Philosophies of Science: Feminist Theories

By Jane Duran

Book Overview

This book presents the feminist critique of science and the philosophy of science in such a way that students of philosophy of science, philosophers, feminist theorists, and scientists will find the material accessible and intellectually rigorous.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B006339QWQ
• ISBN13: 9780813333250
• Release Date: December 1997
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Feminist Critique of Positivism, the Kuhnian Revolution, and Feminist Epistemology in the Sciences

From Preface by Jane Duran: "Science studies has taken on an extraordinary life in recent years, and contemporary debates surrounding such disparate phenomena as the Sokal hoax, the AIDS virus (or nonvirus), and the existence of life on Mars take on added salience when we consider the proximity of much of the current research in science to our daily lives. The philosopher of science, however, may feel somewhat cut off from such debates, because the rigorous training provided by most programs in philosophy of science may appear, superficially at least, to be at odds with much of the material in the popular press or, indeed, even in the academic press that is relevant to science studies. This work aims to fill in the gaps for those whose training is primarily in philosophy, but at the same time it attempts to be accessible to readers trained in other disciplines, including the social sciences and women's studies. If the greatest impetus for the growth of work revolving around the cultural status of science has come from feminist theory, any explanation of what might be involved in finding the intersection of philosophy of science and contemporary feminism is timely. In this book I have tried to acquaint the philosopher of science with feminist theory and the feminist with at least a minimal amount of philosophy of science, and to provide as well as some overview of other crucial relevant areas, such as the radical critique of science and sociology of science. The first part of the book is probably the most directly philosophical and no doubt the most difficult for those who do not originally have training in philosophy. Because so much is written about positivism and the work springing from it, it is important to be precise about the original positivist project and its offspring. An overview of the entire project and a closer look at positivism, the Vienna Circle, and movements in philosophy of science allied with its comprise the first section. Few revolutions have had the impact of the Kuhnian revolution, and so an explanation of it and its relation to the work that historically preceded it begins the second edition. The importance of sociology of science, particularly the Edinburgh School, is the topic of Chapter 5 of this work, and Chapter 6 is devoted exclusively to feminist theory and the feminist critique of science. Although feminist theory is touched on throughout the work, it is Chapter 6 that tries to provide an overview of it in terms of its relationship to current science studies. Because the radical critique of science is closely allied to lines of criticism that originated in feminist thought, this critique constitutes Chapter 7. In both Chapters 7 and 8 I not only underscore the Marxist, and hence materialist, origins of the radical critique but also show how recent work is naturalized epistemology and epistemic justification theory might be tied to new work on the notion of scientific justification. The concluding se