Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science studies the ways inwhich gender does and ought to influence our conceptions of knowledge,knowers, and practices of inquiry and justification. It identifies howdominant conceptions and practices of knowledge attribution,acquisition, and justification disadvantage women and othersubordinated groups, and strives to reform them to serve the interestsof these groups. Various feminist epistemologists and philosophers ofscience argue that dominant knowledge practices disadvantage women by(1) excluding them from inquiry, (2) denying them epistemic authority,(3) denigrating “feminine” cognitive styles, (4) producingtheories of women that represent them as inferior, or significant onlyin the ways they serve male interests, (5) producing theories ofsocial phenomena that render women’s activities and interests,or gendered power relations, invisible, and (6) producing knowledgethat is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or thatreinforces gender and other social hierarchies. Feministepistemologists trace these failures to flawed conceptions ofknowledge, knowers, objectivity, and scientific methodology. Theyoffer diverse accounts of how to overcome these failures. They alsoaim to (1) explain why the entry of women and feminist scholars intodifferent academic disciplines has generated new questions, theories,methods, and findings, (2) show how gender and feminist values andperspectives have played a causal role in these transformations, (3)promote theories that aid egalitarian and liberation movements, and(4) defend these developments as epistemic advances. Readers who wishto delve more deeply into particular aspects of this subject can learnmore by consulting the entries onfeminist social epistemology,feminist perspectives on science, andfeminist perspectives on biology.

The central concept of feminist epistemology is of situated knowledge:knowledge that reflects the particular perspectives of the knower.Feminist philosophers explore how gender situates knowing subjects.They have articulated three main approaches to thisquestion—feminist standpoint theory, feminist postmodernism, andfeminist empiricism—which have converged over time. Conceptionsof how gender situates knowers also inform feminist approaches to thecentral problems of the field: grounding feminist criticisms ofscience and feminist science, defining the proper roles of social andpolitical values in inquiry, evaluating ideals of objectivity, andreforming practices of epistemic authority and epistemic virtue.

• 1. Situated Knowers
• 2. Feminist Standpoint Theory
• 3. Feminist Postmodernism
• 4. Feminist Empiricism
• 5. Interactions of Feminist Standpoint Theory, Postmodernism, and Empiricism
• 6. Feminist Science Criticism and Feminist Science
• 7. Feminist Defenses of Value-Laden Inquiry
• 8. Feminist Critiques and Conceptions of Objectivity
• 9. Epistemic Authority, Epistemic Injustice, Epistemologies of Ignorance, and Virtue Epistemology
• 10. External Criticisms of Feminist Epistemology
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Situated Knowers

Feminist epistemology conceives of knowers as situated in particularrelations to what is known and to other knowers. What is known, andhow it is known, reflects the situation and perspective of the knower.Here we are concerned withclaims to know, temporarilybracketing the question of which claims are true or warranted.

Situated knowledge in general. People may understandthe same object in different ways that reflect the distinct relationsin which they stand to it. (1)Embodiment. People experiencethe world by using their bodies, which have different constitutionsand are differently located in space and time. (2)First-personvs. third-person knowledge. Individuals have first-personalaccess to some of their own bodily and mental states, and knowledgeabout themselves, which differs from third-person knowledge aboutthem. (3)Emotions, attitudes, interests, and values. Peopleoften represent objects in relation to their emotions, attitudes andinterests, which differ from how others represent these objects. Athief represents a lock as a frustrating obstacle while its ownerrepresents the lock as a comforting source of security. (4)Personal knowledge of others. Because people behavedifferently toward others, and others interpret their behaviordifferently, depending on their personal relationships, what othersknow of them depends on these relationships. (5)Know-how.People have different skills, which may also be a source of differentpropositional knowledge. (6)Cognitive Styles. People havedifferent styles of investigation and representation (e.g. preferringlumping or splitting). (7)Background beliefs and worldviews.People form different beliefs about an object, in virtue of differentbackground beliefs. Such differences may lead a patient to interprethis symptoms as signs of a heart attack, while his doctor diagnosesheartburn. Differences in global metaphysical or political worldviewsmay also generate different beliefs about particulars on a broaderscale. (8)Relations to other inquirers. People may stand indifferent epistemic relations to other inquirers—for example, asinformants, assistants, students—which affects their access toinformation and their ability to convey their beliefs to others.

Situatedness influences knowers’ access to information and theterms in which they represent what they know. They bear on the form oftheir knowledge (articulate/implicit, formal/informal, and so forth).They affect their attitudes toward their beliefs (certainty/doubt,dogmatic/open to revision), their standards of justification, and theauthority with which they lay claim to their beliefs and offer them toothers. They affect knowers’ assessment of which claims aresignificant or important.

Social situation. Feminist epistemology focuses onhow thesocial location of the knower affects what and howshe knows. It is thus a branch of social epistemology.Individuals’ social locations consist of their ascribed socialidentities (gender, race, sexual orientation, caste, class, kinshipstatus, trans/cis etc.) and social relations, roles, and role-giveninterests, which are affected by these identities. Individuals aresubject to different norms that prescribe different virtues, habits,emotions, and skills thought to be appropriate for their roles. Theyalso have different subjective identities—identitiesincorporated into their self-understandings—, and attitudestoward their ascribed identities, such as affirmation, rejection,pride, and shame.

Gender as a mode of social situation. In feministtheory, “gender” refers to systems of meanings, socialidentities, roles, norms, and associated behaviors, traits andvirtues, ascribed or prescribed to individuals on the basis of theirreal or imagined sexual characteristics (Haslanger 2000). It alsoincludes individuals’ subjective identifications with andorientations to such meanings. Psychological traits are considered“masculine” and “feminine” if they disposetheir bearers to comply with the gender norms assigned to men andwomen, respectively. From a performative perspective, masculinity andfemininity are not fixed traits but contrasting styles of behaviorthat may be manifested by individuals of any ascribed or subjectivegender identity in almost any role (West & Zimmerman 1987; Butler1990). Finally, “gender symbolism” comprises metaphoricalascriptions of gendered ideas to animals and inanimate objects.

Gendered knowledge. By joining the account ofsituated knowledge with the account of gender as a social situation,we can generate a catalog of ways in which what people know, or thinkthey know, can be influenced by their own gender (roles, norms,traits, performance, identities), other people’s genders, or byideas about gender (symbolism).

The phenomenology of gendered bodies. People’s bodiesare both differently sexed and differently gendered. Early childsocialization trains boys’ and girls’ bodies to differentnorms of bodily comportment. Once internalized, such norms profoundlyaffect the phenomenology of embodiment. They inform men’s andwomen’s distinct first-personal knowledge of what it is like toinhabit a body, to express capacities unique to one sex or another(e.g., breast feeding), and to have experiences that are manifestedthrough different body parts in differently sexed bodies (e.g.,orgasm). They also cause men’s and women’s experiences ofgendered behaviors that both can perform to differ—in fluidity,self-consciousness, confidence, awkwardness, shame, and so forth. Somefeminist epistemologists argue that dominant models of the world,especially of the relation between minds and bodies, have seemedcompelling to mostly male philosophers because they conform to a maleor masculine phenomenology (Bordo 1987; Young 1990).

Gendered first-personal knowledge. It is one thing to knowwhat sexual harassment is in third-personal terms. It is another torecognize “I have been sexually harassed.” Manywomen know that women in general are disadvantaged have difficultyrecognizing themselves as sharing women’s predicament (Clayton& Crosby 1992). The problems of self-knowledge are pressing forfeminist theory, because it is committed to theorizing in ways thatwomen can use to improve their lives. This entails that women be ableto recognize their lives in feminist accounts of women’spredicament. Feminist epistemology is therefore concerned withinvestigating the conditions of feminist self-understanding and thesocial settings in which it may arise (MacKinnon 1989).

Gendered attitudes, interests, and values. A representationisandrocentric if it depicts the world in relation to maleor masculine interests, attitudes or values. A “male”interest is an interest a man has, in virtue of the goals given to himby social roles designated as appropriate for men to occupy, or invirtue of his subjective gender identity. A “masculine”interest is an interest a man has in virtue of attitudes thoughtappropriate to men. Such attitudes and interests structure thecognition of those who have them. For instance, they may influence howheterosexual men classify women as, e.g., differently eligible forsexual intercourse with them. A representation isgynocentricif it depicts the world in relation to female or feminine interests,attitudes, or values. An interest, attitude, or value might also besymbolically gendered. For example, the ethics of care representsmoral problems in terms of symbolically feminine values—valuesculturally associated with women’s gender roles (Gilligan 1982).It is a symbolically gynocentric perspective, even if men also adoptit. Feminist epistemology raises numerous questions about thesephenomena. Can situated emotional responses to things be a validsource of knowledge about them (Jaggar 1989, Keller 1983, Pitts-Taylor2013)? Do dominant practices and conceptions of science reflect anandrocentric perspective, or a perspective that reflects otherdominant positions, as of race and colonial rule (Merchant 1980;Harding 1986, 1991, 1993, 1998, 2006, 2008; Schiebinger 2007)? Domainstream philosophical conceptions of objectivity, knowledge, andreason reflect an androcentric perspective (Bordo 1987; Code 1991;Flax 1983; Rooney 1991)? How would the conceptual frameworks ofparticular sciences change if they reflected the interests of women(Anderson 1995b, Rolin 2009)?

Knowledge of others in gendered relationships. Gender normsstructure the social spaces to which people with different genderidentities are admitted, as well as the presentation of self toothers. Inquirers with different gender identities therefore haveaccess to different information about others. Male and femaleethnographers may be admitted to different social spaces, and havedifferent effects on their informants. Research that elicitsinformation about others through personal contact therefore raises thequestion of how findings might be influenced by gendered relationsbetween researchers and subjects, and whether gender-inclusiveresearch teams are in a better position to detect this (Bell et al1993; Leacock 1981; Sherif 1987).

Gendered skills. Some skills are labeled masculine orfeminine because men and women need them to perform their respectivegender roles. To the extent that the skill is perceived by the agentor others as proper to someone with a different gender, performance ofit, or social recognition of success in performance, may be impaired.These phenomena raise various epistemic questions. Does the“masculine” symbolism of certain scientific skills, suchas of assuming an “objective” stance toward nature,interfere with the integration of women into science? Do actually orsymbolically “feminine” skills aid the acquisition ofscientific knowledge (Keller 1983, 1985a; Rose 1987; Ruetsche2004)?

Gendered cognitive styles. Some theorists believe that menand women have different cognitive styles (Belenky et al 1986;Gilligan 1982). Whether or not this is true, cognitive styles aregender symbolized (Rooney 1991). Deductive, analytic, atomistic,acontextual, and quantitative cognitive styles are labeled“masculine,” while intuitive, synthetic, holistic,contextual and qualitative cognitive styles are labeled“feminine.” It is seen as masculine to make one’spoint by argument, feminine to make one’s point by narrative.Argument is commonly cast as an adversarial mode of discourse, likewar, while narrative is viewed as a seductive mode of discourse, likelove. These phenomena raise epistemic questions: does the quest for“masculine” prestige by using “masculine”methods distort practices of knowledge acquisition (Addelson 1983;Moulton, 1983)? Are some kinds of research unfairly ignored because oftheir association with “feminine” cognitive styles (Keller1983, 1985b)?

Gendered background beliefs and worldviews. Representationalschemes that are functional for different gendered roles and attitudesmake different information salient. The resulting differentialbackground knowledge may lead differently gendered individuals tointerpret commonly accessed information differently. A man might reada woman’s demure smile as a coy come-on, where another woman mayinterpret it as her polite and defensive reaction to unwantedattention. Such differences can spring from differential access toempathetic and phenomenological knowledge. These phenomena raiseepistemological questions. Are there epistemic obstacles to legalinstitutions recognizing rape and sexual harassment, insofar as theyconfine their thinking within a “masculine” perspective(MacKinnon 1989)? Do sexist or androcentric background beliefs causescientists to generate sexist theories about women, despite adheringto ostensibly objective scientific methods (Harding 1986; Harding& O’Barr, 1987)? How might the social practices of sciencebe organized so that variations in background beliefs of inquirersfunction as epistemic resources (Longino 1990; Solomon 2001)?

Relations to other inquirers. Gender differences in knowledgecan be reduced if differently gendered people participate in inquirytogether. Each gender can take on testimony what the other can acquirethrough direct experience. Each may also learn how to exerciseimaginative projection more effectively, and to take up theperspective of another gender. However, gender norms influence theterms on which men and women communicate (Kalbfleisch 1995). In somecontexts, women are not allowed to speak, or their questions,comments, and challenges are ignored, interrupted, and systematicallydistorted, or they aren’t accepted as experts. Gendered norms ofconversation and epistemic authority thus influence the ability ofknowledge practices to incorporate the knowledge of men and women intotheir processes of inquiry. Feminist epistemologists explore howgender norms distort the dissemination of testimony and relations ofcognitive authority among inquirers (Addelson 1983; Code 1991; Fricker2007) and how the social relations of inquirers could be reformed,especially with regard to the allocation of epistemic authority, so asto enable more successful practices of inquiry (Jones 2002; Longino1990; Nelson 1990, 1993).

Problems of and Approaches to Gendered SituatedKnowledge. Mainstream epistemology takes as paradigms ofknowledge simple propositional knowledge about matters in principleequally accessible to anyone with basic cognitive and sensoryapparatus: “2+2=4”; “grass is green”;“water quenches thirst.” Feminist epistemology does notclaim that such knowledge is gendered. Paying attention togender-situated knowledge enables questions to be addressed that aredifficult to frame in epistemologies that assume that gender and othersocial situations of the knower are irrelevant to knowledge. Arecertain perspectives epistemically privileged? Can a more objectiveperspective be constructed from differently gendered perspectives?

Feminist epistemologists have considered situated knowledge withinthree traditions: standpoint theory, postmodernism, and empiricism.The next three sections explain how these three traditions wereoriginally articulated, whilesection 5 discussion their interactions and convergence.

2. Feminist Standpoint Theory

Standpoint Epistemology in General. Standpointtheories claim to represent the world from an epistemically advantagedsocially situated perspective. A complete standpoint theory mustspecify (i) thesocial location of the advantagedperspective, (ii) itsscope: the subject matters over whichit claims advantage, (iii) theaspect of the social locationthat generates epistemic advantage: for example, social role, orsubjective identity; (iv) theground of its advantage: whatjustifies its claim to superiority; (v) thetype of epistemicsuperiority it claims: for example, greater accuracy, or greaterability to represent fundamental truths; (vi) theotherperspectives relative to which it claims advantage, and (vii)modes of access to that perspective: is occupying the social locationnecessary or sufficient for getting access to the perspective? Manylimited claims to epistemic advantage on behalf of particularperspectives are uncontroversial. Auto mechanics are in a betterposition than auto consumers to know what is wrong with their cars.Practical experience in fulfilling the mechanic’s role groundsmechanics’ epistemic advantage, which claims superiorreliability.

Standpoint theories usually claim that the perspectives ofsubordinated social groups have an epistemic advantage regardingpolitically contested topics related to their subordination, relativeto the perspectives of the groups that dominate them.Classically, standpoint theory claims that the standpoint ofthe subordinated is advantaged (1) in revealingfundamentalsocial regularities; (2) in exposing social arrangements ascontingent and susceptible to change through concertedaction; and (3) in representing the social world in relation touniversal human interests. By contrast, dominant group standpointsrepresent only surface social regularities in relation to dominantgroup interests, andmisrepresent them as necessary, natural,or universally advantageous.

Marxist Standpoint Theory. Marxism offers the classicmodel of standpoint theory, claiming an epistemic advantage overfundamental questions of social science and history, on behalf of thestandpoint of the proletariat (Marx 1964, Lukács 1971). Workersattain this standpoint by gaining collective consciousness of theirrole in the capitalist system. In virtue of their oppression, theyhave an interest in the truth about whose interests capitalism serves.In virtue of their centrality, they have experiential access to thefundamental relations of capitalist production. In virtue of theirpractical productive activity, they represent it in terms of usevalues (labor values), which are the terms in which the fundamentallaws of economics and history are expressed. In virtue of theirstanding as the agents for the universal class they will become undercommunism, they represent the social world in relation to universalhuman interests. (Capitalists, by contrast, represent the worldideologically in superficial (exchange value) and parochial (classinterested) terms.) Finally, the collective self-consciousness of theworkers involves, like all successful intentional action, aself-fulfilling prophecy. Workers’ collective insight into theircommon predicament and the need to overcome it through revolutionaryaction generates a self-understanding which, when acted upon, getsrealized. The epistemic advantage of the standpoint of the proletariatis thus also grounded in the epistemic privilege that autonomousagents have over what they are consciously doing.

Grounds of Feminist Standpoint Theory. Feministstandpoint theory claims that the standpoint of women has an epistemicadvantage over phenomena in which gender is implicated, relative totheories that make sexist or androcentric assumptions. Variants offeminist standpoint theory ground this epistemic advantage indifferent features of women’s social situation, by analogy withdifferent strands of Marxist epistemology.

Centrality. Marxist feminists, such as Hartsock (1987) andRose (1987) focus on women’s centrality to the system ofreproduction—of childrearing and caring for bodies. Becausewomen tend to the needs of everyone in the household, they are in abetter position than men to see how patriarchy fails to meetpeople’s needs. Men, in virtue of their dominant position, canignore how patriarchy undermines subordinates’ interests.

Collective self-consciousness. MacKinnon (1989) argues thatmen constitute women as women by sexually objectifying them, i.e., byrepresenting their natures as essentially sexually subordinate to menand treating them accordingly. Women unmask these ideologicalmisrepresentations by achieving and acting on a shared understandingof themselves as women—as a group unjustly constituted by sexualobjectification. Through collective feminist actions in which womenrefuse to act as sexual objects—as in campaigns against sexualharassment and rape— women show that representations of women assexual objects are not natural or necessary. Their privilegedknowledge is collective agent self-knowledge, made true by being putinto action in feminist campaigns.

Cognitive style. Some early versions of standpoint theory(Flax 1983, Hartsock 1987, Rose 1987) accept feminist object relationstheory, which explains the development of gender identity in male andfemale children raised by female caregivers. Males acquire a masculineidentity by distinguishing themselves from their mothers, throughcontrolling and denigrating the feminine. Females acquire their genderidentity through identification with their mothers, blurringboundaries between self and other. Males and females thereby acquiredistinct cognitive styles. The masculine cognitive style is abstract,theoretical, emotionally detached, atomistic, and oriented towardcontrol or domination. The feminine cognitive style is concrete,practical, emotionally engaged, relational, and oriented toward care.These cognitive styles are reinforced by the gendered division oflabor—men having a near monopoly on positions of political,economic, and military power calling for detachment and control; andwomen being assigned to emotional care for others. The femininecognitive style claims epistemic advantage because ways of knowingbased on caring for everyone’s needs produce more valuablerepresentations than ways of knowing based on domination (Hartsock1987). Institutionalizing feminine ways of knowing requires overcomingthe division of mental, manual, and caring labor that characterizescapitalist patriarchy (Rose 1987).

Oppression. Women have an interest in representing socialphenomena in ways that reveal their oppression. They also havepersonal experience of sexist oppression, unlike men, whose powerenables them to ignore how their actions affect women. If epistemicadvantage is grounded in oppression, the multiply oppressed haveadditional epistemic authority. Thus, Collins (1990) grounds blackfeminist epistemology in black women’s personal experiences ofracism and sexism. She uses this epistemology to supply black womenwith self-representations that enable them to resist demeaning racistand sexist images of black women, and to take pride in theiridentities. The epistemic advantage of the oppressed is sometimesfounded on“bifurcated consciousness”: the ability to seeboth from the perspective of the dominant and from the perspective ofthe oppressed (Harding 1991, Collins 1990).

Access to the Feminist Standpoint. Every standpointtheory must explain how one gains access to it. Most standpointtheories represent the epistemically advantaged standpoint not asgiven, but as achieved through critical reflection on the powerstructures constituting group identities. If the group and itsinterests are defined objectively, the facts that constitute the groupand its interests are publicly accessible. So anyone can theorizephenomena in relation to the interests of that group. However, ifepistemic advantage lies in collective agent-knowledge, its site liesin the group defining itself as a collective agent. The privilegedstandpoint is not that of women, but of feminists (MacKinnon 1989).Men can participate in the feminist movement. But they cannot assume adominant role in defining (hence knowing) its aims, given the feministinterest in overcoming male dominance.

Goals of Feminist Standpoint Theory. Feministstandpoint theory is a type ofcritical theory. Critical theories aim to empower the oppressed. To serve this aim,social theories must (a) represent the world in relation to theinterests of the oppressed; (b) enable the oppressed to understandtheir problems; and (c) be usable by the oppressed to improve theircondition. Claims of superiority for critical theories are thusfundamentally based on pragmatic virtues (Harding 1991, Hartsock1996).

Criticisms of Feminist Standpoint Theory. Longino(1993b) argues that standpoint theory cannot provide a noncircularbasis for deciding which standpoints have epistemic privilege.Crenshaw (1999) argues that it is implausible to hold thatany group inequality is central to all the others; theyintersect in complex ways. Hence, women cannot have privileged accessto understanding their oppression, since this takes different formsfor different women, depending on their race, sexual orientation, andother identities. This critique has been developed by feministpostmodernists, who question the possibility of a unified standpointof women, and see, behind the assertion of a universal woman’sviewpoint, the perspective of relatively privileged white women(Lugones & Spelman 1983).

3. Feminist Postmodernism

General Postmodernist Themes.Postmodernism draws inspiration from poststructuralist and postmodernist theorists,including Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, Lacan, Lyotard, and Saussure.It questions attempts to transcend situatedness by appeal to suchideas as universality, necessity, objectivity, essence, andfoundations. It stresses the locality, partiality, contingency,instability, uncertainty, ambiguity and essential contestability ofany particular view of the world and the good. The postmodernistemphasis on revealing the situatedness and contestability of any claimor system serves both critical and liberatory functions. Itdelegitimizes ideas that dominate and exclude by undermining theirclaims to ultimate justification. And it opens up space for imaginingalternative possibilities that were obscured by those claims.

Postmodernists claim that what we think of as reality is“discursively constructed.” According to Saussure,“the linguistic sign acts reflexively, not referentially”in a “discursive field.” This amounts to radical holismabout meaning: signs get their meaning not from their reference toexternal things but from their relations to all the other signs in thediscourse. Introducing new signs (or discarding old ones) thus changesthe meanings of the signs already in use. Signs therefore lack a fixedmeaning over time. These ideas support the rejection of what Lyotardcalls “totalizing metanarratives.” There can be nocomplete, unified theory of the world that captures the whole truth. Adiscourse with different terms would contain meanings not available inthe discursive field of the theory that claims completeness. Theassertion of any particular theory is an exercise of“power”—to exclude certain possibilities fromthought and authorize others. Postmodernist claims that objects are“discursively constructed” or “sociallyconstructed” assert a kind of nominalism: that the world doesnot dictate the categories we use to describe it, that innumerableincompatible ways of classifying the world are available to us. Theselection of any one theory is a choice that cannot be justified byappeal to “objective” truth or reality.

Social practices also function as linguistic signs. For example, theelevation of the judge’s bench metaphorically signifies thejudge’s superior authority over others in the courtroom. Aswords get their meaning from their relations to other words, so doactions get their meaning from their relations to other actions,rather than from their relation to some pre-linguistic realm of humannature or natural law. Thus, the superior authority of judges consistsin the conventions of deference others manifest toward them. It is notunderwritten by an underlying normatively objective authority. Thelatter thought expresses an essentialist and objectivist power play,attempting to foreclose contests over practices by fixing them in asupposedly extra-discursive reality. The meanings of actions can besubverted by other actions that, in changing the context, changestheir meanings. This is why postmodernists celebrate ironic, parodic,and campy renditions of conventional behaviors as politicallyliberating (Butler 1993).

The self is likewise constituted by signs. There is no unified selfthat underlies the play of a stream of signifiers. Althoughsubjectivity is constituted through the production of signs, the selfis entangled in a web of meanings not of its own creation: ouridentities are socially imposed. However, this does not forecloseagency, because we occupy multiple social identities (a woman might bea worker, a mother, lesbian, Mexican, etc.). Tensions among theseidentities open up spaces for disrupting the discursive systems thatconstruct us.

Feminist Postmodernism. Feminist postmodernist ideas are deployed against theories thatpurport to justify sexist practices—notably, ideologies thatclaim that observed differences between men and women are natural andnecessary, or that women have an essence that explains and justifiestheir subordination. The claim that gender is socially or discursivelyconstructed—that it is an effect of social practices and systemsof meaning that can be disrupted—finds a home in postmodernism(Butler 1990). However, postmodernism has figured more prominently ininternal critiques of feminist theories. One of the most importanttrends in feminist thinking has been exposing and responding toexclusionary tendencies within feminism itself. Women of color andlesbian women have argued that mainstream feminist theories haveignored their problems and perspectives (Collins 1990; Hull, Scott,and Smith, 1982; Lorde 1984).

The critique of the concept “woman.” Feminist postmodernists have criticized many of the leading feministtheories of gender and patriarchy as essentialist (Butler 1990, Flax1990, Spelman 1988). Essentialism here refers to any theory thatpostulates a universal, transhistorical, necessary cause orconstitution of gender or patriarchy. Feminist postmodernists objectthat, in claiming that gender identity is one thing or has one cause,such theories convert discursively constructed facts into norms,difference into deviance. They either exclude women who don’tconform to the theory from the class of “women,” orrepresent them as inferior. Critiques of feminist theories by lesbianwomen and women of color reinforce skepticism about the unity of thecategory “woman” by highlighting intersectioningidentities of gender, race, class, trans/cis, and sexual orientation.The faultlines for fragmentating the category “woman” arethus other identities along which social inequalities areconstructed.

This critique of “woman” as a unifiedobject oftheorizing entails that “woman” also cannot constitute aunifiedsubject of knowing (Lugones & Spelman 1983). Thetheories of universal gender identity under attack are ones in whichthe authors, white middle class heterosexual women, could seethemselves. Critics claim that the authors fail to acknowledge theirown situatedness and hence the ways they are implicated in andreproduce power relations—in this case, the presumption of whitemiddle class heterosexual women to define “the standpoint ofwomen”—to speak for all other women. Feminist standpointtheorists, who claim an epistemic privilege on behalf of theirstandpoint, thereby unjustifiably assert a race and class privilegeover other women. This lesson applies to subaltern feministstandpoints as well. The assertion of a black feminist standpoint, forexample, objectionably essentializes black women. Once thepostmodernist critique of essentialism is granted, there is no logicalstopping point in the proliferation of perspectives.

Perspective shifting. Feminist postmodernism envisions ourepistemic situation as characterized by a shifting plurality ofperspectives, none of which can claim objectivity—that is,transcendence of situatedness. This position rejects both objectivismand relativism for the ways they let knowers escape responsibility forthe representations they construct (Haraway 1991). People are notepistemically trapped inside their cultures, their gender, or anyother identity. They can think from other perspectives. Thus, althoughwe will always have plural perspectives, their constitution is alwaysshifting, without a stable correspondence between individuals andperspectives. Negotiating the array of situated knowledges involvestwo types of epistemic practice. One is acceptance of responsibility:acknowledging the choices of situation involved in constructingone’s representations (Haraway 1991), and considering how theyaffect the content of one’s representations (Harding 1993). Thesecond is “world traveling” (Lugones 1987) or“mobile positioning”—trying to see things from manyother perspectives. Mobile positioning can never be transparent orinnocent. Imagining oneself in another’s situation is risky,requiring sensitive engagement with and sympathy for occupants ofthose positions. Both transform situated knowing into a critical andresponsible practice.

Criticisms of Feminist Postmodernism. Both featuresof feminist postmodernism—the rejection of “woman”as a category of analysis, and the fragmentation ofperspectives—are controversial. Wholesale opposition to broadgeneralizations about women may preclude critical analysis oflarge-scale social forces that affect women (Benhabib 1995). Thatwomen in different social positions experience sexism differently doesnot entail that they have nothing in common—they still sufferfrom sexism (MacKinnon 2000). Intersectionality may be accommodatedthrough a structural analysis of gender that allows for racialized andother particularized modes of sexist oppression (Haslanger 2000).Postmodernist fragmentation threatens both the possibility ofanalytical focus and of politically effective coalition building amongdiverse women. Yet, virtually all feminists acknowledge that aplurality of situated knowledges appears to be an inescapableconsequence of social differentiation and embodiment.

4. Feminist Empiricism

Relations of Feminist Empiricism to Empiricism inGeneral. Empiricism is the view that experience provides thesole or primary justification for knowledge. Classical empiricistsheld that the content of experience could be described in fixed,basic, theory-neutral terms—such as in terms of sense-data. Mostalso supposed that philosophy could provide an external justificationfor scientific method. Quine revolutionized empiricism by rejectingthese ideas. For Quine, observation is theory-laden. It is cast interms of complex concepts not immediately given in experience, whichare potentially subject to revision in light of further experience(Quine 1963). Moreover, epistemology is just another project withinscience, in which we empirically investigate our practices of inquiry(Quine 1969). Many feminist empiricists accept these views whilerejecting Quine’s sharp division of facts from values, whichthey regard as inconsistent with naturalized empiricism. Feministempiricists consider how feminist values can legitimately informempirical inquiry, and how scientific methods can be improved in lightof demonstrations of sex bias in science (Campbell 1998, Clough 2003,Nelson 1990). Quine also presupposes an individualist account ofinquiry, while most feminist empiricists advocate a socializedepistemology, in which inquiry is treated as a social practice, andthe subjects of knowledge may even be communities.

The Paradoxes of Bias and Social Construction. Twoapparent paradoxes encapsulate the central problematics of feministempiricism. First, much feminist science criticism consists inexposing androcentric and sexist biases in scientific research. Thiscriticism seems to rest on the view that bias is epistemically bad.Yet, advocates of feminist science argue that science would improve ifit allowed feminist values to inform scientific inquiry. This amountsto a recommendation that science adopt certain biases. This is theparadox of bias. Second, much feminist science criticism exposes theinfluence of social and political factors on science. Scientistsadvance androcentric and sexist theories because they are influencedby sexist values in the wider society. This might suggest adopting anindividualist epistemology to eliminate these social biases. Yet mostfeminists urge that scientific practices should be open todifferent social influences. Call this the paradox of socialconstruction.

Feminist empiricists dissolve these paradoxes by rejecting theirunderlying assumptions: that biases, political values, and socialfactors influence inquiry only bydisplacing the influence ofevidence, logic, and other factors that lead to true or empiricallyadequate theories. Not all bias is epistemically bad (Antony 1993).There are three strategies for showing this: pragmatic, procedural,and moral realist. The pragmatic strategy stresses the uses to whichknowledge will be put. Responsible inquiry respects a division oflabor between the functions of evidence and socialvalues—evidence helping inquirers track truths, social valueshelping inquirers construct representations from those truths thatserve the practical aims of inquiry (Anderson 1995b). This view may bejoined with a view of nature as complex. Different ways of classifyingphenomena will reveal different patterns useful to different practicalinterests (Longino 2001). The procedural strategy argues thatepistemically bad biases can be kept in check through an appropriatesocial organization of inquiry. A social organization that holdspeople with different biases accountable to one another will be ableto weed out bad biases, even if no individual is free of bias (Longino1990). This view may be joined with the idea that the subject ofknowledge (Nelson 1993), epistemic rationality (Solomon 2001) orobjectivity (Longino 1990, 2001) is the epistemic community. The moralrealist strategy argues that moral, social and political valuejudgments have truth-values, and that feminist values are true.Inquiry informed by feminist values therefore does not displaceattention to the evidence, because the evidence vindicates thesevalues (Campbell 1998).

Feminist empiricists appeal to the pragmatist tradition to underminethe sharp dichotomy between fact and value (Antony 1993, Nelson 1993).They argue that the underdetermination of theory by evidence leads toa view of facts and values as mutually constituting. Whether anyparticular feminist, or sexist, theory is true will depend onempirical investigation informed by epistemic norms—norms whichmay be reformed in light of the merits of the theories they generate.This is the project of naturalized epistemology, whereby thevindication of norms of inquiry is sought within empiricalinvestigation.

Criticisms of Feminist Empiricism. Feministempiricists are criticized for naively holding that science willcorrect the errors and biases in its theories about women and othersubordinated groups by itself, without the aid of feminist values orinsights (Harding 1986, 1991). These criticisms apply to what Hardingcalled “spontaneous feminist empiricism”—the viewthat elimination of sexist bias, without further modification ofscientific methods as traditionally understood, is sufficient forfeminist critique. However, the naturalized epistemology of mostfeminist empiricists views knowers as socially situated, empiricalevidence as theory-laden and critically revisable in light oftheoretical and normative reflection, and objective knowledge of humanphenomena as requiring inclusion of feminist inquirers as equals inthe social project of inquiry (Longino 1993a, 1993b). Hundleby (1997),a standpoint theorist, criticizes feminist empiricism for overlookingthe role of feminist politicalactivity,especially thedevelopment of oppositional consciousness, as a superior source ofhypotheses and evidence for challenging sexist and androcentrictheories.

5. Interactions of Feminist Standpoint Theory, Postmodernism, and Empiricism

Harding’s (1986) tripartite classification of feministepistemologies cast them as three contrasting frameworks. In the lastthirty years, feminist epistemologists have blurred the distinctionsamong these views, as Harding both predicted and promoted (1990, 1991,1998). Early theorizing in feminist epistemology tended to exploreglobal questions about gender and knowledge: are dominant conceptionsor practices of science, objectivity, and knowledge masculine orandrocentric? The field has evolved toward local investigations of theways gender affects inquiry in specific investigations by particularcommunities using distinct methods. This turn to the local hasfacilitated the convergence of the three types of feministepistemology.

Feminist standpoint theory. The postmodernist critique ofstandpoint theory, in conjunction with the proliferation of subalternwomen’s standpoints (black, Latina, lesbian, postcolonial, etc.)has led most standpoint theorists to abandon the search for a singlefeminist standpoint. They acknowledge plural standpoints ofintersecting marginalized groups (Harding 1991, 1998; Collins 1990).Inquiry that draws on their insights and starts from theirpredicaments is more fruitful than inquiry that draws only on theinsights and starts from the predicaments of relatively privilegedgroups (Harding 1993, 1998). It also offers pragmatic advantages inenabling us to envision and realize more just social relations(Hartsock 1996). Standpoint theorists (Collins 1996; Harding 1996;Hartsock 1996) have shifted from claims of general epistemic privilegeto claims of practical advantage in response to postmodernist criticssuch as Hekman (1996). Wylie (2003) argues that consensus has emergedamong feminist epistemologists on two points: (1) rejection ofessentialism (the idea that the social groups defining any standpointhave a necessary and fixed nature, or that their members do or oughtto think alike) and (2) rejection of attempts to grant automaticepistemic privilege to any particular standpoint. Instead, the socialsituation of “insider-outsiders” (members of subordinatedgroups who need accurate knowledge of the worlds of the privileged tonavigate them) sometimes affords acontingent epistemicadvantage in solving particular problems. Standpoint theorists’pluralism reflects a productive interaction with feministpostmodernism; their shift toward pragmatism and contingent epistemicadvantages of the oppressed reflects convergence with feministempiricism.

Theorists have devoted effort to specifying the contingent cognitiveadvantages claimed by a feminist standpoint with sufficient precisionthat these claims are empirically testable. Solomon (2009) suggeststhat the achievement of a feminist standpoint involves characteristicsempirically associated with creative thinking. Ruetsche (2004)suggests that it could involve Aristotelian second-nature capacitiesto recognize certain kinds of evidence—for example, socialinteractions among primates—relevant for understanding primatesocial organization. Other standpoint theorists stress the cognitiveadvantages of a feminist standpoint for revealing and uncoveringphenomena in domains of interest to feminists. Rolin (2009) points tothe superior capacity of a feminist standpoint to reveal how powerrelations obscure their operations and effects, and enable inquirersto overcome these obstacles to understanding by empowering thosesubordinated by power relations. Scientists who have investigated thecauses of women’s underrepresentation in the sciences from afeminist standpoint have produced more empirically adequate theories,using more normatively adequate conceptions of bias anddiscrimination, than nonfeminist researchers (Rolin 2006, Wylie2009).

Feminist postmodernism. Haraway (1989) stands out amongfeminist postmodernists for the tributes she pays to the achievementsof feminist scientists working within empiricist standards ofevaluation. Fraser and Nicholson (1990) urge a reformulation of thelessons of postmodernism toward pragmatism, fallibilism, andcontextualization of knowledge claims—all features compatiblewith naturalized feminist empiricism.

Feminist empiricism. While early feminist science criticismby working scientists may have presupposed a naive version ofempiricism, feminist empiricists today stress the pervasiveness ofsituated knowledge, the interplay of facts and values, the absence oftranscendent standpoints, and the plurality of theories. These themesconverge with postmodernism. After thirty years of development, it isalso getting harder to identify points of disagreement betweenfeminist empiricism and feminist standpoint theory. Intemann (2010,2016) proposesfeminist standpoint empiricism as a synthesisof the two theories, arguing that feminist empiricists should acceptstandpoint theory’s claim that better (i.e., feminist) valuesproduce better theories. Feminist empiricists have already done so, aslong as these claims are kept contingent and local (Anderson 2004,Wylie and Nelson 2007). Some feminist standpoint theorists, however,also claim that exclusion of sexist standpoints, or bad values, can beepistemically justified (Intemann 2010, Hicks 2011).

6. Feminist Science Criticism and Feminist Science

The history of feminist interventions into most disciplines follows acommon pattern. Feminist science critics begin by criticizing accepteddisciplinary methods, assumptions, and theories, exposing theirandrocentric and sexist biases. As feminist inquiries mature, theydevelop constructive projects, and deploy feminist perspectives asepistemic resources. This history helps us see how feministepistemology negotiates the tension between the two poles in theparadox of bias in feminist empiricism—viewing bias as error,and as resource.

Feminist Science Criticism: Bias as Error. Feministscience criticism originated in the critiques that working biologists,psychologists, and other scientists made of the androcentric andsexist biases and practices in their own disciplines—especiallyof theories about women and gender differences that legitimate sexistpractices. Exemplary works in this tradition include Bleier (1984),Hrdy (1981), Leacock (1981), Sherif (1987), and Tavris (1992).Feminist science criticism includes several types of research. (1)Studies of how the marginalization of women scientists impairsscientific progress (e.g., Keller 1983). (2) Studies of howapplications of science in technology disadvantage women and othervulnerable groups and devalue their interests (e.g., Perez 2019). (3)Studies of how science has ignored women and gender, and how tendingto these issues may require revisions of accepted theories (e.g.,Hays-Gilpin and Whitley (1998). (4) Studies of how biases towardworking with “masculine” cognitive styles—forexample, toward centralized, hierarchical control models of causationas opposed to “feminine” (contextual, interactive,diffused) models—have impaired scientific understanding(e.g.,Keller 1985b, Spanier 1995). (5) Studies of how research into sexdifferences that reinforces sex stereotypes and sexist practices failsto follow standards of good science (Fine 2010, Lloyd 2006, Tavris1992). Theories may also manifest gender bias in their conceptualframework—for example, in representing subjective genderidentification as a dichotomous variable, thereby eliminating othermodes of gender identity from consideration (Bem 1993). In thesecases, gender bias is represented as a cause of error. As philosophersand historians of science joined feminist science criticism,additional models of gender bias were developed (Bluhm 2013; Haraway1989; Harding 1986, 1991, 1993, 1998; Lloyd 2006; Meynell 2012;Schiebinger 1989; Wylie 1996). Some of this work argues that interestsin technological control that underlie modern science limit its scopeand what it takes to be significant knowledge (Lacey 1999, Merchant1980, Tiles 1987). Feminist science criticism in the bias-as-errortradition generates methodological principles for engaging innonsexist science (Eichler 1988).

Bias in a research program is shown to belimiting orpartial, but not erroneous, if it avoids clear error and hassome empirical successes, while rival theories in the same domain alsoavoid clear error and havedifferent empirical successes orother epistemic virtues. Such biases are legitimate: it is rationallyacceptable to conduct scientific inquiry under their influence. Whenbiases are partial but not erroneous, they serve a generativefunction, producing new concepts, methods, and hypotheses that open upnew aspects of the world for understanding. They are epistemicresources. Feminist philosophers of science argue that wehave an epistemic interest in ensuring that certain limiting biases donot dominate research to the exclusion of other generative biases thatyield rival theories possessing a different range of importantempirical successes. Exposing androcentric and sexist biases lyingbehind certain theories makes salient the room for alternativeprograms not based on such biases.

Feminist Science: Bias as Resource. Most advocates offeminist science argue, in this vein, that scientificinquiries informed by feminist values are based on legitimate,generative limiting biases. This picture of science is pluralistic:science is disunified because the world is rich with a multitude ofcross-cutting structures, which no single theoretical vocabularycaptures. Different communities have interests in different aspects ofreality, so leaving them free to follow their interests will revealdifferent patterns and structures in the world (Harding 1998; Longino2001).

Against this pluralistic view, some advocates of feminist sciencedefine it in terms of adherence to specific ontologies andmethodologies expressing a “feminine” cognitive style(Duran 1991, Keller 1983, 1985a). On this view, for example, feministscience should have a relational rather than an atomistic ontology,favor the concrete over the abstract, and encompass intuition,emotional engagement, and other “feminine” cognitivestyles. For example, Stanley and Wise (1983) argue that onlyqualitative methods that accept women’s reports of theirexperiences in their own terms, refusing to generalize, upholdfeminist values of respecting differences among women and avoiding thereplication of power differences between researchers and researchsubjects.

Pluralist feminist scientists and philosophers of science contestthese attempts to define feminist science in terms of preferredcontent and “feminine” method. Many questions of interestto feminists are best answered with quantitative methods (Jayaratne& Stewart, 1991). Feminists properly make use of diverse methods(Harding 1987, Nielsen 1990, Reinharz 1992). Feminist science is notdefined by its content, but rather by pragmatic interests inuncovering the causes of women’s oppression, revealing dynamicsof gender in society, and producing knowledge that women can use toovercome the disadvantages to which they are subject. Forms ofknowledge that simply valorize the “feminine” may not behelpful to women who would be better off not having norms offemininity imposed on them, and might not be better at generatingempirical success (Longino 1989).

On the pluralist view, feminist science amounts to “doingscience as a feminist”—using science to answer questionsgenerated by feminist interests—. There is no presumption thatcertain methods, evidence, etc. are uniquely available to servefeminist cognitive interests. Nevertheless, some common threads indoing science as a feminist tend to contingently favor certain typesof representation (Longino 1994). Gender bias may reinforce sexismthrough the perpetuation of categorical, dichotomous thinking whichrepresents masculinity and femininity as “opposites,”femininity as inferiority, and gender nonconformity as deviant. Thisgives feminists an interest in the value of “ontologicalheterogeneity”—using categories that permit theobservation of within-group variation, and that resist therepresentation of difference from the group mean as deviance. Genderbias also reinforces sexism through single-factor causal models thatattribute intrinsic powers to men by neglecting their wider context.The value of “complexity of relationship” favors thedevelopment of causal models that facilitate the representation offeatures of the social context that support male power. Other feministcognitive values involve theaccessibility of knowledge, thatdiffuses power in being usable to people in subordinatepositions. Such feminist cognitive values do not displace or competewith tending to evidence, because doing science as a feminist, likedoing science with any other interest in mind (for example, medical ormilitary interests) involves commitment to the cognitive value ofproducing empirically adequate theories.

7. Feminist Defenses of Value-Laden Inquiry

The Challenge of Value-Neutrality. Against theproject of feminist science, many philosophers hold that good scienceis neutral among social, moral, and political values. Lacey (1999)distinguishes the following claims of value-neutrality: (1)Autonomy: science progresses best when uninfluenced bysocial/political movements and values. (2)Neutrality:scientific theories do not imply or presuppose judgments aboutnoncognitive values, nor do scientific theories serve any particularnoncognitive values more fully than others. (3)Impartiality:The only grounds for accepting a theory are its relations to theevidence. These grounds are impartial among rival noncognitive values.

Of these claims, neutrality is the most dubious, because it depictsthe grounds for accepting social, political and moral values asdetached from evidence about human potentialities and about whathappens when people try to realize these values in practice. If thiswere true, then the defenders of keeping mathematics a male preservewould not have bothered arguing that women were not intellectuallycapable of doing mathematics—and feminists would not havebothered disputing this claim. Neutrality is less a claim about thecharacter of science than about the purportedly“fact-free” justification of social and political values.As a claim about the latter, it is false (Anderson 2004, Taylor 1985,Tiles & Oberdiek 1995).

The core claim of value-neutrality is impartiality. Only facts cansupply the warrant for other facts. Autonomy, in turn, is defended asa means to ensure impartiality. Social movements are thought tothreaten impartiality because their influence on science is thought toconsist in pressuring scientists to ignore the facts and validatetheir worldviews. Defenders of value-neutral science object to theidea of feminist science because they view it as threatening autonomy,and thereby impartiality.

The Basic Underdetermination Argument. Feministempiricists reply to this challenge by extending Quine’sargument that theory is underdetermined by evidence (Longino 1990,Nelson 1993). Any body of observations counts as evidence forparticular hypotheses only in conjunction with certain backgroundassumptions. Vary the background assumptions, and the sameobservations will support different hypotheses. For example, thefailure to observe stellar parallax in the 16th century was taken asevidence that the Earth stands still by geocentrists, and as evidencethat the stars are very far away by heliocentrists. No logicalprinciple stops scientists from choosing different backgroundassumptions. Cognitive values such as simplicity and conservatism(resistance to revising assumptions on which many other beliefsdepend) may influence the selection of background assumptions. Butwith respect to open questions, such cognitive values rarely limit thescope for choice down to one option, and their interpretation andweights are contestable (geocentrism was overturned by overridingconservatism). Feminist empiricists conclude that, given the scope forchoice in background assumptions, no methodological principle forbidsscientists from selecting their background assumptions on account oftheir fit with social and political values. Hence, feminist scientistsmay select their background assumptions on account of their fit withfeminist values. Feminist values may even support adding certaincognitive values to the conventional list. For example, atheory’s “ontological heterogeneity”(“splitting” rather than “lumping”) may bepreferred to theories that make gender “disappear” or thatnaturalize homogeneity (Longino 1994). This preference for ontologicalheterogeneity has been critical to the development of queer science(Gupta & Rubin 2020).

Standing alone, the underdetermination argument does not help usdiscriminate error-generating biases from biases that serve ascognitive resources. Additional criteria are needed. Anderson (2004)argues that the chief danger of value-laden inquiry is wishfulthinking or dogmatism. To avoid this danger, the value-laden characterof the background assumptions linking evidence to theories should notforeclose the possibility of discovering that one’s values aremistaken, because (for example) they are based on false beliefs abouthuman potentialities or the consequences of putting certain valuesinto practice. If women really can’t do math, the valuesincorporated into feminist science should not close off thispossibility in advance. Although, in setting out to test this sexisthypotheses, women scientists presuppose their own mathematicalcompetence, this does not preclude their discovering otherwise. Toavoid dogmatism and wishful thinking, they need only make theircalculations accountable to public criticism.

The Basic Pragmatic Strategy. The above reflectionsprovide a standard for determining when socially value-laden inquiryhas gone wrong. But how can social values function as an epistemicresource? Some feminist epistemologists stress the pragmaticfunctions of inquiry (Anderson 1995b). All inquiry begins with aquestion. Questions may be motivated by practical interests inunderstanding the nature and causes of situations judged to beproblematic, and in finding out how to improve those situations.Defenders of the value-neutrality of science acknowledge thatpragmatic factors legitimately influence thechoice ofobjects of study. Feminist epistemologists argue that practicalinterests properly shape theproduct of inquiry byintroducing new dimensions of evaluation to theories. We can ask notonly whether theories are backed by evidence, but whether they arecast in forms that are cognitively accessible to the situated knowerswho want to use these theories, whether they help these knowers solvetheir problems, and whether they answer the questions they weredesigned to answer. A set of statements can be true, yet fail thesepragmatic tests. The basic pragmatic strategy for defending feministscience, and any inquiry shaped by social and political values, is toshow how the pragmatic interests of that inquiry license or require aparticular mode of influence of values on the process, product, anduptake of the product of inquiry, while leaving appropriate room forevidence to play its role in testing hypotheses. Values do not competewith evidence in determining conclusions, but play different,cooperative roles in properly conducted inquiry (Anderson 1995b,2004).

Types of Legitimate Influence of Social Values inScience. Feminist philosophers of science stress the varietyof roles for social and political values in science, and thecontingency of their effects (Wylie and Nelson 2007). We must examinehow particular values operate in particular scientific investigationsand judge whether they are closing off the possibility of discoveringunwelcome facts, leading scientists to reason dogmatically, orinsulating their findings from critical scrutiny—or ratherwhether the values are enabling new discoveries. Feministepistemologists and philosophers of science have defended thefollowing types of influence of social values on theory choice.

Selection and weighting of cognitive values. Kuhn (1977)argued that scientists need to appeal to cognitive values to take upthe slack between theory and evidence. His list of cognitive valuesincludes accuracy, scope, simplicity, fruitfulness, internalconsistency, and consistency with other beliefs (conservatism).Longino (1994) argues that feminists have reason to prefer theoriesthat manifest other cognitive values, such as diffusion of power.Diffusion of power, like simplicity, is not a truth-oriented cognitivevalue. Both count as cognitive values because they make theoriescognitively accessible. Diffusion of power recognizes that cognitiveaccessibility is relative to the situation of the knower. Bothsimplification and diffusion of power stand in tension with truth, inthat theories that embody them not only ignore many complex truths,but may even make false claims. Whether this is bad depends on whetherthe truths ignored or the inaccuracies allowed areimportant.This can be judged only relative to the interests that theinvestigation ought to serve. All legitimate research programs mustseek empirical adequacy, which requires that theories account forobservations. How much accuracy this requires depends on how much theexpected usefulness of the knowledge will be compromised by largerrisks or margins of error. The situation and pragmatic interests ofthe inquirer or of the users of a theory may therefore legitimatelyaffect the selection and weighting of cognitive values in theorychoice.

Standards of Proof. The argument from inductive risk holdsthat theories should be accepted or rejected depending on the relativecosts of type I error (believing something false) and type II error(failing to believe something true). In medicine, clinical trials areroutinely stopped and results accepted as genuine notwithstandinghigher P-values than the conventional <5%, if the results aredramatic enough and the costs to patients of not acting on them arehigh enough. Hare-Mustin and Maracek (1994) argue, by parallelreasoning, that whether studies that find gender differences, or thatfail to find them, should be accepted depends on the relative costs ofAlpha Bias (exaggerating differences) and Beta Bias (neglectingdifferences) in the context at hand.

Classification. The ways phenomena are classified maylegitimately depend on social values. In medicine, the distinctionbetween health and disease reflects both causal judgments and ethicaljudgments about human welfare and appropriate ways of dealing withproblems. A condition judged bad for human beings is not classified asa disease unless medical intervention is considered an appropriate andpotentially effective way to deal with it. Feminist inquiries, too,raise questions about the causes of women’s oppression thatrequire classifying phenomena as instances of rape, sexualobjectification, sex discrimination, and soforth—classifications tied to their meeting both empirical andevaluative criteria (Anderson 1995a, 1995b). In general, when inquiryseeks to answer a question about value-laden phenomena, such as theimpact of certain practices on human welfare, or whether certaininstitutions are fair or discriminatory, the contours of the empiricalphenomena to be studied will be defined by evaluative judgments(Intemann 2001, 2005).

Methods. The methods selected for investigating phenomenadepend on the questions one asks and the kinds of knowledge one seeks,both of which may reflect social interests. Experimental methods insocial science may be good for discovering factors that can be used tocontrol people’s behavior in similar settings. But to grasptheir behavior asaction—that is, as attempts by agentsto govern their behavior through their understandings of what they aredoing—requires different empirical methods, includingparticipant observation and qualitative interviews (which allowsubjects to delineate their own systems of meaning). Standpointtheories, as critical theories, seek to empower the subjects of studyby helping them forge liberatory self-understandings. These mayrequire different methods of inquiry—for example,consciousness-raising (MacKinnon 1989).

Causal Explanations; Models; Explanations of Meaning;Narratives. The number of factors that affect the occurrence ofmost human phenomena is too large to comprehend or test in a singlemodel. Investigators must therefore select a subset of causal factorsto include in their models. This selection may be based on fit withthe values and interests of the investigator (Longino 1990, 2001).These interests often reflect background social and moral judgments ofblame, responsibility, and acceptability of change. Conservatives aremore likely to study divorce and out-of-wedlock birth as causes ofwomen’s poverty, whereas feminists are more likely to focus onother causes—for example, the exclusion of women frombetter-paid jobs, failures of state support for dependent-care workwithin the family, the weak bargaining power of women in marriage, andnorms of masculinity that lead fathers to avoid significantparticipation in child-rearing. These causal explanations are notincompatible. Normative interests may also determine whether onemodels only main effects or also interaction effects on outcomesrelevant to human welfare. A variable—say, a certainlifestyle—that has a positive main effect on a population mayhave a negative effect on some subpopulations. Whether one models andtests for such effects may depend on whether one believes that onelifestyle does or should fit all, or whether one values pluralism andontological heterogeneity (Anderson 2004).

Often inquirers seek not merely a set of facts, but what the factsmean. The meaning or significance of facts depends on their relationsto other facts. Even if two inquirers agree on the causal facts, theymay still disagree about their meaning because they relate the factsin different ways, reflecting their background values. Feminists mayagree with conservatives that divorce is a cause of the feminizationof poverty, but deny that this means that women are better offmarried. They argue that marriage itself, with its gendered divisionof domestic and market labor, constitutes one of the major structuraldisadvantages women face, setting them up for worse outcomes in theevent of divorce. Conservatives, viewing marriage as an indispensablecondition of the good life, are no more willing to view marriage inthis light than most people would be willing to blame oxygen for theoccurrence of house fires. It might be thought that scientists shouldstick to the facts and avoid judgments of meaning. But most of thequestions we ask demand answers that fit facts into larger, meaningfulpatterns. Scientists therefore cannot help but tell stories, whichrequire the selection of narrative frameworks that go beyond the facts(Haraway 1989). This selection may depend both on their fit with thefacts and on their fit with the background values of thestoryteller.

Framework Assumptions. As we ascend to higher levels ofabstraction, general framework assumptions constitute the object ofstudy. Some of these are disciplinary. Economics studies humans asself-interested, instrumentally rational choosers. Social psychologystudies humans as responding to socially meaningful situations.Behavioral genetics studies human conduct as influenced by theirgenes. The selection of framework assumptions may depend on their fitwith the interests of the inquirer (Longino 1990, Tiles 1987).Feminists, being interested in promoting women’s agency, tend toprefer frameworks that permit the representation of women as agents.This does not guarantee that empirical findings will confirm thebackground assumption that women’s agency is critical to thephenomena under investigation. The value-laden selection of frameworkassumptions thus need not lead to a vicious circle of reasoning,because it is still left up to the evidence to determine howsuccessful the assumptions are in explaining the phenomena ofinterest.

Pluralism and naturalized moral epistemology as upshots ofvalue-laden inquiry. Because inquirers select backgroundassumptions in part for their fit with their varied interests andvalues, their background assumptions will also vary. Feministepistemologists urge us to embrace this fact (Haraway 1991, Harding1998, Longino 2001). Pluralism of theories and research programsshould be accepted as a normal feature of science. As long as thedifferent research programs are producing empirical successes notproduced by the others, and avoiding clear error and viciouslycircular or dogmatic reasoning, we should treat the value-biasesanimating them as epistemic resources, helping us discover andunderstand new aspects of the world and see them in new perspectives.Feminist science takes its place as one set of legitimate researchprograms among others. This does not imply relativism. Value-ladenresearch programs are still open to internal and external critique. Anaturalized epistemology that rejects neutrality allows thatobservations may undermine any background assumptions, including valuejudgments (Anderson 2004).

One way to support this last claim is to advance Quinean holism, andinsist that any evidence may bear on any belief or value (Nelson1990). While accepting the bi-directional influence of facts andvalues, Anderson (2004) rejects holism, arguing that some observationsbear closer relevance relations than others to specific values.Further progress in understanding legitimate and fruitful interactionsof facts and values in scientific inquiry will likely involvenaturalizing moral epistemology, to get a clearer view of the bearingof observations on values. Tobin and Jaggar (2013) offer one way tonaturalize feminist moral epistemology.

8. Feminist Critiques and Conceptions of Objectivity

Feminist Critiques of Objectivity. Feminists regardthe following conceptions of objectivity as problematic: (a)Subject/object dichotomy: what is really (“objectively”)real exists independently of knowers. (b) Aperspectivity:“objective” knowledge is ascertained through “theview from nowhere,” a view that transcends or abstracts from ourparticular locations. (c) Detachment: knowers have an“objective” stance toward what is known when they areemotionally detached from it. (d) Value-neutrality: knowers have an“objective” stance toward what is known when they adopt anevaluatively neutral attitude toward it. (e) Control:“objective” knowledge of an object (the way it“really” is) is attained by controlling it, especially byexperimental manipulation, and observing the regularities it manifestsunder control. (f) External guidance: “objective”knowledge consists of representations whose content is dictated by theway things really are, not by the knower. These ideas are oftencombined into a package of claims about science: that its aim is toknow the way things are, independent of knowers, and that scientistsachieve this aim through detachment and control, which enable them toachieve aperspectivity and external guidance. This package arose inthe 17th-18th centuries, as a philosophical account of why Newtonianscience was superior to its predecessor. According to this account,the predecessor science, which represented objects as intrinsicallypossessing secondary qualities and ends, confused the way things arein themselves with the ways they are related to emotionally engagedhuman knowers, who erroneously projected their own mental states andvalue judgments onto things. Adoption of the objective methods listedabove enabled the successor scientists to avoid these errors andachieve an “absolute” conception of the universe (Williams1978). Feminists object to each element in this package as a normativeideal and as a general description of how science works.

Subject/object dichotomy. If the object of science is tograsp things as they are, independent of knowers, then one mustsharply distinguish the knower from the known. However, when theobjects of inquiry are knowers themselves, this dichotomy rules outthe possibility that knowers’ self-understandings helpconstitute the ways knowers are. It thus rules out the possibilitythat some of our characteristics are socially constructed. This maylead people to make the projective errors objectivity is supposed toavoid: attributing to the natures of the objects of study what areproducts of people’s contingent beliefs and attitudes aboutthose objects (Haslanger 1995).

Aperspectivity. The ideal of aperspectivity supposes that ifone views things from no particular position, without anypresuppositions or biases, then the only thing that guidesbelief-formation is the object itself (external guidance). Feministsquestion the intelligibility of a “view from nowhere,” anda presuppositionless, bias-free science, for both postmodernist(Haraway 1991) and pragmatist (Antony 1993) reasons. Knowers aresituated. The underdetermination of theories by evidence implies thatbiases are needed to get theorizing off the ground. Rather thanundertake a futile attempt to inquire without biases, we shouldempirically study which biases are fruitful and which mislead, andreform scientific practice accordingly (Antony 1993). Some feministcritics also argue that the practice of objectivity—assumingthat observed regularities reflect the intrinsic natures of things,and treating those things accordingly—when adopted by those inpower, produces the very regularities taken to vindicate thatassumption. When male observers use their power to make women behavein accordance with their desires (for instance, to elicit femalesubmission to their aggressive sexual advances), but assume their ownaperspectivity, they misattribute the behavior to women’sintrinsic natures (feminine passivity) rather than to their ownsocially positioned power. This process constitutes the“objectification” of women. It harms women by legitimatingthe sexist practices that reinforce the projection. It misrepresentsobserved regularities as necessary, rather than socially contingent,as well as their cause (as generated by the intrinsic nature of thethings observed, rather than by the observer’s own stance towardwhat is observed.) (MacKinnon 1999, Haslanger 1993).

Detachment. The ideal of detachment, according to whichscientists should adopt an emotionally distanced, controlling stancetoward their objects of study, is defended as necessary to avoidprojective error. Keller suggests that it is responsible for thesymbolically “masculine” standing of science thatmarginalizes women scientists, who are stereotyped as emotional. Itreflects an androcentric perspective, serving men’s neuroticanxieties about avoiding the “feminine” (Keller 1985a,Bordo 1987). Emotional distance may also have epistemic defects. A“feeling for the [individual] organism” may sensitize ascientist to critical data (Keller 1983, Ruetsche 2004).

Value-neutrality. The ideal of objectivity asvalue-neutrality is justified as a psychological stance needed toguard against temptations toward wishful thinking and dogmatic,politically motivated or ideological reasoning. Feminists argue thatthis ideal is self-deceptive and unrealistic (Potter 1993; Longino1990, 2001; Harding 1991, 1998; Wylie 1996). When scientists representthemselves as neutral, this blocks their recognition of the ways theirvalues have shaped their inquiry, and thereby evades critical scrutinyof these values. Value-neutrality ignores the many positive rolesvalue judgments play in guiding the process and products of inquirynoted above. Other procedures are available to block wishful thinkingand political dogmatism on science, without requiring scientists tobracket their value judgments (Anderson 1995, 2004, Longino 2001).

Control. Experimental contexts, in which scientists elicitregularities in the behavior of the objects of study by manipulatingthem under controlled conditions, are often taken to generateepistemically privileged evidence about the objects of study. Suchevidence is thought to ground knowledge of how the objects“really are,” in contrast with evidence about the objectsof study generated through “subjective” methods, such asparticipant observation, dialogue, political engagement, and caringfor their needs. Feminists argue that control is a stance of social,often male, power. The epistemic privilege it enjoys reflects bothandrocentrism and the prestige attached to the “masculine”(Merchant 1980). The control ideal underrates the epistemic value ofexperiences gained from loving or cooperative engagement with theobjects of study. Theories produced by control generate only a partialview of the potentialities of the objects of study, reflecting andserving interests in control over the objects, but not interests inengaging with the objects in other ways, or in enabling the objects ofstudy, if human, to govern themselves (Tiles 1987).

External guidance. External guidance assumes that to achieveknowledge of the way things “objectively” are, one’sbeliefs must be guided by the nature of the object, not by the biasesof the knower. Feminists argue that the underdetermination of theoriesby evidence entails that theories cannot be purely externally guided.Inquirers must make numerous choices concerning how to represent theobject of knowledge, how to interpret evidence, and how to representthe conclusions drawn (Anderson 2004, Longino 1990, Nelson 1990). Thepretense that sound scientific theories are the products of purelyexternal guidance obscures the forces shaping these choices andabsolves scientists from responsibility for defending them. Forexample, feminists have paid particular attention to the waysmetaphors and narrative genres constrain scientific explanations(Haraway 1989, 1991, Martin 1996). The decision to narrate thetransition from ape to hominid as a heroic drama dictates a focus onpresumptively male activities, such as hunting, as the engine ofevolution, obscuring alternatives equally supported by the data, thatfocus on presumptively female activity (balancing child care needswith gathering) or on behaviors, such as language use, shared by bothmales and females (Haraway 1989, Longino 1990).

These feminist criticisms of different conceptions of objectivityshare common themes. The problematic conceptions of objectivitygeneratepartial accounts of the world, which theymisrepresent as complete and universal. The forms of partiality theyunderwrite are either androcentric, symbolized as“masculine,” or serve male or other dominant groupinterests. They are justified by appealing to models of cognition thatrepresent error and bias in terms of qualities gender symbolized as“feminine” and attributed to women. Such conceptions ofobjectivity, in recommending avoidance of the “feminine,”exclude women from participation in inquiry or deprive them ofepistemic authority. The problematic conceptions of objectivity ignorethe knowledge-enhancing, epistemically fruitful uses of purportedly“feminine” approaches to theorizing. In attempting totranscend their situatedness, inquirers following these ideals ofobjectivity only mask it, commit the projective errors they seek toavoid, and resist correction.

Feminist Conceptions of Objectivity. Feministconceptions of objectivity tend to be procedural. Products of inquiryare more objective, the better they are supported by objectiveprocedures. Some influential feminist conceptions of objectivityinclude the following:

Feminist/nonsexist research methods. Some feminists haveoffered methodological guidelines for avoiding the sexist andandrocentric errors and biases that feminists have identified inmainstream science (Eichler 1988). More ambitiously, feminists havesought research methods that embody feminist values (Nielsen 1990,Reinharz 1992).

Emotional engagement. Some feminist theorists defend theepistemic fruitfulness of emotional engagement with the object ofstudy. Emotions serve epistemic functions in normative inquiry,attuning observers to evaluatively relevant features of the world(Jaggar 1989, Little 1995, Anderson 2004). In social scientificinquiry, emotional engagement with the subjects of study may benecessary both to elicit and interpret behaviors of scientificinterest. Ethnographers may need to win the trust of their subjects toget them to open up, and to achieve rapport with them to gainunderstanding. Keller (1985a) promotes an ideal of “dynamicobjectivity,” by which loving attention toward the objectenhances perception of it. However, Longino (1993b) questions whetherthis ideal is generally epistemically superior to other modes ofengagement.

Reflexivity. Harding (1993) argues that the objectivity isadvanced by reflexivity, which demands that inquirers place themselveson the same causal plane as the object of knowledge. They must makeexplicit their situatedness and how that shaped their inquiry.Reflexivity affirms the partiality of representations without denyingtheir claim to truth. Inclusion of marginalized groups into inquiryimproves reflexivity, because the marginalized are more likely tonotice and contest features of accepted representations that reflectthe perspectives of the dominant. Harding’s ideal of“strong objectivity” includes both reflexivity anddemocratic inclusion as key features of more objective processes ofinquiry.

Democratic discussion. Longino (1990, 2001) advances aconception of objectivity based on democratic discussion. Knowledgeproduction is a social enterprise, secured through the critical andcooperative interactions of inquirers. The products of this socialenterprise are more objective, the more responsive they are tocriticism from all points of view. Feminists build on a traditionincluding Mill, Popper, and Feyerabend (Lloyd 1997a) by offering (i) amore articulate conception of “all points of view,”stressing the influence of the social positions of inquirers on theirtheorizing; and (ii) a greater stress on the importance of equalityamong inquirers. In Longino’s account, a community of inquirersis objective if it: (1) offers public venues for the criticism ofknowledge claims; (2) responds to criticisms by changing its theoriesaccording to (3) publicly recognized standards of evaluation; and (4)follows a norm of equality of intellectual authority among itsmembers. The norm of equality has been refined to distinguishlegitimate differences of expertise from illegitimate exercises ofsocial power (Longino 2001).

Pluralist Themes in Feminist Conceptions ofObjectivity. Most feminist conceptions of objectivityaccommodate both methodological and theoretical pluralism. Differentcommunities of inquiry take an interest in different aspects of theworld, and develop partial theories to satisfy varied epistemic andpragmatic values. Most feminists resist the thought that these variedtheories must eventually be unified into a single grand theory. Aslong as different communities of inquiry are producing empiricalsuccesses in accordance with publicly recognized standards, whileholding themselves accountable to criticism from all sides, theirproducts may each count as objective, however irreducibly plural thecontent of their theories may be (Longino 2001, Harding 1991, 1998).However, Intemann (2010) questions the value of unlimited pluralism.If sexist and racist values have been found to be unjustified aftersustained inquiry, then scientific theories informed by these valuesneed not be taken seriously.

9. Epistemic Authority, Epistemic Injustice, Epistemologies of Ignorance, and Virtue Epistemology

Naturalized epistemology considers the effects of our pervasiveepistemic interdependence (Nelson 1990). Because inquiry iscollaborative and reliant on testimony, what we believe is influencedby who we believe. Who we believe depends on attributions of epistemicauthority, which rely on views about people’s expertise,epistemic responsibility, and trustworthiness. Feministepistemologists explore how gender and other hierarchical socialrelations influence attributions of epistemic authority, consideringtheir impact on (1) general models of knowledge; (2) the epistemicstanding of knowers; (3) whose claims various epistemic communities doand ought to accept; and (4) how this affects the distribution ofknowledge and ignorance in society. Some of these effects amount toepistemic injustice against members of subordinated groups.Some feminist epistemologists have advanced conceptions ofvirtueepistemology to remedy epistemic injustice and ignorance.

Epistemic Authority and General Models of Knowledge. Genderedideas about epistemic authority can distort our general models ofknowledge. Code (1991) argues that contemporary analyticepistemology’s core model of propositional knowledge implicitlypresupposes a male knower. The instances of knowledge analyticepistemology takes to be paradigmatic when it analyzes the formula“S knows that P” are propositions about readily observablemind-independent objects. To take these as the paradigmatic instancesof knowledge invites a model of the knower as masculine, in adoptingthe symbolically masculine objectivity package described above. Thisimplicitly denies epistemic authority to women. Code argues thatknowledge of other persons rather than of propositions should be takenas a primary model of knowledge. Such second-person knowledge callsthe implicit masculinity of knowers into question, since getting toknow others typically requires intimacy, dialogue, empathy and othercharacteristics gender symbolized as “feminine.”

More generally, Dotson (2018) has exposed the ways epistemologicaltheories may in practice presuppose meta-epistemological assumptionsdrawn from the social, political, and institutional environment thataccord superior epistemic power to speakers with certain perspectives,despite the racialized perceptions, ignorance, and institutionalracism that may be built into these perspectives. For example,evidentialism, which tells people to form beliefs on the basis oftheir current evidence, warrants beliefs based on narrow and biasedbodies of evidence that may reflect ignorance or avoidance of otherevidence that is wrongly excluded as irrelevant.

Recent epistemology’s focus on the indispensability of testimonyto inquiry has led feminist epistemologists to take Code’s ideasin a different direction, by investigating the dependence ofpropositional knowledge on knowledge of persons. For example,anthropologists must cultivate personal relationships of trust withnative informants to gain access to the natives’ situatedknowledge of their cultures. This requires reflection on the waysdifferences in power, interest, and social situation betweenanthropologists and their informants influence testimony and itsinterpretation. Feminist epistemologists question models of testimonyas transparent and unidirectional, highlighting testimony’sdialogic, strategic, and empathetic features, as well as theimportance and difficulty of cultivating epistemically fruitfulrelations of mutual trust across differences in power (Bergin 2002;Lugones 1987).

Epistemic Injustice. Other feminist epistemologists focus onthe impact of gender and other hierarchical relations on attributionsof epistemic authority. Dominant groups tend to accord epistemicauthority to themselves and withhold it from subordinates byconstructing stigmatizing stereotypes of subordinates as incompetentor dishonest. They promote, as markers of epistemic authority,characteristics stereotypically thought to be distinctively theirs(Addelson 1983; Shapin 1994). They hoard opportunities for gainingaccess to these markers—for instance, by denying subordinategroups access to higher education. Such practices commit epistemicinjustice against members of subordinate groups, undermining theirability to participate in collaborative inquiry. Fricker (2007) callsthis “testimonial injustice.” In the core case oftestimonial injustice, people discount the credibility of what otherssay on account of prejudice against their social group. Dotson (2011)distinguishes two kinds of testimonial injustice, silencing andsmothering. Silencing follows Fricker’s model, whereassmothering is a kind of self-censorship to protect oneself orone’s group from prejudicial misunderstanding. For example,women of color victimized by domestic violence might not to testify towhites about this, to avoid reinforcing white prejudice against blackmen. Hookway (2010) identifies epistemic injustice in practices thatexclude people from participating in inquiry in non-testimonial ways,such as asking questions, suggesting hypotheses, raising objections,and drawing analogies. When others fail to take such contributionsseriously out of prejudicial stereotyping of the contributor, thisinjustice injures the speaker not as a knower but as an inquirer.Davis (2021) distinguishes “identity-based” from“content-based” testimonial injustice, depending onwhether a speaker’s testimony is denigrated on the basis oftheir own social identity or on prejudice against social groupsassociated with the content of their speech (e.g., dismissing adoctor’s testimony about fibromyalgia based on the assumptionthat the women who suffer from it are merely seeking attention).

Hermeneutical injustice occurs when the interpretiveresources available to a community render a person’s experiencesunintelligible or misunderstood, due to the epistemic marginalizationof that person or members of her social group from participation inpractices of meaning-making (Fricker 2007). An example ofhermeneutical injustice is the dismissal of women as humorless orhypersensitive for getting upset at what was seen as mere cloddishcourtship or joking, before the concept of sexual harassment wasavailable to make sense of their experiences. This was an injusticebecause the victims of harassment were prejudicially denied effectiveaccess to the practices of meaning-making whereby they could have madetheir experiences intelligible to others. Mason (2011) argues thatmarginalized communities may have hermeneutical resources in whichtheir oppression is understood as such, but still suffer hermeneuticalinjustice if the dominant community fails to take up these resourcesby according epistemic authority to the marginalized. Pohlhaus (2011)argues that such ignorance can be willful, leading tocontributoryinjustice, an intentional maintenance of inadequate hermeneuticalresources that harmfully obstructs the uptake of resources theoppressed have developed to make sense of their experience (Dotson2012).

Epistemologies of Ignorance. Ignorance, like knowledge, hassystematic patterns and social-structural causes (Pohlhaus 2011,Proctor & Schiebinger 2008, Sullivan & Tuana 2007, Tuana &Sullivan 2006). Injustice in according people status as knowers andinquirers generates systematic ignorance that damages the interests ofsubordinated groups. Society could have access to, but forget orsuppress, knowledge useful to subordinated groups—for example,about plants that are effective abortifactants (Schiebinger 2007).Since accurate information on such matters is or was available,explanation is needed for why it is forgotten. Ignorance is sometimesdue to to segregation of situated knowers, preventing knowledge orunderstandings held by subordinate groups from disseminating (Margonis2007). Members of subordinated groups may have strategic interests inhiding knowledge about themselves from dominant groups (Bailey 2007).Most importantly, dominant groups have interests in avoiding the truthabout their own injustices (Mills 2007).

Virtue epistemology. Some feminist epistemologists advanceideals of epistemic virtue to address epistemic injustice. Fricker(2007) argues that to correct for testimonial injustice, hearers needto cultivate the virtue of epistemic justice—a disposition,rooted in one’s testimonial sensibility or second-natureperception of others’ credibility, to neutralize the effects ofprejudicial stereotypes on credibility judgments. Jones (2002)proposes rules for checking such biases when confronted withsurprising testimony. These include undertaking independentassessments of the credibility of the witness and the plausibility ofwhat they say; and letting the presumption against acceptingastonishing testimony be rebutted when one has good reason to distrustone’s distrust of the witness. Alcoff (2010) suggests thatcorrecting for testimonial injustice requires adopting standpointepistemology: one must not merely neutralize prejudice, but accordepistemic privilege to the marginalized. Kwong (2015) stresses thevirtue of open-mindedness, and Daukas (2011) of trustworthiness, whileSholock (2012) explores the importance of the dominant being disposedto acknowledge their own ignorance of the situated knowledge of theoppressed, so that they seek the latter’s testimony, and extendepistemic authority to them. A key theme of feminist virtueepistemology is its aspiration to cultivate dispositions that enableinquirers to produce knowledge that can overcome oppression (Daukas2018).

Some theorists have questioned suggestions to remedy epistemicinjustice with individual virtues. We must share responsibility fordevising epistemic practices of resistance to epistemic injustice(Medina 2013). A structural conception of remedies does not precludethe use of virtue epistemology to address structural epistemicinjustice, as long as epistemic institutions and systems can bebearers of epistemic virtue (Anderson 2012).

10. External Criticisms of Feminist Epistemology

Outside critics of feminist epistemology have argued that the entireresearch program is fundamentally flawed. Leading critiques offeminist epistemology include a collection of essays in theMonist, 77(4) (1994), Gross and Levitt (1994), Haack (1993),and Pinnick, Koertge and Almeder (2003). The most important criticism,found in all these works, is that feminist epistemology corrupts thesearch for truth by conflating facts with values and imposingpolitical constraints on the conclusions it will accept. Truthsinconvenient to a feminist perspective will be censored, and falseviews promoted because they support the feminist cause. Critics alsoaccuse feminist epistemologists of a corrosive cynicism about science,claiming that they reject it as a raw imposition of patriarchal andimperialist power. Feminists are charged with holding that, sinceeveryone else is engaged in a cynical power-play, they may as welljoin the battle and try to impose their beliefs on everyone else.

Defenders of feminist epistemology reply that these criticisms dependon gross misreadings of the feminist research program. Feminists donot reject objectivity and science, but rather seek to improve it bycorrecting sexist and androcentric biases in scientific inquiry, andby promoting criticism of research from all points of view (Lloyd1995a, 1995b, 1997a, 1997b, Nelson 1990). Nor do they deny thatscience discovers truths. The complaint is rather that, as dominantlypracticed, it offers apartial view of the world primarilyoriented to discovering those truths that serve particular humaninterests in material control and maintaining current socialhierarchies (Harding 1986, 1998, 1993; Tiles 1987). Feministepistemologists observe that the democratic and egalitarian norms forcognitive authority they accept, along with their requirement that thescientific community be open and responsive to criticism from allquarters, are incompatible with censorship, and with ignoring orsuppressing evidence that undermines any theory, including theoriesinspired by feminist values (Longino 1990, 1993a, 2001; Anderson2004—see Other Internet Resources). Although facts and valuesare intertwined, attention to values does not displace or compete withregard for the evidence (Anderson 1995b).

A second charge outside critics make against feminist epistemology isthat it accepts and uncritically valorizes traditional, empiricallyunfounded stereotypes about women’s thinking (as intuitive,holistic, emotional, etc.) (Haack 1993). Valorization of“feminine” ways of thinking may trap women in traditionalgender roles and help justify patriarchy (Nanda 2003). Promotion offeminist epistemology may carve out a limited “separatesphere” for female inquirers, but one that will turn into anintellectual ghetto (Baber 1994).

Defenders of feminist epistemology reply that the critics areattacking an obsolete version of feminist epistemology that was onlybriefly—and even at the time, controversially—entertainedwhen the field was launched in the 1980s (Wylie 2003, Anderson2004—see Other Internet Resources).

Further development of external critiques of feminist epistemologyawaits the critics’ engagement with the feministepistemology’s defenders and with current developments in thefield.

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• Anderson, Elizabeth, 2004, “How Not to Criticize Feminist Epistemology: a Review of Pinnick, Koertge and Almeder,Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology”.
• Janack, Marianne, 2004, “Feminist Epistemology,”Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• FEMMSS: Feminist Epistemologies, Methodologies, Metaphysics and Science Studies
• Gender, Race, and Philosophy: The Blog (includes symposia on recent work in the philosophy of race andgender)
• Gender Bias in Academe: An Annotated Bibliography of Important Recent Studies

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