in certain areas:in the world of humanlife as well as in the laboratory.The most politically loaded of the feminist virtuesrequires in addition that the mode of applicabilityinvolve empowermentof the many rather than the concentration of power among the few. Some thinkersabout the sciences have rejectedaltogether the distinction between pure and applied science that lies behindthe treatmentof refutabilityor fruitfulnessas a virtue, i.e. as a criterionof theory evaluation or selection. (Cf. Latour 1989) Contemporaryscience, on this view, is better understoodas technoscience, inquiry into naturethat is inseparablefrom its technologicalinfrastructures and outcomes. Within this framework,the feminist pragmaticvirtues could be understoodnot as a rejectionof 'pure science' but as a recognition of the technologically driven natureof science and a 26 I-HELEN E. LONGINO call for certaintechnological infrastructures and outcomesover others.Rejecting the conventionaldistinction between pure and appliedscience facilitates the rejectionof the idea thatscientists bearno responsibilityfor how their work is used.Thus the feminist pragmaticvirtues can be a vehiclefor bringingconsiderations of socialresponsibility back into the centre of scientificinquiry. Whileall of thesepoints could be furtherdeveloped, I have,for eachof themore mainstream epistemic values, indicated why their epistemicstatus is no greaterthan that of thealternatives advocated by feministresearchers and philosophers. This raises the question why,in spiteof repeateddemonstrations of the weaknessof their probativevalue, philosophers persist in invokingthem. Although I have elsewhereargued that the standardvirtues have in certain contextsof theiruse bothmaterial and ideological socio-political consequences,I am inclinedto thinkthat these are (for the most part)unintended by mostadvocates of the traditionalvirtues and thattheir attraction lies elsewhere.One might start by notingthat the traditionalvirtues do characterizeclassical Newtonian mechanics.They may have acquiredtheir normative status by associationin a frameworkthat took physics as the model of science.I don'tthink, however, that this, even if on theright track, canbe the wholeof the story. One mightwell ask of the alternativevirtues I have described whatmakes them feminist. I thinkthis is thewrong question. They are,after all, not advocatedexclusively by feminists,but also by otheroppositional scientists. They serve as alternativesfor a larger (or different)scientific community than the feministone. The questionought to be: whatrecommends the alternativevirtues to feminists?As I have suggestedelsewhere, what ought to recom- mendthese virtuesto feministsis thatthey (do or could) serve feministcognitive goals. Whatmakes feminists feminist is the desireto dismantlethe oppressionand subordinationof women. Thisrequires identification of the mechanismsand institutions of femaleoppression and subordination, that is, themechanisms and institutionsof gender.The cognitivegoal of feministresearchers therefore,is to revealthe operationof gender,by makingvisible both the activitiesof those genderedfemale and the processes whereby they are made invisible, and by identifying the mechanismswhereby female gendered agents are subordinated. FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 27

Whatought to recommendthese virtues to feminists,then, is that inquiryregulated by these valuesand theoriescharacterized by thesevirtues are more likely to revealgender than inquiry guided by themainstream virtues. (For account of howthis might work in particularcontexts, see Longino (1994, 1996).) There is undoubtedlymore to be saidhere as well, includingconsideration of otherpossible theoretical virtues, other cognitive aims, and the relationsof thesevirtues to other(non-cognitive) values endorsed by feministsand to values endorsedby other communitiesof inquiry. IV

Epistemological Reflections.What can these virtues tell us about the prospectsfor a normativefeminist epistemology based on them?First of all, althoughthe virtueshave been endorsedby feminists(although not by all feminists)and can be discernedat work in feminist appraisal,their subordinationto a broader cognitive goal means that they are not in and of themselves feminist theoreticalvirtues, or to put it anotherway, such subordinationmeans that these alternativevirtues will not necessarilybe a partof a feministepistemological kit. Theyhave no intrinsicstanding as feministtheoretical virtues or virtuesfor feminists,but only a provisionalone. For as long as and to the extentthat their regulative role can promote the goal of revealing gender,and as long as revealinggender remains the primary goal of feministinquiry, they can serve as normsor standards of feminist inquiry.It is possible,however, that in differentcontexts they wouldnot promotefeminist cognitive goals, or thatthose goals themselvesmight changein such a way that othercognitively regulativenorms would be calledfor. Indeed,to the extentthat feministsdissent from the virtues,they may eitherbe urginga changeof feministcognitive goals or claimingthat the goals are not servedby the virtuesdiscussed here. There could be multiple sets of feminist cognitive virtues correspondingto different conceptionsof whatfeminist cognitive goals are or shouldbe. The conceptof genderhas itselfchanged as a consequenceof feminist inquiry.Recognizing the disunityboth of genderand of formsof gendersubordination might require either a changein cognitive aimor a changein the virtues. 28 I-HELEN E. LONGINO

Secondly, the normativeclaim of these values/virtuesis limited to the community sharingthe primarygoal. On those who do not share it these virtues have no claim. To generalize this point, the alternativevirtues are only binding in those communities sharing a cognitive goal thatis advancedby those virtues.Their normative reach is, thus, local. In emphasizingthe provisionalityand locality of alternative virtues, this account contrasts quite sharply with accounts offered or implied by advocatesof the traditionalvirtues which, as (purely) epistemic are represented as universally binding. I've indicated above the sorts of argumentsthat would cast doubt on such a claim. What is missing is the articulationof a cognitive goal that would ground the traditionalvirtues. If the structureof justification is the same as that for the alternative virtues, then the traditionalvirtues, no less than the alternative ones, are only provisionaland locally binding. Both feminist and nonfeministcritics of mainstreamscience have arguedthat its goal is dominationand control.This constitutesan interpretationof the practices of mainstreamscience. If it is a correct interpretation, then the traditionalvirtues would need to be evaluatedrelative to that cognitive aim. If it is not the goal of scientificpractice, but is promoted by the traditional virtues, this would suggest a reexaminationof the latter's status relative to the (real) goal of mainstreampractice. I've arguedelsewhere (as have others) that the underdetermin- ation argumentnecessitates a move away from individualismin philosophy of science and epistemology. To summarizemy own version of such arguments:in light of the semantic gap between hypotheses and the statementsdescribing data, the latter acquire evidential relevance for hypotheses only in light of background assumptions.Justificatory practices must therefore include not only the testing of hypotheses against data, but the subjection of backgroundassumptions (and reasoning and data) to criticismfrom a variety of perspectives. Thus, intersubjective discursive interactionis added to interactionwith the materialworld under investigation as components of methodology.From a normative point of view this means articulating conditions for effective criticism, typically specifying structuralfeatures of a discursive community that ensure the effectiveness of the critical discourse takingplace within it. I have suggestedfour such conditions:a) the FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 29 provisionof venues for the articulationof criticism,b) uptake (ratherthan mere toleration) of criticism,c) publicstandards to which discursive interactionsare referenced,d) equality of intellectualauthority for all (qualified) members of thecommunity. Within this scheme the traditionaland alternativevirtues constitutepartially overlapping, but distinctivesets of public communitystandards. That is, they serveto regulatediscourse in theirrespective communities. They can be criticizedor challenged relativeto thecognitive aims they are taken to advanceor to other values assignedhigher priority and they can in turn serve as groundsfor critique.Nor is criticismlimited to intra-community discourse.The areas of overlapor intersectionmake possible critical interactionamong as well as within communities. Generalizingfrom what I've earlierargued, the publicstandards thatI arguemust be a componentfeature of anobjective or reliable scientificcommunity will be bindingonly on thosewho sharethe overallcognitive goal that grounds those standards and who agree that the standardsdo indeedadvance that cognitivegoal. Such agreementmust itself be the outcome of critical discursive interactionsin a contextsatisfying conditions of effectivecriticism. As the virtuesunderstood as publicstandards are subordinated to the advancementof a specificcognitive aim whichmay change, theymust be understoodas provisional.As theyare binding only on those who sharethat aim, they mustbe understoodas partial. Thisway of thinkingabout knowledge and inquiry involves a shift in attentionaway from the outcomesor productsof inquiry, whetherthese are theories or beliefs,to theprocesses or dynamics of knowledgeproduction. The ideal stateis not the havingof a singlebest account,but the existenceof a pluralityof theoretical orientationsthat both make possible the elaborationof particular models of the phenomenalworld and serve as resourcesfor criticismof eachother. I've alreadyindicated why the feminist or anyset of alternative theoreticalvirtues could not be supersededby the traditional virtues.Two further objections must be addressed.One might ask whetherthere is not a set of cognitivevalues different from both the set identifiedas traditionaland that identifiedas alternative whichwould constitute universal norms. Perhaps the verdictsof provisionalityand partiality are the consequence of lookingat the 30 I-HELEN E. LONGINO wrongvalues. But this objection must provide examples of values that could be universallybinding. The only characteristicsof theoriesor hypothesesthat might qualify are truthor empirical adequacy.But truth in thecontext of theoryadjudication reduces to empiricaladequacy-truth of the observationalstatements of a theory.And empirical adequacy is notsufficient to eliminateall but oneof a setof contestingtheories. It is becausethe purely epistemic is not richenough to guideinquiry and theory appraisal that the valuesdiscussed earlier come into play. (For arguments about the insufficiencyof truthsimpliciter, see Anderson(1995) and Grandy (1987).)One might, alternatively, specify qualities of inquirersthat count as virtues,for example,open-mindedness and sensoryor logicalacuity, but these are not theoretical, but personal virtues, not public standardsof criticaldiscourse but qualitiesrequired to participateconstructively in suchdiscourse. Secondly, one might resistthe identification of competingsets of virtuesand suggest the integrationof thetwo sets of virtues.There are two difficulties with this suggestion.In particularcontexts of inquiryvirtues from the twosets recommend non-reconcilable theories. (Cf. Longino 1996) Moreover,integration can be understoodin at leasttwo ways,each involvingquite different presuppositions. It mightbe proposedas fulfillinga commitmentto unifiedscience, but thatcommitment needssupport. It might,on theother hand, be proposedas a wayof realizingtheoretical pluralism within a single community.This presupposesthe valueof the (particular)diversity of modelsthat inclusionof bothsets of valuesin a community'sstandards might produce.If so, whatis calledfor is notintegration of thevirtues by one researchcommunity, but the tolerance of andinteraction with researchguided by differenttheoretical virtues, the construction of largeror meta-communitiescharacterized by mutualrespect for divergentpoints of view,i.e. by pluralism. V

Feministtheoretical virtues and feminist epistemologies.Studying professedlyfeminist work in orderto determinewhat cognitive idealsand standards serve a regulativeor normativefunction for feministinquiry (or at least some feministinquiry) represents an approachto feministepistemology that differs from some of the FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY ASA LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 31

moreiconic views in feministtheory of knowledgesuch as feminist standpointtheory or feministempiricism. Feministstandpoint theory has been one of themost visible and mostdiscussed of feministapproaches to knowledge.Standpoint theoryhas been well-received among feminist thinkers, because it insists on the ineluctablesituatedness of knowers. Beliefs endorsed,theories produced by individualsbear the stampof their situations,which are whatprovide standpoints. Feminist stand- pointtheorists have emphasized the difference in the situationsof andknowledge/beliefs consequently produced by menand women or by individualsoccupying gendered positions, such as factory foreman,managerial bureaucrat, housewife or secretary.Some versions of standpointtheory articulatethe contrastin more explicitly political terms as one between masculinist or androcentricand feminist standpoints, where androcentrism would be thedefault or unreflective standpoint in a maledominant society and a feministstandpoint would be the achievementof critical reflection.The notion that (broadly speaking) social factors might play a role in the productionand acceptanceof theoriesis not uniqueto standpointtheory. What distinguishes standpoint theory fromother forms of contextualismis its normativedimension-its interestin identifyinga betteror moreobjective standpoint. As a Marxist standpointtheory privileges the standpointof the proletariatover thatof the bourgeoisie,so a feministstandpoint theory privileges the standpointof women (or of feminists) over that of men (or of androcentristsor masculinists). One repeatedcriticism of feminist standpointtheory is thatthere are many systematic differences among women (race, class, nationality,...) thatgenerate different standpoints. There cannot be one women's standpoint,or even one feministstandpoint, but many. Anotheris thatthe theoryends up in somethingof a vicious circle, since the identificationof standpoints,let alone epistemologically superiorones, requirestheory which in turnrequires justification, which implicatesa standpoint.Sandra Harding, one of the strongest philosophical defenders of standpointtheory has turnedthe first objectioninto a virtueby urgingwhat she calls 'strongobjectivity'. This is achieved by systematicreflexivity and by 'startingthought' from all marginalizedor socially subordinatedpositions, i.e. the positionsof women andmen in postcolonialsocieties, the positions 32 I-HELEN E. LONGINO of working class women and men in industrializedor in post- industrializedsocieties, of gay men and lesbians in industrialized societies, of the same in non-industrializedsocieties, etc. Maximal objectivity accrues to the body of inquiry most inclusive of heretofore marginalizedstandpoints. This proposal is somewhat hardto interpret(what, for instance,does 'startingthought' mean?) andis still subjectto chargesof circularityas just sketched.But what is of more interest is the kind of theory of knowledge standpoint theory, even revised as Hardingproposes, is. It has been called a form of naturalizedepistemology because it proceeds from some empirical premises (Thalos 1994). But it shares with traditional epistemology a commitmentto a singularlycorrect theory or set of theoriesas well as to a singularlycorrect methodology. Even though it locates those in particularsocial configurations,rather than in a set of context-freeuniversally applicablerules (such as Bayesian inference rules), in sharing epistemic ideals with traditional normativeepistemology, standpointtheory is closer to traditional epistemology than the contextualismoutlined above. In the latter, 1) no single position or set of positions is grantedauthority it does not earn as a consequence of empirical application and critical interaction with other perspectives, 2) any epistemological orientationis seen as bothprovisional and partial, and 3) ratherthan some single theoryproviding a best or definitiveaccount of reality, the availabilityof multipletheoretical approaches each illuminating different facets of a phenomenonconstitutes the best epistemo- logical outcome. What might be called naive feminist empiricism shares with standpointtheory the goal of a single best account and supposes that androcentricscience is a matter of failing to keep personal biases out of inquiry.Better science will be bias-freescience. Naive empiricismshares with contextualempiricism the emphasis given to observationaldata, but supposesobservational data and logic are sufficient to generate and justify theories. Contextualism,on the otherhand, argues in light of underdeterminationarguments for the necessity of assumptionsestablishing the evidential relevance of data to hypotheses and theories. FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 33

VI

Feminist theoreticalvirtues and philosophical epistemology.Both standpointtheory and feminist empiricismare normativetheories. They prescribeconditions for producingknowledge. Study of the theoretical virtues as engaged in here is not normative but descriptive/analytic.It offers an interpretationof normativeclaims ratherthan itself prescribing.I have indicatedhow the virtuescould be integrated into the minimally prescriptive contextual empiricism, but this integrationdoes not privilege the feminist or any other set of theoreticalvirtues. The complete set of regulativestandards, inclusive of theoretical virtues,guiding a community'sepistemic practices could be called its epistemology. This is the way the term 'epistemology' is used outside of philosophy. Given that communities will be dis- tinguishedfrom each other by those non-overlappingelements of community regulative standards,such epistemologies are local epistemologies. If general epistemic norms like empirical adequacy require supplementation by the more specific and distinctive norms, then normativeepistemology will be local epi- stemology, i.e. epistemic norms (apartfrom general prescriptions like 'establish evidential relevance') will be only locally and provisionally binding. Feminist epistemology does turnout to be partial,but not viciously so. In one sense, it is as partialas any local epistemology, in that inquiryconducted under its auspices will not reveal a total, but an incomplete, picture of reality. In a second sense, it is partial,not in being distortedby, but in being directedto the aim of providing knowledge useful or necessary to a communityidentified by its political goals. What then of the general inquiry we in philosophy call epistemology? I propose that general epistemology is not a normative, but an interpretive inquiry. General epistemology inquires into what is meant by distinctively epistemic language: what is the meaning of the distinctions between knowledge and belief, truthand falsity, objectivityand subjectivityand what is the relationbetween the values embeddedin those distinctionsand the epistemic practicesof communitiesemploying those distinctions. This inquiryis notjust into what is meant,but what could be meant given both particularcognitive resourcesand particularcognitive aims. Philosophical epistemology, I propose, makes sense of our 34 I-HELEN E. LONGINO

epistemically evaluative behaviour,but does not prescribefor it. Normativeor prescriptiveepistemology that can makecontact with actualinquiry is the task of those communitiesengaged in inquiry. Philosophers who engage in normative epistemology should be understoodas doing so not as membersof a class having special insight into knowledge, but as membersof particularcommunities of inquiry characterizedby partiality and provisionality, con- tributingto what from both a human's and a God's eye view is a pluralityof models and theories, ratherthan a single account that capturesall facets of reality. VII

Conclusion. I have arguedthat a set of theoreticalvirtues can be extractedfrom the normativereflections of feminists engaged in inquiry.This set constitutes an alternativeand a challenge to the traditionalepistemic virtues, as well as a set of virtues that could guide inquirydirected to feministcognitive aims.To the extent that feminist epistemology is work for feministphilosophers, it is work for us as members of a feminist communityof inquiry.Our task, as I see it, is not to prescribe to but to participatewith other members of that community in developing the criteria that will advance our cognitive aims. Generalphilosophical epistemology, by contrast, makes sense of our most general epistemically evaluative norms and behaviour, norms and behaviour that we sharewith otherswho shareconcepts such as 'know' and 'believe'. As philosopherswe may be able to achieve some critical distance that facilitates our offering interpretationsof our community's practicesto it, butchanges in those practicesmust be recommended from a position that is embeddedin the community,not one that stands apartfrom it.

REFERENCES

Alcoff, Linda and Elizabeth Potter, eds. 1993. Feminist Epistemologies. New York,NY: Routledge. Anderson, Elisabeth. 1995. 'Feminist Epistemology: An Interpretationand a Defense' Hypatia, 10, no. 3. pp. 50-84. Birke, Linda. 1986. Women,Feminism, and Biology: The Feminist Challenge. New York,NY: Methuen. Cartwright,Nancy. 1983. 'The TruthDoesn't ExplainMuch' in Cartwright,How the Laws of Physics Lie. New York,NY: Oxford UniversityPress. FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS A LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 35

Code, Lorraine.1991. WhatCan She Know? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Code, Lorraine.1995. GenderedSpaces: Essays on (Gendered)Locations. New York. NY: Routledge. Grandy,Richard. 1987. 'Information-basedEpistemology, Ecological Epistem- ology and Epistemology Naturalized'Synthese 70. pp. 191-203. Harding,Sandra. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Harding,Sandra. 1991. WhoseScience? WhoseKnowledge? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hubbard,Ruth. 1990. The Politics of Women'sBiology. New Brunswick, NJ: RutgersUniversity Press. Kuhn, Thomas. 1971. 'Objectivity,Values, and Theory Choice' in Kuhn, The Essential Tension.Chicago, IL: Universityof Chicago Press. Latour, Bruno. 1989. Science in Action. Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press. Lennon, Kathleen and MargaretWhitford, eds. 1994. Knowing the Difference. London:Routledge. Lloyd, Genevieve. 1984. The Man of Reason: Male and Female in Western Philosophy.Minneapolis, MN: Universityof Minnesota. Longino, Helen, E. 1990. Science as Social Knowledge.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Longino, Helen, E. 1994. 'In Search of Feminist Epistemology' The Monist 77, no. 4. pp. 472-85. Longino, Helen, E. 1996. 'Cognitive and Non-cognitive Values in Science: Rethinking the Dichotomy' in L. H. Nelson and J. Nelson, eds., Feminism, Science, and the Philosophyof Science. London:Kluwer Academic Publishers. Martin, Jane. 1988. 'Science in a Different Style' American Philosophical Quarterly,25. pp. 129-140. Quine,Willard van Ormanand Joseph Ullian. 1970. The WebofBelief New York, NY: Random House. Rooney, Phyllis. 1994. 'Recent Work in Feminist Discussions of Reason' AmericanPhilosophical Quarterly,31, no.1. pp. 1-21. Rooney, Phyllis. 1995. 'Rationality and the Politics of Gender Difference' Metaphilosophy26, no. 1-2, pp. 22-45. Solomon, Miriam. 1994. 'A More Social Epistemology' in Fred Schmitt, ed. Socializing Epistemology.Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. Stanley,Liz, ed. 1990. FeministPraxis. New York,NY: Routledge. Thalos, Mariam. 1994. 'The Common Need for Classic Epistemological Foundations:Against A FeministAlternative' The Monist 77, no. 4. pp. 531-53. FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS LOCAL EPISTEMOLOGY

Helen E. Longino and KathleenLennon

Il-Kathleen Lennon

I

T heflight from Transcendence.I was delightedto be askedto reply to Helen Longino's paper.I have been readingher work with greatinterest for severalyears. What I would like to do in this reply is to place her contextualism in relation to other possible responses to the current flight from transcendence. Feminist epistemologists, in common with many other strands of con- temporary thought, no longer regard knowledge as a neutral transparentreflection of an independentlyordered reality, with truth and falsity established by transcendentprocedures of rational assessment. Rather most accept that all knowledge is situated knowledge, reflectingthe position of the knowledge producerat a certainhistorical moment in a given materialand culturalcontext. (Lennon and Whitford,1994, introduction) Longino refers to both critical and constructivedimensions of feminist engagement in academic disciplines. I would like to briefly review some differentstrands of this work as they bear on what I have to say later.Early and ongoing feminist engagement in academic disciplines has been concerned to make evident the masculinist characterof areas of knowledge which have been a product of apparentlyneutral procedures of rationalassessment. There are differentways in which such work has been shown to be 'masculine'. (Lennon, 1995) Firstly there has been an insistence on the empirical inadequacy of theories which, by ignoring distinctive experiences, histories, writings, work and practices of women have producedputatively general accounts which could not comfortably accommodate them. Only male subjects were researchedin relationto heartdisease. Sociological accountsof the family ignoredconflicts of interestswithin it. Historicalnarratives 38 II-KATHLEENLENNON failed to accommodatethe position of women. Secondly therehas been broadly deconstructive work, which attends to the texts within which knowledge is articulated,interrogating the structures of narrative,images and metaphors.This work uncoversthe hierarchical oppositions which underpin apparently rational transitionsand highlightstheir interdependencewith gender hierarchies.The texts addressedinclude, in additionto literary, historicaland philosophicalones, scientific theories and science's account of its own activities. By means of such a process 'gender norms come to be seen as silent organisers of the mental and discursive maps of the naturalworlds we simultaneouslyinhabit and construct,even of those worlds thatwomen never enter' (Fox- Keller 1992, p. 13). Thirdly there is archeological work, in the Foucauldiansense. Here, by means of carefulhistorical excavations of the emergence of particulartheories attention is paid, not only to patterns of conceptualisations and rationalisation employed in particular texts, but also to concrete material practices and negotiation between different sites of power, out of which what gets counted as 'facts' emerge. An example is Nelly Oudshoorn'sBeyond the Natural Body (Oudshoorn1994) which explores the emergence of theories of sex hormones, out of which came classification of hormonesas male and female and a conceptionof the female body as being at the mercy of its hormonalbalance. The emergence of theories of sex hormones rested not only on gendered cultural assumptionsbut also on contingencies such as the availability of urine from gynaecological clinics or mares' urine from stables, enabling the productionand investigationof the so called female sex hormone. What becomes most philosophically salient from both the deconstructionistand archeologicalwork is the recognitionof the contingency of the scientific narrativesand the possibility of alter- native ways of dealing with the data which might better suit our epistemologicalobjectives. Here feminist work shared moments of thought with post positivist philosophers of science who, in recognisingthe underdeterminationof theoryby data,highlighted the role of epistemological virtues in addition to empirical adequacy as playing a role in theory choice. But, as Longino's discussion makes clear, the two approachesdid not necessarily FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 39

share their views of what these additionalvirtues might be. Nelly Oudshoorndiscusses a periodwhen, despiteprevious classification into male andfemale hormones,it becameclear that neither set was found in bodies withoutthe other.What had been regardedas male sex organs did not develop without so called female hormones.It was also the case that attentionto hormonepresence, increasingly seen as a markerof sex difference,didn't dictate a division intojust two sexes There was rathera patchworkof similarities and dif- ferences. Genderdivisions within culturetold againstthe creation of a theoreticalnarrative here which did away with the division into just two sexes. Contemplating this moment now with altered sensibilities might however open the possibility of alternative accounts. However the unifying assumptions of evolutionary biology might dictate quite a differentaccount from that attentive to the complexities of lived sexual difference. (Fausto Sterling 1993). Most feminist epistemologistsreject as unrealisablea projectof producingknowledge that does not bear the marksof its material andcultural conditions of production.However, once we recognise thatit is notjust in the productionof ideologicallydistorted theories thatour accountof natureis mediatedby culture,we areconfronted by epistemological dilemmas. Theories cannot be assessed by reference to universalnorms. For some writersthis has led to the abandonmentof traditionalquestions of justificationwhich were the benchmark of epistemology. Yet for many feminists such justificatoryquestions remain firmly in play. Feministwriters have wished to displace certainscientific theories.They have moreover been seeking narratives about the world which will facilitate effective interventionsor enable certain practical forms of life. Recognition of the textuality and locatedness of scientific know- ledge has not thereforeled to the abandonmentof epistemological questions but rather highlighted their complexity. The question becomes, how is normativeepistemology possible given the flight from transcendence? Longino's response is that normative epistemology becomes local epistemology. I want to consider whethernormative epistemologies are necessarilylocal. 40 II-KATHLEEN LENNON

II

Epistemological Standpoints. Traditional epistemology approachesthe issue of justificationvia the applicationof criteria to the product of knowledge, separating off, as it is normally expressed, the context of discovery from the context of justi- fication. In much contemporaryepistemology, however, attention to the material and social position of knowledge producershas been invoked as part of the assessment procedures for the legitimacy of the knowledge produced.The critiques of areas of knowledge as being 'masculine' in these varieties of ways were mounted primarily, though not exclusively, by women. In the earliest accounts the masculinity was seen as reflective of a homogeneousmale psyche(explainedby object relationstheory as a productof certainfamily arrangements).(Harding and Hintikka 1983) The feminist project was seen as producing knowledge which reflected female subject positions. Knowledge produced from such a position was then seen as privileged.(Hartsock 1983). Such a move owes a clear intellectualdebt to Hegel's master/slave dialectic and to a Marxist epistemology where privilege is accordedto the position of the proletariat.There are a numberof problems with this approach,some of which Longino signals in her discussion of standpointtheory. The masculinity involved is variable and contradictoryand in many cases critiquedfrom gay and post colonial sources as well as feminist ones. There is no homogeneous female subject position to serve as the basis for critique and reconstruction.After all 'the margin is not a shared space'. (Griffiths 1995, p. 16) Moreover the 'Standpointsof the subjugatedare not innocent positions. They are not exempt from critical reexamination, decoding, deconstruction and inter- pretation'(Haraway 1991, p. 191) This is in part because we all have to make sense of our world in terms of the discourses which are available to us. At its most fixed the symbolic orderwhich we need if we are to thinkat all is viewed as resolutelypatriarchal, and the marginalitythe price we have to pay to avoid psychosis. (Lacan 1977) However even if we resist this picture by insisting on the multiplicity and fluidity of discourse there appearsno necessary link between material position and the discourses adopted, by means of which our world and our sense of self are produced. FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY ASLOCAL EPISTEMOLOGY 41

These points, though raising legitimate difficulties for justi- ficatory procedureswhich attend only to the materialposition of the knowledge producers,suggest too disembodieda conceptionof knowledge. As has been frequentlypointed out in discussions of Foucault(McNay 1992 p. 59) we arenot simply docile bodies, able to produceourselves and ourworld with whateverdiscourses come our way. It is ratherthe case that the possibility of participatingin knowledge-sharingcommunities and adopting shared discursive forms rests on sharedactivities anchoredin our materialand social embodiment.Gadamer refers to the 'throwness'of our situationin the world and points to the 'prejudices',prejudgments and biases without which knowledge would not be possible. 'It is our prejudicesthat constitute our being... Prejudicesare not necessarily unjustifiedand erroneous[but]... constitutethe initialdirectedness of our whole ability to experience.They are simply conditions... wherebywhat we encountersays somethingto us.' (Gadamer1976 p. 9) There are clear parallels here with the recognition in post positivist philosophy of the role of backgroundassumptions in conditioning our observations. These prejudices inform our standpointonto the world. As I understandit such a standpointis constitutedby the transparencywith which certaindescriptions are applied to situations, certain judgments called for, certain intentionalacts requiredand certain patterns of reflectivereasoning recognised as legitimate. Crucially such transparencyis not a matter of a brute causal response but is marked by normative recognition.What is being recognisedis the appropriateapplication of concepts etc. In this sense a standpointmarks a position in the domain of reason. For Gadamer our prejudices are a result of the tradition we inherit,but we need to pay attentionhere not only to the tradition but to the conditions which make it teachable. The standpoints which we occupy are marked by shared practices, intentionally directed activities transformingour environment.The possibility of such practices are restricted by the material and social environmentswe are in and our relationsto them, as well as by the characteristicsof our bodies. Only certainkinds of body can adjust their angle to walk up hills, breatheappropriately in labour.In our social milieu only certain kinds of body (white ones), have available to them the thought that 'colour doesn't matter'. 42 II KATHLEENLENNON

(Williams1997) Such material and socialenvironments and modes of embodimentcondition the standpointswe can occupy.The conceptof a standpointneeds further enriching once we recognise theImaginary dimension of ourknowledge. In a recentwork Moira Gatensuses the termImaginary to 'referto thoseimages, symbols metaphorsand representations which help construct various forms of subjectivity...those ready-madeimages and symbolsthrough whichwe makesense of socialbodies and which determine in part theirvalue, their status and what will be deemedtheir appropriate treatment'. (Gatens 1996, p. viii) The Imaginaryis the domainof affectand reflects the affecting and affected interactions of human bodies.The affective dimension of theImaginary makes it resistant to changesimply by orderedpatterns of argument.This resilience is reinforcedby its often unconsciousdimension. It informs 'embodiedhabits' which become 'second nature'. (Gatens 1996, passim)Wittgenstein pointed out that communicable meaning rests on agreementin judgmentsand the possibilityof this rests on somethinglike a shared'natural history'. (Wittgenstein 1958, §415) This sharedhistory is not to be understoodin simply a biological sense. It call incorporateall the elementssignalled above:social and material embodiment and affective interactions. The crucialpoint, however,is that the applicabilityof certain discursiveforms, the appropriatenessof practices and the forceof certain reflective patternsof reasons is not available from 'anywhere',but is anchoredin epistemologicalstandpoints marked by suchshared 'natural histories'. Whilerecognising the role of standpointswe mustbe waryof seeing them as closed and self containedboxes. Unlike spatial positionsstandpoints can be multipleand not exclusive.Between people there will be a patchworkof sharedand overlapping standpoints.Moreover our 'naturalhistories' are constantly changing(often by encounterswith others, see below),yielding the possibilityof agreementsin new types of judgments.Gadamer characterisedthe situationin the followingway: 'We definethe conceptof "situation"by sayingthat it representsa standpointthat limits the possibilityof vision. Hence an essentialpart of the conceptof situationis theconcept of "horizon".The horizon is the rangeof vision thatincludes everything that can be seen froma particularvantage point.... The closed horizon that is supposedto FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGYAS LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 43

surrounda culture is an abstraction.The historical movement of humanlife consists in the fact that it is never utterlybound to any standpoint,and hence can never have a truly closed horizon.The horizon is, rather,something into which we move and that moves with us.' (Gadamer1975 p. 271) The prejudices, background assumptions, and metaphoric associations informing particular standpoints are frequently unavailableto those occupying them. This was what I was trying to convey with the suggestion that concept application and rationalising links appear transparentfrom certain perspectives. This can providean impressionof the naturalnessand inevitability of patternsof thoughtwhich arecontingent and situated.It requires the intervention of differently situated viewers to unsettle the transparencyand reveal the contingency of the production.Their positionalitynot only provides differenthorizons but can provide the context from which background assumptions, alternative empiricalconstraints and hierarchical oppositions informing trans- itions in thought become visible. Engagement with differently situatedknowers is thereforenecessary if our knowledge is to be subjectedto critiqueand we are to reachnew types of judgment. Epistemological progressi appearsto involve both contexts of relative stability within which research strategies can be formulatedand periods of destabilisation(the parallelswith Kuhn here are deliberate). (Kuhn 1962) But knowledge can be neither producednor transformed from nowhere. All this requiresattention to standpointsas partof ourprocess of evaluation.Nonetheless the multiplicity of oppositional voices, and the lack of homogeneity within any category, together with the lack of innocence of subjugatedvoices, make the awardingof epistemic privilege to a specific standpointproblematic. III

Justificatory Strategies 1. Longino. Longino, along with many traditional epistemologists, sees the need for public and nonarbitrarycriteria for the assessment of theories, while also recognising that objectivity cannot be achieved by any simple process of empirical checking or by the application of context

1. Thenotion of epistemologicalprogress here is notpresupposing a telos. It is exhausted by theidea that knowledge is beingsubject to critiqueand new judgments made possible. 44 II-KATHLEEN LENNON

independentcriteria of rationality.She startsfrom the position of post-positivist philosophy of science, recognising the under- determinationof theoryby data,and the need to supplementcriteria of empirical adequacy with additional epistemological virtues. However, in place of the list suggested by, e.g., Kuhn, she puts forward those which have recommendedthemselves to feminist scientists. In addition to empirical adequacy she lists novelty, ontological heterogeneity,complexity or mutualityof interaction, applicabilityto human needs, broadly distributedempowerment. Such a list combines political and ethical values with what appear to be more conventional epistemic ones, forming a holistic frameworkof assessment. Longino does not claim any transcendentstatus for her list. Its legitimacy is anchoredin the communityfrom which it is drawn. Criteriaof assessment should be those agreed by a community of knowledge seekers who share some common objectives. It is only with reference to such a community that the criteriacan play a justificatory role. This is why for her normative epistemology remainslocal. In the case of the criteriashe cites she refersback to the community of feminist scientists engaged in a project of renderinggender visible and ending hierarchicalpower relations between men and women. Othercommunities may have different constitutiveobjectives and evaluatetheories differently. There will thereforebe a 'pluralityof models and theories,rather than a single accountthat captures all facets of reality'. (Longino,this volume p. 34) To go back to our earlierexample we might have one theory of sex differencesto suit the needs of a unifying evolutionarybiology and anotherto addressthe lived complexities of gender. Thus far it looks as if Longino has simply contextualised traditional epistemological procedures. However her overall picture is more complex than this and involves elements of what might be called materialas well as criterialmodes of justification. The legitimacyof the criteriaemployed depends on the constitution of the community from which they are derived. Crucially this communitymust be diverse.This attentionto the constitutionof the communityis a consequenceof the kind of considerationsoutlined in the previous section. It is needed so that a varietyof viewpoints are representedand assumptionsinvisible from some standpoints become visible. Even though all participantsneed to agree on FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 45 objectives, they have to reachagreement on criteriaand, as thereis nothing mechanicalabout the applicationof criteria,they have to discuss their applicability.It is at this point that attentionto the situatedness of the knowledge producers enters into the justi- ficatoryprocedure. But, unlike standpointtheory, no perspectiveis given epistemic privilege. Such a communitymust have structural features that 'ensure the effectiveness of the critical discourse takingplace withinit'. (Longino,this volume p. 28) These include 'the provision of venues for the articulationof criticism... uptake (rather than mere toleration) of criticism... public standardsto which discursive interactionsare referenced...equality of intel- lectual authorityfor all (qualified) members of the community'. Within this frameworkknowledge can be assessed directly with referenceto agreedpublic criteria and indirectly by referenceto the constitutionof the communityfrom which the criteriaderive. The overall position combines recognition of the need for orderly proceduresof rationalassessment with attentionto the situatedness of knowers. All that appearssacrificed is a single unified view of the world. There is a tension within Longino's account between the requirementof diversity within the communityand the procedural need for consensus in termsboth of the definingobjectives and the criteria whereby the objectives are to be promoted. The very conditions promoting consensus militate against diversity. The tension however seems to reflect the two aspects of knowledge productionreferred to above. We need relativestability to develop our research programmes, but we need diversity to provide critique. The aspect of Longino's picturewhich I find more problematic is the model of rationalitywhich she appearsto endorse,and which leads to her conclusion thatnormative epistemological projects are necessarily local ones. For Longino epistemological assessment requiresthe applicationof agreedpublic standards.In the absence of such standardsthere is no possibility of normativeengagement across differentstandpoints. At a seminarwhere I was discussing Longino's views I was asked why a traditionalscientist should be interestedin whetherhis theoriesmatched the criteriathat Longino had suggested. There is no reason, the reply seems to be, unless they can identify an objective they both sharewhich would require 46 II-KATHLEENLENNON

such attention.Where it is not possibleto reachthe appropriate consensuson objectives,procedures and standards there is no basis for rationalengagement. Yet this doesn'tseem right.The scientificcommunity which feminists critiquedhad reachedconsensus on epistemological criteria,but the critiquesemerged from feministswho did not necessarilyshare them. Yet feminist criticisms aimed to challenge anddiscredit the masculineaccounts they critiqued, not simplyto adda furtherperspective. This requires the possibilityof rational encountersbetween the positions.A year or so ago I was at a conferenceof feministphilosophy in Beijingwhere the patchwork andmultiplicity of overlappingsimilarities and differences made consensuson objectives,criteria or methods of debatenot possible to achieve.Anne Seller writes of a similarexperience on hertrip to a women'suniversity in SouthernIndia. (Seller 1994) However thewidening of horizonswhich the Chinese visit produced and the transformativedialogues Anne Seller so painstakinglyarticulates in her accountof her visit seem to exemplifythe possibilityof rationalengagement in theabsence of consensus(I'll returnto this below). Moreoverwhen we look at the completepicture that Longino offersus it alsoseems to requirerational negotiation in theabsence of consensualcriteria. She requiresdiversity within her com- munities.This wouldnot be importantif rationalassessment was simplythe uncontested application of publicstandards justified by referenceto agreedobjectives. But, of course,the objectives can be understoodin differentways and the relevance of evidenceand the applicabilityof standardsis open to a varietyof interpretations. This is why diversevoices are required.The 'criticaldiscursive interactionsin a contextsatisfying conditions of effectivecriticism' (Longinothis volume,p. 29) she thenrecommends, as neededto resolve these differences,seems to be an exampleof rational engagementof a nonprocedural kind. It is to safeguardthis process thatshe insistson equalityof intellectualauthority, and the take up of criticism,and rules out as unacceptableconsensus reached by the exerciseof politicalor economicpower. This leavesus withtwo questions.If sucha processof rational engagementis possiblewithin communities is it not alsopossible across communities?If it is possible across communities,as FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGYAS LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 47

Longino suggests with one remark, ('a plurality of theoretical orientations...serve as resourcesfor criticismof each other'), then why is normativeepistemology only local epistemology?Secondly given that the democraticepistemological communitiesto which Longino refers are, she admits, a regulativeideal, a project to be workedtowards, is there any way we can rationallyproceed in the non egalitarianenvironments we occupy? IV

Justificatory strategies 2: Harding. A different approach to epistemological justification, with which Longino contrasts her own position, is found in the recent work of Sandra Harding (Harding 1991, 1993). Whereas in Longino's approach the procedural model of epistemic assessment is foregrounded,in Hardingit is the material.Harding starts from a position in which there are dominantand subjugatedknowledges and inequalitiesof power andprovides us with a model of progressiveepistemological assessment without need for consensual agreement. Harding develops a conception of strong objectivity which incorporates reflexivity concerning the positions of the subject of knowledge into our assessment of the reliability of the knowledge offered. Attention to the context of discovery allows us to question what particularknowledge seekers,given theirvalidating practices, were in a position to know, what evidence was unlikely to come to their attention,and to considerwhose interestswere being servedby the procedures.For Hardingthe achievementof strongobjectivity was interdependentwith the privileging of the epistemic position of marginalperspectives. She urges us to start our theorising from marginal lives, in an attempt to address the reality of the intersection between knowledge and power. These lives form a basis for critique,bringing into relief sourcesof evidence invisible to dominantgroups, making explicit backgroundassumptions and exposing the ideological structuringof narratives,They are also a starting point for reconstruction.In the search for explanatory narrativeswhich incorporateperspectives which were previously marginalnew theories get producedwhich have to be subject to critique from their own marginalities,in a progressive project withoutclosure or finitude. 48 II-KATHLEEN LENNON

There are a numberof issues arisingout of this approach,not all of which I have time or space to discuss properlyhere. There is, for example, the question of the domains over which marginalitY of certain kinds might be thought to yield epistemic privilege. There is also the issue thatthe division between marginand centre is not fixed, it is rathera fluid and contestedone. (Bat-Ami Bar On 1993) I, however,want to pick up on otherfeatures from Harding's account. Harding'ssystem requiresa process of interpretationand translation across difference which militates against seeing perspectives as closed and self contained. Moreover this is a moment in her theorising where the process of epistemological assessment does not appearto be satisfactorilyaccommodated by a brutelymaterialist move. If marginalperspectives are to provide a challenge to, or discredit,dominant ones, they can do so in two ways. We might requireno point of engagementbetween the two perspectives but chose the marginal critiques because they are marginal.This is whatI would termthe brutelymaterial move. This seems unsatisfactory for many reasons, among them the fact referredto earlier that subjugatedaccounts are not innocent. In additionthe marginsis not a sharedspace andsuch a process would yield multiple and contradictoryaccounts. More plausibly the progress made possible by marginal perspectives requires a recognitionof differentperspectives as standingin relationto one another,so that the adoption of one impacts on and necessarily modifies the adoptionof another. The possibility of reachingsuch engagementrequires a process of understandingacross difference which is simultaneously a process of rationalassessment. The recognitionof challenge and the process of destabilisationis not simply a causal product of knowledge seekers encounteringeach other. It is an epistemo- logical encounterthat takes place in the space of reasons.It is not, however, a matter of lining up sets of propositions whose relationships of mutual entailment are visible from anywhere, neither is it a process of distancing oneself from either or both

2. WithinMarxist epistemology, the proletariatwere privileged, in partbecause, though marginalto theproduction of theory,they were central to theprocess whereby capital was increased.In a parallelvein we mightexpect, for example, privilege from those who, for hundredsof years have tendedthe forests,but who have had no say in theircurrent management.However, once we recognisethe force of deconstructivecritique, we haveno a prioriway of characterisingthe domains over which particular marginal positions generate a transformativeeye. FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGYAS LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 49 positions to assess the relationshipbetween them. Consider the simplest case. Some women draw attention to aspects of their experience which they argue display the empiricalinadequacy of certaintheories. Of course theiraccounts and the links they see are not uncontested. To see their relevance requires entering sufficiently into a way of life to recognise the appropriatenessof the descriptions.We can thinkof everydayexamples here;coming to see patternsof behaviouras harassmentinstead of 'a bit of fun'. Similar points can be made of deconstructivecriticisms of texts which are claimed to legitimate hierarchicalpower relations, but which need to be heardin certaincontexts for this to stand out. A couple of years ago in a lectureon Heideggerthe lecturerremarked 'they are even reading Heidegger in China'. I was attendingthe lecture with two visiting academics from China, visiting our departmentto work on collaborative projects in Philosophy of Mind and Feminist Theory.Listening to the remarkas if through their ears made visible the hierarchicalcreation of otherness the lecturer appeared to miss. These are examples which require normative but not systematisablenegotiation. Harding's account therefore, like Longino's, requires such normative engagement. But, unlike Longino's, this is not restrictedwithin communities which shareobjectives. V

Worldtravelling. Understandingacross difference is not an all or nothing affair. It is experimental, often partial, sometimes unexpected, rarelyimpossible and rarelycomplete. It is a process which in recent years has been the focus of attentionof a number of feminist philosophers.Harding asks us to start our theorising from marginal positions, men to start their theorising from the position of women and white women fromthe lives of ex colonised women. There are importantadvantages of such an approach.It preventsus seeing differenceas yielding closed and homogeneous perspectives.We must be wary, however, of an assumptionof the availabilityand transparencyof perspectivesto otherswhich might encouragea pictureof a transcendentsubject who could somehow chose the most appropriatestandpoint to advancetheir knowledge. Attendingto the standpointsof women or post colonial peoples is notjust makingthem an objectof study.There has been no shortage 50 II-KATHLEENLENNON of men theorising about women or white people about black. Naomi Scheman has highlighted the danger of appealing to 'the experiences of people of color to provide the raw materialfor a more adequatetheory, which it would remain the prerogativeof people like me to create and authorise'. (Scheman 1993) Recognising the nature of perspectival knowledge requires acknowledging the defeasible privilege of those occupying the situationsto which it is tied, in its articulation.It is for this reason that Longino insisted on diversity within the epistemological community. Equally, however we must not see standpointsas being closed and understandingas being like box hopping. We are requiredto think through and interpret together standpoints which are discrepant.It is only in this way that a progressionof knowledge is possible. It would be of no help to bracketour own situationand enter into another,even if that was a coherentpossibility. What is being attemptedis what Gadamercalled a 'fusion of horizons' (Gadamer1975, p. 271), wherebyour own positionis risked,tested and modified, and consequently enlarged. The pitfalls and successes are brilliantly invoked by Anne Seller in the paper previously mentioned reflecting on her visit to Mother Teresa University in SouthernIndia. 'WhatI was discovering was a way of being with otherswhose immediateunderstandings were not my own. This requireda full engagement,with all my skills and values in play, helping me to feel my way.' (Seller 1994, p. 245) Susan Strickland,in a paper in the same volume, describes it like this: 'understandingcan occur in encounterwith others in response to the challenge their differentexperiences and understandingsoffer us, if we are preparedto question our own self understandingsin the light of theirsand revise them if need be. ...The process I have in mind is generally...a productof conflict and tension, more like a argumentwhere you go away angry and hurt and defensive of your own point of view, but can't forget theirs, so that at the next encounter it has changed in interactionwith theirs, and so on.' (Strickland 1994) Margaret Whitford, in her recent inaugural lecture employed the terminology of 'world travelling' derived from the work of MariaLugones. 'The point I want to take from the idea of world travelling is that translationacross worlds is needed because our worlds are not transparentto each other...the FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 51 personlike Lugoneswho can mediateacross worlds because she inhabitsmore than one is a figureof ourtimes... she is theone who makesit possiblefor worlds to communicatewith each other rather thanremaining self enclosed...world travelling emphasises that thereis needfor translation,and that there is a differencebetween world travellingand tourismand a limit to each individuals capacities.'(Whitford 1996, p. 36-7) VI

Epistemologyand Hermeneutics.Does this suggest thatwe should give up projectsof epistemologicaljustification and turn to hermeneutics?To ask that question is to constructa false opposition.The attention to positionalitywhich we findin all these papersis notdrawn in contrastto a normativeproject, but as a part of it. Worldtravelling and the transformationswhich it involves requiresthe making of judgments. It is nota processof brutecausal transformation,but one in which reason and normativityare central:'judgment cannot be avoided...being who I was, doing thingsin the way I knew,meant that I judged,even whenI didn't intendto... The only way to avoidjudgment is to totally lose identity,and to be completelyunresponsive to the worldaround you.' (Seller 1994, p. 245) John McDowell in his recently publishedJohn Locke lectures(McDowell 1994) insists on the mediatednature of experience.For McDowellall experienceis conceptualisedand such conceptualisationbrings it within the domainof reason.We cannot access an experienceand then raise a furtherquestion concerning what judgments it mightbe woven into reason-givingrelations with. McDowell's account of conceptualisationand rationalisation is overly systematic from the pointof view of thispaper, echoing a Kantianismrthe rejectionof whichformed our initial problematic. But this much seems sound. Enteringinto the worldsof othersis a normativeaffair. The difficultyhere is to recognisethat such encountersare processesof rationalengagement, in theabsence of agreedcriteria by referenceto whichthe outcomecan be evaluated.The absence of criteriadoes not meanthe absenceof constraints,however. The constraintsbecome something like hermeneutic plausibility, rather than falling under a consensualnorm. We are used to such constraintswhen we cometo appreciateworks of artor texts which 52 II-KATHLEEN LENNON were previouslyopaque to us. We may be less comfortablewith the suggestion that they enter into processes of scientific validation. Donna Haraway'swork on Primatology(Haraway 1989) explores the connections between the theoretical accounts of scientific primatologistsand the images and associations of primatesin the surroundingculture. These latterboth direct scientific observation and structureinterpretation. She explores the way in which they legitimatepositions of power of both men andthe EuropeanRaces. She also signals changes in such narrativestructures over time, and highlights the new stories of female activity and power and cooperative societies producedby feminist primatologists.When an old style primatologist encounters these critiques and reconstructionswhat is at issue is hermeneuticplausibility. But this is not something which can be assessed without the kind of engagement with the new standpointswhich the feminist writers, referredto in the previous section, were at pains to explore. Where does this leave us in relationto the inquirerwondering if a scientist workingwith Kuhn'schecklist had any reasonto attend to evaluations based on Longino's? From within an account of rationalitywhich requiresagreed objectives in relation to which these evaluationscan be placed, there seems to be a standoff.The approach I am advocating would say something like; if the traditionalscientist paid enough attentionto the standpointsfrom which the alternative evaluations emerged he might come to appreciatetheir worth! VII Conclusions. Given the abandonmentof transcendentcriteria of epistemological reflectionand the recognitionof the situatedness and embodied natureof knowledge we seem to have been faced with a variety of options: (a) a collapse into an unnegotiable pluralism;(b) a restrictionof normativeassessment to contexts of consensual agreement;(c) the allocationof epistemic privilege on the basis of materialand social position. What I have wanted to suggest by my discussion is that there are other moves possible. Longino's discussion of local epistemologies accommodatesthe moment of relative stability of context within which research strategiesbecome articulated.If, as I have suggested,epistemology also involves the destabilisingof such projects and an expansion FEMINISTEPISTEMOLOGY AS LOCALEPISTEMOLOGY 53 of horizonsthen we need normativeengagement outside of the epistemologicalcommunities she describes.The picture emerging fromthe work of a numberof contemporaryfeminist philosophers allowsfor a progressivenormative enterprise which relies, not on the possibilityof consensualprinciples, but rather, in the wordsof AnneSeller, on 'learninghow to travel'.3

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3. I amparticularly grateful to mypast and present graduate students for many productive discussionson issuesconnected to thispaper. Susan Strickland first drew my attentionto the fruitfulrelation between feminist epistemology and hermeneutics. (Strickland 1993). LawrenceNixon highlighted the importance of Wittgenstein'sremarks on naturalhistories. MenekseUzbay and Stella Gonzales Arnal foregrounded an account of knowledgeanchored in practicalengagement with the world. Stephen Burwood's work on Merleau-Ponty alerted me to the importanceof bodilyrelations to thejudgments we canmake (Burwood 1995). Gill Jaggerpersuaded me of theethical possibilities within deconstruction. (Jagger 1996). HarshGrewals richly informed writing made me clearerregarding the affective dimension of standpoints.The paper is alsoinformed by, thoughvery different from, Barwell 1994. I am alsoindebted to PaulGilbert and Annette Fitzsimons for patient engagement with my ideasover many years, and the women from the Society for Women in Philosophyand Hull Centrefor GenderStudies for providingconditions of interactivedialogue, even while consensuson objectivesor standardsmight still be hardto reach. 54 II-KATHLEENLENNON

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