Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T02:25:13.649Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Consensus, Dissensus, and Democracy: What Is at Stake in Feminist Science Studies?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Margret Grebowicz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

If feminists argue for the irreducibility of the social dimensions of science, then they ought to embrace the idea that feminist and non-feminist scientists are not in collaboration, but in fact defend different interests. Instead, however, contemporary feminist science studies literature argues that feminist research improves particular, existing scientific enterprises, both epistemically (truer claims) and politically (more democratic methodologies and applications). I argue that the concepts of empirical success and democracy at work in this literature from Longino (1994) and Harding (1996), to Longino (2002), Gilbert and Rader (2001), and Keller (2001) are not sufficiently critical, and fail to do justice to the truly revolutionary work done by feminist scientists. I offer the beginnings of an epistemology of dissensus (as opposed to consensus), using the work of Haraway (1978), Lyotard (1984, 1998), and Ziarek (2001). How would such an epistemology relate to feminist discussions of the possibility of democratic, responsible knowledge?

Type
Gender and Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 72 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2005 , pp. 989 - 1000
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

This article is the result of my three years of as “science” reviewer for The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory. I am grateful to the editor, Martin McQuillan, for the opportunity. I here develop some of the ideas which originated in my contribution to volume 12 of that journal.

References

Alcoff, Linda Martín (2001), “On Judging Epistemic Credibility: Is Social Identity Relevant?”, in Tuana, Nancy and Morgen, Sandra (eds.), Engendering Rationalities. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Ashman, Keith M., and Baringer, Philip S., eds. (2001), After the Science Wars. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Creager, Angela, Lunbeck, Elizabeth, and Schiebinger, Londa (2001), “Introduction”, in Creager, Angela, Lunbeck, Elizabeth, and Schiebinger, Londa (eds.), Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1–19.Google Scholar
Fedigan, Linda Marie (2001), “The Paradox of Feminist Primatology: The Goddess’s Discipline?”, in Creager, Angela, Lunbeck, Elizabeth, and Schiebinger, Londa (eds.), Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 46–72.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Scott F., and Rader, Karen A. (2001), “Revisiting Women, Gender, and Feminism in Developmental Biology”, in Creager, Angela, Lunbeck, Elizabeth, and Schiebinger, Londa (eds.), Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 73–98.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna ([1978] 1996), “Animal Sociology and the Body Politic, Part II: The Past Is the Contested Zone”, in Keller, Evelyn Fox and Longino, Helen E. (eds.), Feminism and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 57–72. Reprint. Originally published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 4:21–60..Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra ([1993] 1996), “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemologies: What Is ‘Strong Objectivity'?”, in Keller, Evelyn Fox and Longino, Helen E. (eds.), Feminism and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 235–248. Reprint. Originally published in Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (eds.), Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keller, Evelyn Fox (2001), “Making a Difference: Feminist Movement and Feminist Critiques of Science”, in Creager, Angela, Lunbeck, Elizabeth, and Schiebinger, Londa (eds.), Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 46–72.Google Scholar
Keller, Evelyn Fox (2002), Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, Elizabeth ([1993] 1996), “Pre-theoretical Assumptions in Evolutionary Explanations of Female Sexuality”, in Keller, Evelyn Fox and Longino, Helen E. (eds.), Feminism and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 91–102. Reprint. Originally published in Philosophical Studies 69:139–153.Google Scholar
Longino, Helen E. (1994), “In Search of Feminist Epistemology”, In Search of Feminist Epistemology 77:472–485.Google Scholar
Longino, Helen E. (2002), The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyotard, Jean-François (1984), The Postmodern Condition. Translated by Bennington, Geoffrey and Massumi, Brian. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Lyotard, Jean-François (1998), “Universal History and Cultural Differences”, in Benjamin, Andrew (ed.), The Lyotard Reader. Translated by David Macey. London: Blackwell, 314–323.Google Scholar
Martin, Emily ([1991] 1996), “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles”, in Keller, Evelyn Fox and Longino, Helen E. (eds.), Feminism and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 103–117. Reprint. Originally published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16:485–501.Google Scholar
Solomon, Miriam (2001), Social Empiricism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, Alison (2001), “Doing Social Science as a Feminist: The Engendering of Archaeology”, in Creager, Angela, Lunbeck, Elizabeth, and Schiebinger, Londa (eds.), Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 23–45.Google Scholar
Ziarek, Ewa Plonowska (2001), An Ethics of Dissensus: Postmodernity, Feminism, and the Politics of Radical Democracy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar