How To Be Postmodern Without Being A Feminist

Abstract

Feminist epistemology: on the face of it this is a contradiction in terms. Feminism has its origins in a social subgroup, which has tended to be particu larist, separatist, and even sexist; epistemology is the study of the conditions of knowledge, or more modestly of justified belief, which are common to human beings as such. The question whether we can or cannot attain such conditions ra tionally is one of the most important topics of debate in modern philosophy, and it by no means depends on the insights of any particular group. The debate has been situated in the space between those who regard valid knowledge as unitary across all differences of social and historical context, and those who regard claims to truth as essentially relative to such contexts, without any possibility of rational adjudication between them. In this whole spectrum of views no one, I think, has suggested that gender as such could be the overriding factor in claims to knowledge. There is a great variety of social and ideological networks into which men and women are social ized, and their functions and interests are differentiated in many different ways in different times and places. Moreover, no wants to adopt an extreme and self-contained relativist position, if only because this reflects upon any claims to truth put forward by the movement itself. So there cannot in this sense be a feminist epistemology, any more than a black or gay or senior citizens' or trade union or football club or media Mercifully only one or two of the above have ever been suggested, and they have not shown great powers of survival within the intellectual debate. If this discussion is to continue at all, something different must be meant by the phrase feminist epistemology. Wiiat has been meant in writings is in the first place a critique of the existing epistemological tradition, and of the philosophy of post-17th century science which has largely structured that tradition. The critique may be called for two reasons. First, although many objections to the tradition have been voiced in philosophy and sociology during the last few decades, these have recently been taken up with particular enthusiasm by some philosophers and social scientists who are women. Secondly, the general critique has been power fully exemplified by the history of women in science and, more radically, by