WEEK 7: HELEN LONGINO SCIENCE AS SOCIAL KNOWLEDGEMichael Prideaux

IMPORTANT PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS

• Epistemology- (lit. the study of knowledge) an area of philosophy dedicated to studying knowledge.• What are the characteristics of knowledge?

• Androcentrism- A bias that assumes that male experiences are the center or universal norm of experience. • Metaphysics- a branch of philosophy dedicated to study of

fundamental questions about the nature of reality and the universe.• Is there time without change?• What makes X the same person over time? • What makes someone a woman?

FIRST PERSPECTIVE: VALUE-FREE “OBJECTIVE” SCIENCE

• Followers of value-free science (VFS) adhere to beliefs like:• The identity of the scientist does not and indeed should not matter

(replicability).• Social values (beliefs like anti-sexism, social justice, etc.) do not belong in

science.• Scientific truth is “objective” meaning that it is true, regardless of

cultural/political/social context.

SECOND PERSPECTIVE(S): FEMINIST SCIENCE?

• Longino discuses three different feminist approaches to science:• Interactionist.• Stand Point Theory.• Her own approach(doing science as a feminist).

INTERACTIONIST AND STANDPOINT THEORY

APPROACHES• Interactionist: “Women have certain traits (for example, dispositions to

attend to particulars and interactive and cooperative social attitudes and behaviors rather than individualist and controlling ones) that enable them to understand the true character of natural processes (which are complex and interactive)” (Longino 188).• Jane Goodall notes social complexity in chimpanzees and revolutionized the

world of primatology. would John Goodall have noticed the same things if he had the same data?

• Standpoint Theory: Similar to interactionist theories however with a focus on “woman’s voice” and the belief that it is social location and oppression that give women a unique voice on matters like science and politics. (For more see the work of Sandra Harding, and Donna Haraway)

LONGINO’S APPROACH

• Longino rejects interactionism, standpoint theory and VFS.• Essentialism, recall the handout from the week on intersectionality. • “women are too diverse in our experiences to generate a single cognitive

framework” (Spelman and Lugones mentioned in Longino 188). • Science as practice vs. Science as content.

• Process instead of product. • What does this mean?

• Does Longino just want us to wait and see if a particular framework is problematic? (191).

LONGINO’S APPROACH CONT’D THE ROLE OF VALUES

• For Longino values and political commitments are inseparable from the scientific process.

• “I am suggesting that a feminist scientific practice admits political considerations as relevant constraints on reasoning, which through their influence on reasoning and interpretation shape content. In this specific case those considerations in combination with the phenomena support an explanatory model that is highly interactionist, highly complex” (191).

EXAMPLE OF VALUES INFLUENCING RESEARCH: RACE AND IQ

DISCUSSION ACTIVITY

• Form into four groups • 1- Neomarxism.• 2- Michel Foucault.• 3- Evelynn Fox Keller.• 4- Donna Haraway.

• Answer the following:• What does each theorist say about science/knowledge?• What is the role of values (or power or ideology) in science according to

them?• Differences/similarities to Longino’s approach to science.• What is the role of the scientist?

NEOMARXISM

• Three themes in relation to truth and science:• First, Weapons, genetic engineering, and other ills of technology are not

inherent to science and technology but rather are a product of “bourgeois science” (194)• Bourgeois- middle-class often capitalist person

• Second, Neomarxists reject reductionism the belief that things can be “boiled-down” to a root cause.

• Third, better Marxist science will not only bring liberation but a better understanding of the natural world.

MICHEL FOUCAULT

• Concerned with discourse• The ways of talking and writing about a subject.

• The subject (or scientist) is not the focus of inquiry, rather they are seen as a product of relations of power.

• Knowledge is fundamentally linked to power• And the current form of power is biopower which is focused on totalizing

normalization.

EVELYN FOX KELLER

• Uses object relations theory to argue that our understanding of objectivity is clouded by cognitive and psychic structures which arise from infancy. • Object-Relations Theory suggests that the way people relate to others and

situations in adulthood is shaped by interactions with the environment and the family during infancy.

• Historically science has been pluralistic however it was only recently that VFS came to dominate.• VFS is problematic because their idea of objectivity in Keller’s eyes

necessarily involves controlling natural phenomena meaning scientists prefer theories which view the natural world or the subject of inquiry as an object to be controlled

• Historically the rise of VFS also was accompanied by the rise of heteronormativity and the patriarchy, with the scientist always being male.

DONNA HARAWAY

• Sees science as able to oppress but also able to liberate.

• Looks at primatology to see how western ideology is justified.

• Need to recognize historical location of tools, subjects and the self to have a “better science”