SITUATED KNOWLEDGE THROUGH EXPLORATION: REFLECTIONS ON BUNGE'S ‘GEOGRAPHICAL EXPEDITIONS’*

Abstract

Over the last decade or so notions of ”situated knowledge,” “standpoint theory,” and ”positionality” have received an enormous amount of attention in radical scientific and social scientific circles and in the humanities. At its most simplistic, this state of affairs can be taken as something of a reaction to, and critical engagement with, post-modernist and post-structuralist modes of thought which have gained increasing credence within the academic left. Within feminist academic and activist inquiry particularly, the concept of ”situated knowledge” has called into question the epistemological basis of the western Enlightenment philosophical tradition and scientific practice (see, e.g., Harding, 1986; Hartsock, 1987,