Feminist Epistemology As a Local Epistemology Author(S): Helen E

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: 26/04/2010 19:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Aristotelian Society and Blackwell Publishing are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes. 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 epistemology, 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

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