Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science explores the ways in which gender (and social values and structures more broadly) influences scientific practices and theory development, our practices of inquiry and justification, and our conceptions of knowledge and of epistemic agents. Feminist epistemologies have also been applied beyond gender, to confront the ways in which other social structures, including race and disability, might affect knowledge practices and ways of knowing.
In this course we will explore the key questions within feminist epistemology and philosophy of science, including: Can social values play a legitimate role in scientific inquiry? Can knowledge be gendered? What would or should feminist science look like?
The course will begin with the introduction and evaluation of the main schools of feminist epistemology: feminist empiricism, standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism. We will explore consequences for mainstream notions of objectivity and value-free science, and consider particular case studies that draw out these tensions. We will also engage with questions of how we relate to one another as knowers, including the concepts of epistemic injustice, epistemologies of ignorance, and epistemologies of resistance.
- Kursleiter/in: Azita Suyin Chellappoo