Feminist Epistemology, Contextualism, and Philosophical Skepticism - Essay Example

Brister explains that an argument of what an individual believes can be approached from two skepticism concepts. In of the concepts referred to as the philosophical skepticism, most philosophical skeptics tend to have the conception that all beliefs are almost equal to each other and therefore no particular belief may be deemed better than the other. On the contrary, some other high standard skeptics have the conception that owing to the fact that knowledge is normally build upon complete certainty of a person’s beliefs, the mere fact that most human beliefs tend to lack complete certainty implies that human beings are not knowledgeable. Philosophical skeptics can refute the claim that human beings believe that they have two legs or two arms on the basis of their predisposition that all human beliefs cannot be justified. Furthermore, in favor of their argument that no human belief is justified, philosophical skeptics back up this argument even more by using the Brain-in-vats concept that presumes that the human mind sometimes tend to act as if the brain has been detached from the rest of the body and placed in a vat liquid. Consequently, they continue to argue that since there is no one who will provide evidence or prove that the human brain is not in a vat, this is also another evidence to shoe that virtually no human belief is justified. As such, Brister regards the philosophical skepticism idea as ludicrous, which can only be saved by the application of common sense. Some of the controversial arguments that philosophical skeptics have presented, which have continued to storm the heads of other scholars, include the belief in the idea that there was another force behind the course of evolution other than what the general universe perceive as a single intelligent designer. They have therefore been able to have a great influence on the world especially in most school curricula that have been forced to adjust their teaching programs especially when it comes to biological evolution studies. According to Bristers, the concept of feminist epidemiology is a form of epistemology that generally builds on ideas and information from a feminist perspective. Feminist epistemology aims at providing counter arguments for the skeptics’ general view of the human mind and life as whole. Brister argues that skeptics have a tendency to base their epistemological arguments from an androcentric and individualistic perspective. As a matter of fact, most skeptics are alleged to have an inclination towards perceiving certain elite individuals as solitary objects or in isolation. Therefore, this implies that if skeptics could approach epistemology from a different perspective other than perceiving individuals as solitary entities, as is the case with feminist epistemology, then the philosophical skepticism would be less controversial and somehow less strong. Although feminism epistemology seems to be counteractive to philosophical skepticism to some extent, it does not aggressively attempt to object or criticize skepticism since such a move to disprove skepticism would do more than good. The disapproval would serve to popularize the philosophy than expose its controversial parts. Feministic epistemology also entails naturalizing epistemological ideologies. In order to naturalize epistemology, knowledge is empirically examined. By naturalizing epistemology in the process of investigating knowledge, one gets to comprehend how individuals acquire knowledge as well as some form of knowledge that people tend to posses, which form the basis of justification of individual beliefs. By so doing, this eliminates possible chances of skeptic tendencies, since the epistemic process will be studying groups of people instead of a particular individual of a given gender. In naturalism, knowledge is actually possible to all individuals. In naturalization of epistemology, it is therefore not easy to attain a value-free epistemology owing to the fact that by naturalization of the process, most enquiries are to have some substantial value. From these values, one can then find a basis of for explaining why some beliefs are more justified or have a wise acceptance than others. Moreover, in order to do this from a feministic point of view, certain “feministic congenial” values such as “ontological heterogeneity” and empowerment, should be added to some common epistemological values such as generality, simplicity among others. The major flaw in this approach lies in the manner in which the process lays down its priorities. This flaw lies in the fact that rather than investigating whether knowledge is possible, the process goes straight ahead to examine how the process is possible. In this response, one can therefore argue that that it would seem pointless to try to demonstrate how beliefs would be justified without necessarily tackling the question of whether beliefs can be justified. However, in defense of this flaw, naturalization of epistemology can be deemed as an all inclusive process that simultaneously addresses the question of how knowledge is possible while sealing the loopholes in skeptical approach. On the same point, another flaw for the naturalization of epistemology arises from the fact that the process does not provide any reasonable evidence behind its clear criticisms of the skepticism’s premises. As a matter of fact, for any sound argument or criticism, there is always a need to back up such claims with strong evidence-based counter arguments; naturalization forthrightly fails to provide sufficient claims. Knowledge can also be investigated through a pragmatic point of view. This involves the application the analytical of strategies such as conceptualization as well as the use of rather descriptive approach. In order to attain the intended objectives, pragmatism in feminist epistemology tends to use simple ordinary but relevant language. To counteract the idea put forward by skeptics, proponents of pragmatic feminist epistemology presume that humans have some form of knowledge, which can be used as a definitive case. In contrast to the other epistemological approaches, the pragmatic approach follows a certain order of priority. This is accomplished through working first on the premises that everyone possesses knowledge from which, the various cognitive successes that one can achieve, can be determined. By so doing, this will lay the platform for addressing some of the flaws in skepticism approach by utilization of the descriptive project. Contextualists present that the concepts of justification and knowledge are highly determined by the context in which they are being assessed. This consequently implies that there are a number of factors that determine the two concepts. Some of these factors include the ability to pick out some of the relevant details from a set of alternatives, as well as the effects of being misunderstood. In contextualism people are presumed to have enormous knowledge but the extent they demonstrate the vastness of their knowledge and abilities is limited by the fact that people tend to be influenced by ordinary contexts. To some extent, the contextualism concept seems to converge with the skeptical point of view especially in the sense that the former accepts that it is human possible to perform some duties absent mindedly, whereas the latter regards such a situation as the “the brain in a vat”. The contrast between the two emanates from the fact that skeptical tend to shift goal posts to their sides so as to allow for generalization of their assumptions. On the other hand, contextualists do not shift situations in their favor; instead they presume that most outcomes to do with knowledge or belief are normally influenced to some extent by the situation that one is facing. Contextualists avoid the issues posed by skeptics by basing their claims on the assumption that for a particular belief to be regarded as knowledge, the belief must be able to have an element of truth. Similarly, as opposed to skeptics, it is a typical contextualism tendency to believe that the amount of knowledge that one has, is to some extent influenced by the degree of sensitivity that one attaches to a given context or situation. In feminist contextualists despite the fact that claims obtained through scientific means inside a laboratory are more compressive and somewhat true compared to some claims derived from a social gathering, this does refute that those from a social gathering are completely untrue. Contextualists usually consider the contextual setting in which the claims were made. In this sense, it should be noted that such contexts are normally different and incomparable to each other thus making each claims to be unique in its own way. This further implies that a particular claim derived from a laboratory may not be completely valid or applicable in a social gathering setting just as those derived from a social gathering may not be logic in a laboratory setting. Skeptics tend to relate, rank and draw a comparison between the two contexts whereas contextualists tend to avoid relating the two different contexts due to their distinctiveness. In contextualism, contexts can be analyzed under either internal or external contexts. This therefore implies that under some standards, some procedures can be more successful than others even though they have a common aim. Taking the case of a criminal interrogation and medical diagnosis that seeks to establish the medical history of a patient as an example, although both have a common aim of establishing the truth, the method employed by the two processes may not be the same owing to their different context Therefore by having a sensitive belief, if one knows for certain that a given situation is true, he should admit to knowing the same situation even in an unlikely situation that the situation may be false. To rid off any biases, contexualists also tend to presume that there is also an element of strength that usually plays a role in reinforcing a person’s belief in the same situation. Works cited Brister, Evelyn. "Feminist Epistemology, Contextualism, And Philosophical Skepticism." Metaphilosophy (2009): 671-688. Read More