Taking Gender Seriously in Philosophy of Science

Abstract

Using the author's social analysis of scientific knowledge, two ways of understanding the importance of gender to the philosophy of science are offered. Given a requirement of openness to multiple critical perspectives, the gender, race and class structure of a scientific community are an important ingredient of its epistemic reliability. Secondly, one can ask whether a gender sensitive scientific community might prefer certain evaluative criteria (or virtues of theory or practice) to others. Six such criteria (several of which are at odds with criteria accepted in mainstream science) are discussed. Their articulation prompts a series of philosophical questions, the answering of which would constitute one program (or more) of a gender sensitive philosophy of science.