Standpoint Epistemology - Case Study Example

Standpoint Epistemology Total Number of Words: 4,185 Table of Contents I. Introduction ……………………………………………………………… 3 II. General Facts about Standpoint Epistemology …………………….. 4 III. Philosophers’ Point-of-View with Regards to Standpoint Epistemology ……………………………………………… 8 IV. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………. 15 References ………………………………………………………………………. 18 -19 Introduction Standpoint epistemology is a very broad subject that is subjected to a lot of argument especially when it comes to issues related to process on how knowledge can be acquired. In line with the process on how knowledge should be gathered, philosophers in the past entered into a long-term endless debate on theories on how people should be able to acquire the correct and generally accepted ideas and beliefs. As stated by Simone Beauvoir back in the early 1950s, “the representation of the world is mostly reflected by the works of men; which eventually twisted the absolute truth behind so many issues and things around this world.” (de Beauvoir, 1972: p. 161) Such mentality creates bias assumptions and conclusions with regards to the questions related to knowledge. During the early 1970s, a movement called the “feminism” was established in order to fight for their human, social, and political rights equal to those of men. Establishing the movement was the feminist epistemologists’ way of preventing the unjustifiable beliefs that are going on against the capabilities of women in line with the issues related to equal respect, gender equality, sexual oppression, and sex discrimination into a public concern. As part of the study, general facts regarding the standpoint epistemology, with respect to the need to incorporate feminism or the female point-of-views and other concerns, will be discussed elaborately. Eventually, the researcher will develop an argument based on the different opinions of the past and current philosophers with regards to the ways on how standpoint epistemology should be developed. At the end of the study, the researcher will make a conclusion by expressing her own point-of-view related to the arguments of several philosophers. General Facts about Standpoint Epistemology As defined in the Merrian-Webster dictionary, standpoint is referring to “a position whereby an object, a principle, or a belief is being viewed and according to which these ideas are being compared and judged.” (Merriam-Webster Online, 2006 – 2007a) On the other hand, the word epistemology derived from a greek word epistēmē meaning knowledge (Merrian-Webster, 2006 - 2007b), is a branch of the study of Philosophy that is purely based on a theory of valid knowledge. In other words, a standpoint epistemology is a study that is focused on gathering true facts by being able to differentiate between the acceptable and unacceptable information, knowledge, or belief. In order to fully understand standpoint epistemology, it is essential to understand the concept of feminism. According to Susan James (2000), feminism is a political movement that is rooted on the belief that women are more on the disadvantaged side as compared to men such that oppressing their human rights as a person is in a way illegal and unjustifiable. (p. 576) It is a common knowledge that human beings are generally composed of men and women. However, some countries have widely accepted another set of gender categories which is the gay and lesbian population. In line with the context on James’ definition of feminism, I argue that feminism alone is a bias towards gender issues since the concept of feminism is not designed to cater the individual needs of the lesbians who are physically known as someone who also belongs to the category of female. The standpoint epistemology should be designed in such a way that the different categories related to gender issues must be fully considered and acknowledged. (Callaway, 1992) It should also include other concerns related to social class, educational attainment, socio-economic status, race, and nationality. With the effort to do so, a lot of the feminist philosophers believe that the establishment of a feminist standpoint theory could create a partially less distorted beliefs among the people in general since this kind of scientific process will evaluate both the social-situatedness and the historical basis of the best beliefs and knowledge that any culture has discovered in the past. (Haraway, 1988) Considering the standpoint epistemology theories that philosophers have designed over the years, I find it a little disturbing on how such a universal standpoint can be developed in order to cater the major concerns of the less advantage groups such as the African American women and the lesbians when in fact the African American women who are considered to be the less advantaged women among the white Americans are silent or is less being considered in the feminist postmodernism. (Hooks, 1990) The framework or concept of the standpoint theory has been first used and taken from the Marxist philosophy as an epistemological theory that deals with – and concentrates on how the qua workers in a capitalist system will be able to experience epistemic resource. (Lukács, 1971; Marx, 1964) Marxist’s account for “the consciousness of the Proletariat” standpoint epistemology gained prominence back between 1960s and 1970s (Lukács, 1923) wherein the feminist standpoint theorists eventually started to make a long list of arguments against the traditional epistemology stating that the marginalized and often ignored politically conscious feminists constitutes a favorable epistemic opinions that are not included in the Marxist’s theory. (Ahlström, 2005) For this reason, the group of feminist philosophers have also been considered the critics of science as well as the standpoint theorists. In the process of criticizing science, this group have been extending too much support on committing to either a value-free objectivity or totally abolishing objectivity in exchange for the idea of relativism. (Bernstein, 1983) Similar to some of the feminist groups, the standpoint theorists are – or have also criticized the conventional sciences for claiming that ‘science’ have the answer to practically anything in this world without considering the point-of-view of men and women in terms of nature and social relations. I strongly agree that people behind the study of the feminist standpoint epistemology need to strive harder in order to strengthen the standards of objectitvity by recognizing the historical, sociological, and the cultural relativism aspects of each society. Today, aside from the fact that the feminist standpoint epistemologists are well-known for the study of gender-related issues and claims; these people also recognizes the importance of historical, sociological, and cultural relativism as they acknowledge all the aspects of man-made knowledge and beliefs including those ideas that are based on the best scientific experiments and results. These philosophers critically and carefully evaluate all the gathered facts and raw data or information so as to determine the social situations that has the most tendency to have the most objective knowledge claims. Such argument also requires a scientific-based study with regards to the correlation between the historical beliefs and the most objective belief as well as a pure justification on the part of each philosopher. According to Stephen Jay Gould (1981), “it is a myth that science itself is an objective enterprise since a lot of facts and knowledge that is generally acceptable now may not be the absolute truth at all times.” (pp. 21 - 22) I totally agree with this statement since knowledge that is purely based on scientific study fails to consider a much wider topic such as the long list of social desires of both genders, the interests of each individual, as well as the social values these people have been accustomed to since birth. Nelson (1990), Longino (1990), and Harding (1998, 1991, 1986) also accept the fact that social values will always be present when it comes to evaluating the evidences gathered, the justification in a conclusion, as well as in the construction of a theory in relation to epistemology. These information will always be an essential part of developing a standpoint epistemology for the reason that these variables contributes a lot in shaping the rest of the human affairs. Likewise, knowledge that is purely based on objectivism may result to only a partial and distorted reasoning on why the natural historical events and social sciences have occurred. Without a scientific-based investigation such as the gathering of hypothesis, testing of the hypothesis and so on, it would be difficult to convince the people that the newly gathered facts or data can be considered and widely accepted by a human being. A standpoint epistemology that has strong objectivity is similar to having a concrete programme which can be used in the creation of sociology of knowledge which will eventually help us formulate what is generally ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ or to enable us to determine whether we have gathered ‘a more confirmed’ versus ‘a less confimed’ ideas and thoughts. Therefore, both the scientific approach and objectivism has to be considered in the development of a standpoint epistemology. In addition to this argument, some philosophers may or may not agree that ‘reflexivity’ should be a part of developing a standpoint epistemology. Philosophers, such as in the case of Joyce McCarl Nielsen (1990), does not consider reflexivity as an important part of standpoint epistemology may think that it lacks the mechanism needed to identify the cultural values as well as the interests of the researchers. (Woolgar, 1988) Contrary to such belief, Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) highly recommends that reflexivity should be a part of methodological method in order to prevent positivism as well as naturalism in the study of ethnography. Philosophers’ Point-of-View with Regards to Standpoint Epistemology It is not an easy task to develop and introduce a universal standpoint epistemology for the public consider since feminists in general agree that reality is different for all gender and class of people. For many years, our society has created an image that men dominate women in terms of their position in social life. In line with this matter, it is necessary to consider the different point-of-view of Nielsen (1990), Harding (1986) including several other philosophers with regards to the standpoint epistemology prior to making any conclusion. Nielsen (1990) stated that feminism is an anti-empiricist since it claims that science can create a bias result in the study of epistemology such that rationality is more important when making a final conclusion so that people could easily understand the whole concept of an argument. Similar to Nielsen’s opinion with regards to the application of science in the standpoint epistemology, Harding also claims that the use of scientific method must be redirected in such a way that science should be determined by social considerations. (Harding, 1986: Ch. 1) I believe that a rational judgement is an essential part of establishing a standpoint epistemology. Therefore, it is important for socially embedded individuals to be directly involved in the decision making process regarding the establishment of a standpoint epistemology. A ‘standpoint’ is a human interpretation or explanation of the nature – including our social life which is based on a moral and scientific study. (Harding, 1986: p. 26) It means that ‘standpoint theory’ should be designed in such a way that it could remove any possible bias conclusion in the study of epistemology. For this reason, I believe that it will remain a challenge for every feminist philosopher to minimize and/or eliminate all factors that could contribute to a bias result related to the oppression of race, class, heterosexual, etc. Several questions may continue to arise when it comes to developing a standpoint epistemology. First, there will always be a conflict between non-feminist philosophersincluding those feminist philosophers who believe in empiricism 1, standpoint 2, and postmodernism 3. It can be argued that a standpoint made by the non-feminist epistemologists tends to become less viable due to the fact that their opinion does not consider the aspect behind feminism. The fact that is does not consider gender-related issues make its credibility invalid in terms of creating a standpoint epistemology. Jaggar (1983) mentioned that the feminist standpoint theory will always be subjected to some level of philosophical as well as political struggle. (pp. 383 - 384) Feminist empiricism can be considered as a better substitute than a non-feminist epistemology for the reason that it is based on gender-related issues within the society such that men are more dominant in the social world. Similar to the non-feminist epistemologists, feminist empiricism should also be rejected due to its similarity with positivism as well as its belief that feminist science criticism is not a part of science. (Nelson, 1992) In the first part of this paper, we have clearly discussed the importance of both science and objectivity such that in the absence of scientific method of conducting a study, it will be difficult to defend that the conclusions made by epistemologists will be whole-heartedly accepted by the society. Considering the fact that feminist empiricism philosophers believe that the feminist science criticism is not a part of science, there is a high probability that the feminist empiricism is not the best option for a standpoint epistemology. Another argument in the study of feminist standpoint is its assumption that women guarantees a feminist understanding of the world. According to Sandra Harding (1991), there is really no such thing as “a typical woman’s life.” (pp. 10 - 11) It means that women’s life experiences will aways vary from one another. It is also not necessary that a woman’s life can be the same with the feminist knowledge due to the fact that women’s experiences are most likely to be influenced by their own cultural sense. Also, in Sandra Harding’s “Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?”, it was argued that taking the women’s lives as the basic foundation in generating knowledge can be irrational in the sense that women’s lives are contradictory of each other. (Harding, 1991: pp. 173 - 181) In line with Harding’s arguments, she suggests that there is a need for feminist standpoint theorists to replace their desire for unity with regards to the women’s common experiences. She also gave emphasis that being a woman does not give assurance of oppositional knowledge since the groups of people, considering the logic of pluralism, becomes the basis of acquiring knowledge. According to Harding (1991), it is possible to base knowledge on the daily experiences of those people who belongs to the oppressed and excluded groups by analyzing their individual life experiences according to the different historical groups of women. (p. 123) An example of acquiring knowledge based on the historical groups of women can be seen in the works of Bell Hooks who focuses almost all of her research studies on black women who she feels were on a special mission. In her first major book entitled “Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism”, she expressed her thoughts and opinions around the culture, gender, race, and class focusing on the issues related to “the devaluation of black womanhood, the effects of sexism on black women during the period of slavery, the black male sexism, the presence of racism within the most recent feminist movement, as well as the importance of black women’s involvement with feminism.” (Hook, 1981: p. 13) She also discussed issues related to the dominant white patriarchy versus the black male patriarchy and the black women regarding the social equality of both sexes. (1981: p. 185) Feminist standpoint theorists argue that feminist standpoint is a socially produced position such that it is not always immediately available to all women. Since all groups of people are socially classified, there is really no guarantee of a neutral epistemic position. Therefore, knowledge becomes a social construction. (Nielsen, 1990) This position indicates that it is possible for the socially oppressed class to be able to gather knowledge that is not available to the group of people who are more socially privileged in terms of social relations. Likewise, the socially privileged groups are also able to acquire knowledge that is not available to most of the socially oppressed class. However, the possibility of encountering a gap4 during the process of gathering some facts and information due to some instances of miscommunication and such may still arise somewhere. In the case of Bell Hook, many people agrees that she is able to relate more on the situation that most black women are experiencing more than those being experienced by people who belong to a more dominant group. The question still remains. Does all her personal insight become publicly accepted as the universal truth? Perhaps some critics will always be present to make new thoughts arise. In Bell Hooks’ “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations” (1994), She wrote in her introduction that sometimes she writes a contradictory relationship to popular culture for the purpose of sharing her own knowledge to other people. (p.4) In the process, she is also able to contribute a new thought or suggest a new way in which the old patterns of the cultural imperialism and colonialism can be improved. (p. 5) In the end, the possibility of the formation of a new epistemology may occur. (p.6) I agree that all philosophers should sit down and discuss the standpoint epistemology in order to develop a better ground in developiong a universal knowledge for all. Although the books written by Hooks (1981,1994) may sound like a feminist postmodernism in the sense that it discusses issue related to the different identity such as gender, race, class, sexuality, and nation. However, Hooks still view postmodernism as something that is limited to the black people especially to black women. Perhaps it could be since the postmodernism is a movement that has been fostered by and especially designed for the white literate types or simply due to the fact that a very few African – American intellectuals have been able to discuss or write about postmodernism. (Hooks, 1990) Social reality can be derived from the assumptions that are found in a traditional social science such that there is an order in the social world and that there is a unity in science. (Nielsen, 1990) However, a hidden data or a bad data interpretation may occur in case a gap between the researcher and the known is present. To lessen the probability of having a bias result, Hardling (1986) suggest that the standpoint should include democratic values that could increase the objectivity in the study of epistemology. She noted in her writings “Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?” that both the feminist empiricism and the feminist standpoint were not able to increase the value of neutrality as much as ‘science’ does. In line with this statement, she claims that a strong commitment to democratic values is something that can increase objectivity. (Harding, 1991) Despite that many philosophers have put in much effort to develop a standpoint epistemology, the tension behind the question as to whether this is doable or not still remains. Considering that we have more than two gender classifications aside from the usual male and female, perhaps having a separate lesbian feminist standpoint will be useful to the society. Also, considering that feminism is very much focused with the oppressed groups in the society, maybe it would also be possible to establish another set of standpoint for the African American male society. (Harding, 1991) However, the male African American male is really never a part of feminism. Thus, a conflicting argument may in the end arise. This statement gives rise to the question of whether there is a need to establish multiple standpoints in order to address the individual concerns of the society. In line with this argument, establishing a multiple standpoints would mean violating the purpose of being able to establish only one standpoint epistemology for all. Conclusion It is not possible to consider the point-of-view of only one feminist epistemologist considering that the opinion of one may be less credible than the other. Therefore, it is highly recommended that one should hear not only one side of the argument but as many as possible prior to making a more concrete and rational judgement in the end. Objectivity and science should always go together in order to develop a more concrete and viable standpoint epistemology. As discussed earlier, having either pure objectivity or pure science alone can only result to a bias conclusion in the end of the study. Reflexivity can also be useful as long as it corresponds with the use of objectivity and scientific methods. The works of philosophers such as Sandra Harding (1998, 1991, 1986), Joyce Nielsen (1992, 1990), and Bell Hooks (1994, 1990, 1981) among others contribute a lot in the study of standpoint epistemology. I very much agree with the concern of Harding (1986) with regards to the development of a universal standpoint epistemology as written in “The Science Question in Feminism” – given that our society is made up of different class, race, and gender as one nation; it is rather difficult to be able to establish a universal standpoint epistemology that could address each individual concern of the people without creating a point of argument to the intellects of other minority groups. The goal of being able to develop and implement a universal standpoint epistemology is still a subject for further study. Establishing a multiple standpoints is the easiest way to address the concern of everybody. However, it clearly violates the purpose of being able to develop only one standpoint epistemology for all regardless of gender, race, and other social issues. The gathering of several famous or non-famous philosophers, with the purpose of developing a universal standpoint epistemology, is necessary and is very much recommended in order to avoid any bias conclusion that may come up due to the probability that an unavoidable misinterpretation or non-approval of certain culture as well as the historical beliefs of the people in different groups will occur. Considering the fact that a person could acquire his or her knowledge through a continuous social interaction with other people within a certain group, people will always have a limited knowledge on certain issues. Therefore, gathering these people to brain-storm on topics regarding what they know and what others know could narrow down the gap between the known and the unknown. As a result, it creates a less violent argumentative feedback which can allow more people to easily accept the concluded information as a universally acceptable beliefs and knowledge. *** End *** References: Ahlström, K. (2005). Incorporating Feminist Standpoint Theory. Sats - Nordic Journal of Philosophy , Vol. 6, No. 2. Bernstein, R. (1983). Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Callaway, H. (1992). Ethnography and Experience: Gender Implications in Fieldwork and Texts. in Okely J. and Callaway H. (eds) Anthropology and Autobiography. London and New York: Routledge. de Beauvoir, S. (1972). The Second Sex, trans. Parshley, H.M. NY: Vintage. p. 161. Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton. pp. 21 - 22. Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (1983). 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Reflexivity is the Ethnographer of the Text. in Woolgar S. (eds) Knowledge and Reflexivity. London: Sage. Read More