An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies

Could gender, race, and sexuality be relevant to knowledge?

Although their positions and arguments differ in several respects, feminists have asserted that science, knowledge, and rationality cannot be severed from their social, political, and cultural aspects.

This book presents a comprehensive introduction to feminist epistemologies situated at the intersection of philosophical, sociological, and cultural investigations of knowledge. It provides several critiques of more traditional approaches, and explores the alternatives proposed by feminists. In particular, this book contains extensive discussions of topics such as objectivity, rationality, power, and subject.

Drawing on a variety of sources, the author also argues that when knowledge is conceived in terms of practices, it becomes possible to see it as normative and socially constituted.

Part I: Varieties of Epistemology:.

1. Epistemology.

2. The Study of Scientific Knowledge:.

a. Philosophy of Science.

b. The Sociology of Knowledge.

c. The Cultural Study of Scientific Knowledge.

Part II: Feminism and "Mainstream" Epistemology.

1. Feminist Criticisms of Individualism in Epistemology.

2. Feminist Objections to the Traditional Epistemic Subject.

Part III: Feminism and Science:.

1. Sexist Science.

2. Science and Values.

Part IV: Feminist Empiricism:.

1. Contextual Empiricism.

2. Naturalised Empiricism.

3. The Limits of Empiricism.

Part V: Naturalised feminist Epistemology:.

1. Feminism and Naturalised Epistemology.

2. Sociology and Naturalised Epistemology.

Part VI: The Importance of Standpoint in Feminism:.

1. What is a Standpoint: Beginning from Women′s Experience.

2. Starting from Marginal Lives.

Part VII: Objectivity and Feminism:.

1. What is Objectivity?.

2. Objectivity and Objectification. Objectivity, Values, and Responsibility.

Part VIII: Knowledge and Power:.

1. Power, Knowledge, and Human Interests.

2. Disciplinary Power, Bio–Power, and Science.

Part IX: Reason and Unreason in feminism:.

1. Reason and masculinity.

2. Reason and the Philosophical Imaginary.

Part X: Feminism and Postmodernism:.

1. Epistemology: Rejection or Transformation?.

2. Knowledge and the Subject.

Alessandra Tanesini is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Wales, Cardiff. She has been a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. She is the author of several articles on Nietzsche, feminist philosophy, and epistemology, and is currently working on a book on Wittgenstein and feminism.

"One of the strengths of the book is Tanesini′s attention to detail in argument and her capacity to draw fine distinctions between the positions she discusses." Alison Ainley, Radical Philosophy

"The scope of the book is wide, and I would recommend it as a text book for students in the final year of their degree, postgraduate students and also to academics in general. It is very clearly written and the issues are explained in detail and contextualised adequately. There is no simplification of the topics, and the analyses offered by Tanesini are throrough. I would classify this as an accessible but sophisticated introduction to feminist epistemology." Stella Gonzalez Arnal, Women′s Philosophy Review, no. 24, 2000