Department of Philosophy

PHIL 725: FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGIES

FALL 2008



Dr. Vrinda Dalmiya
Office : SAKMAKI, B-303
Office Hours: MF 10.30 – 11.30 (and also by appointment)



TEXTS
Required:
Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Justice
Sandra Harding (ed.), The Feminist Standpoint Reader (H)

Xerox Package

Optional
Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (eds.), Feminist Epistemologies (A&P)
Helen Longino, The Fate of Knowledge
 


REQUIREMENTS
1 Final essay due Dec. 12

Every other week, a one-page summary of the argument (save your criticisms for class discussion) from one/two of the readings for the week. To be posted on the class website by 10.30 AM on the day of class.

Presentation and Class Participation



TOPICS & READINGS
The following list of readings is work in progress! The first 4 topics are complete and the readings are available as a Xerox package at Campus Copy. What I have for topics 5 onwards will give you a sense of what we will be doing – though this will be fleshed out as we go along.





1. Introduction: Setting the Stage - Analytic Epistemology, Objectivity & Feminism
    Tiles, “Mastering Metaphors”
    Campbell, “The Bias Paradox in Feminist Epistemology
    Rae Langton, “Feminism in Epistemology: Exclusion and Objectification”
    

2. The Very Idea of a Feminist Epistemology
    Haack, “Epistemological Reflections of an Old Feminist”
    Code, “A Feminist Epistemology?”
    Fraser & Nicholson, “Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter                 between Feminism and Postmodernism
    Koertge, “Feminist Values and the Value of Science”
    Alcoff, “How Is Epistemology Political?”
    
    Recommended
    Narayan, The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a Non-                Western Feminist” (H)
    Kourany, “Socially Responsible Directions for Feminist Theory of Science”
    Anderson, “How Not to Criticize Feminist Epistemology”


3. The “Crisis” of Rationality: Gendering Reason?
    Fox Keller, Baconian Science: The Arts of Mastery and Obedience
    Bordo, “The Cartesian Masculinization of Thought and the Seventeenth-Century             Flight from the Feminine”
    Bordo, “Feminist Skepticism and the ‘Maleness’ of Philosophy”
    Lloyd, “Maleness, Metaphor, and the ‘Crisis’ of Reason”
    Alcoff, “Is the Feminist Critique of Reason Rational?”

    Recommended
    Fox Keller and Grontkowski, “The Mind’s Eye”
    Atherton, “Cartesian Reason and Gendered Reason”
    Lovibond, “Feminism and the ‘Crisis of Rationality’”
    Rooney, “Gendered Reason: Sex Metaphor and Conceptions of Reason”
    

4. Knowing Selves: Alternative Epistemological Paradigms
    Code, “Taking Subjectivity into Account”? (AP)
    Nussbaum, “Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance”
    Lugones, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Traveling, and Loving Perception”
    Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the             Privilege of Partial Perspective” (H)
    Tuana, “Material Locations: An Interactionist Alternative to Realism/Social     
        Constructivism

    
    Recommended
    Kadi, “Stupidity Deconstructed”
    Nussbaum, “Love’s Knowledge”
    Hrdy, “Empathy, Polyandry, and the Myth of the Coy Female”
    Scheman, “Feeling our Way Toward Moral Objectivity”
    Baier, “Hume: The Reflective Women’s Epistemologist?”
    


5. Feminist Standpoint Theories
    Harding, “Why Has the Sex/Gender System Become Visible Only Now?”
    Harding, The Feminist Standpoint Reader (Selections)


6. Feminism, Empiricism, and Quine’s Naturalized Epistemology
    Hankinson Nelson, “Who Knows: From Quine to Feminist Empiricism”
    Antony, “Quine as Feminist: The Radical Import of Naturalized Epistemology”
    Duran, “Quine and Feminist Theory”
    Hankinson Nelson, Who Knows? Chaps. 6 & 7    
    Tuana, “The Radical Future of Feminist Empiricism”
    Linker, “A Case for a Responsibly Rationalized Feminist Epistemology”


7. Feminism and “Contextual Empiricism” (Longino)
    Tiles, “A Science of Mars or of Venus?”
    Longino, Fate of Knowledge Chaps, 5, 6, 7 & 9
    Antony, “Sisters, Please, I’d Rather Do It Myself: A Defense of Individualism             in Feminist Epistemology”


8. Feminism and Testimony
    Alcoff, “On Judging Epistemic Credibility: Is Social Identity Relevant?
    Jones, “The Politics of Credibility”
    Fricker, Epistemic Justice, Chaps 1, 2 & 3


9. Feminist Epistemological Virtues
    Fricker, Epistemic Justice, Chaps
    Scheman, “Epistemology Resuscitated: Objectivity as Trustworthiness”


10. Hermeneutical Injustice
    Fricker, Epistemic Justice        
    Hoagland. “Resisting Rationality”
    Frye, “To See and be Seen: The Politics of Reality”