Meeting Notes - Feminist Epistemology and Standpoint Theory
This is the 2nd of 3 selected documents from our weekly Philosophy Club. These documents are meant to introduce our members to new thinkers and ideas in philosophy.
Sandra G. Harding (born 1935), is an American feminist philosopher
The American feminist theorist Sandra Harding coined the term Standpoint Theory to categorize epistemologies that emphasize women’s knowledge. She argued that it is easy for those at the top of social hierarchies to lose sight of real human relations and the true nature of social reality and thus miss critical questions about the social and natural world in their academic pursuits. In contrast, people at the bottom of social hierarchies have a unique standpoint that is a better starting point for scholarship. Although such people are often ignored, their marginalized positions actually make it easier for them to define important research questions and explain social and natural problems.
Standpoint Theory argues that knowledge stems from social position. The perspective denies that traditional science is objective and suggests that research and theory have ignored and marginalized women and feminist ways of thinking.
Standpoint theories usually claim that the perspectives of subordinated social groups have an epistemic advantage regarding politically contested topics related to their subordination, relative to the perspectives of the groups that dominate them. Classically, standpoint theory claims that the standpoint of the subordinated is advantaged in:
Revealing fundamental social regularities
In exposing social arrangements as contingent and susceptible to change through concerted action
In representing the social world in relation to universal human interests.
By contrast, dominant group standpoints represent only surface social regularities in relation to dominant group interests, and misrepresent them as necessary, natural, or universally advantageous.