Feminist Philosophy of Science: Standpoint Matters

Abstract

Feminist standpoint theory has a contentious history. It is an explicitly political as well as social epistemologa characterized by the thesis that those who are marginalized or oppressed under conditions of systemic inequity may, in fact, be better knowers, in a number of respects, than those who are socially or economically privileged. Their epistemic advantage arises from the kinds of experience they are likely to have, situated as they are, and the resources available to them for understanding this experience. Feminist standpoint theorists argue that gender is one dimension of social differentiation that makes such an epistemic difference.1 Standard critiques of feminist standpoint theory attribute to it two manifestly untenable theses: that epistemically consequential standpoints must be conceptualized in essentialist terms, and that those who occupy them have automatic and comprehensive epistemic privilege. A world structured by hierarchical, oppressive social divisions thus becomes a world of unbridgeable epistemic solitudes. I agree that neither thesis is tenable and I argue that neither is a necessary presupposition of standpoint theory. The anxious philosophical nightmare of corrosive relativism2 does not afflict standpoint theorists any more than it does other varieties of social epistemology and socially naturalized contextualism, and need not be epistemically disabling in any case. My aim here is to offer a systematic reformulation of standpoint theory, and address two questions: What epistemic insights does standpoint theory offer? And what is the scope of its application?

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