Science & Education (2005) 14: 103–116
Springer 2005

The Failed Feminist Challenge to ‘Fundamental

Epistemology’?

CASSANDRA L. PINNICK
Philosophy Department, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA
(E-mail: [email protected])

Abstract. Despite volumes written in the name of the new and fundamental feminist project in
philosophy of science, and conclusions drawn on the strength of the hypothesis that the
feminist project will boost progress toward cognitive aims associated with science and ratio-
nality (and, one might add, policy decisions enacted in the name of these aims), the whole
rationale for the project remains (after 20 years, plus) wholly unsubstantiated. We must
remain agnostic about its evidentiary merits or demerits. This is because we are without
evidence to test the hypothesis: certainly, we have no data that would test the strength of the
hypothesis as asserting a causal relationship between women and cognitive ends. Thus, any
self-respecting epistemologist who places a premium on evidence-driven belief and justification
ought not to accept the hypothesis. By extension, there is no reasoned basis to draw any
definitive conclusion about the project itself. No matter how self-evidently correct.

A more fundamental project now confronts us. We must root out sexist distortions and
perversions in epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and the philosophy of science –
in the ‘hard core’ of abstract reasoning thought most immune to infiltration by social
values. (Discovering Reality, Harding & Hintikka 1983)

Until roughly the mid-20th century, liberal feminist politics had little
apparent impact on American universities. But thereafter the transformation
was swift. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, student demo-
graphics shifted, women’s studies flourished, and remarkable reforms to the
liberal arts curriculum became entrenched. There was no surprise when
feminist theory moved into the humanities or the ‘soft’ sciences. And, these
days, the radical edge is worn off the idea of departments and faculty lines
devoted to women’s studies. Indeed, the curricular shifts in academe that are
associated with the rise in the feminist profile are by now hardly more radical
than our expectation that women shall enjoy equal protection under law.
But all is not entirely well with feminist theory and the academy, as can be
seen with the curricular reforms at the intersection of feminist theory and the
‘hard’ sciences. For some of us, it is a surprise to be told that science,

?
This article originated as a lecture for the Fifth International Conference of the German
Society for Analytic Philosophy and is published by MENTIS in the GAP.5 Volume (2004).
104 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK

mathematics, and technology are fundamentally androcentric and in addition

that this hard core of abstract reasoning is, in principle, deleterious to
women. But for most of us, it is something of a shock to our epistemic
sensibilities to be told that the ‘hard core’, knowledge itself and the methods
by which it is to be achieved, require a feminist shake up.
Let me emphasize: It is one thing to digest that literature or religious practice
is shot through with androcentric bias and systematic mistreatment of women,
but it is quite another matter to grasp that serious scholarship in science, across
the so-called hard core, and the application thereof is a sham, in thrall to
prevailing social values and controlled by a self-interested, white male elite.
Of course, the fact that all of this is a surprise, a shock, or just plain
bemusing, fails to tell us anything one way or another about the merits of
feminist theory. To assess the theory, we need a clear statement of this
feminist challenge to traditionally conceived methods of good reasoning.

1. The Fundamental Project

In the introduction to their influential book, Discovering Reality: Feminist
Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of
Science (1983), editors Sandra Harding and Merrill B. Hintikka warned
readers of the failure of feminist efforts to bring liberal reform (a concern for
fair play) to science and announced the radical feminist project for philos-
ophy of science:
The attempt to add understandings of women to our knowledge of nature and social life
has led to the realization that there is precious little reliable knowledge to which to add
them. A more fundamental project now confronts us. We must root out sexist
distortions and perversions in epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and the
philosophy of science – in the ‘hard core’ of abstract reasoning thought most immune
to infiltration by social values. (Harding & Hintikka 1983, p. ix)

This is a noteworthy moment in feminist epistemology, especially the

remarkable claim ‘that there is precious little reliable knowledge’ in the tar-
geted hard core. This is to deny the epistemic progress marked by blinded
trials, advances in statistical measurement, even the rather low level theo-
retical applications of Newtonian physics. All of which makes one wonder
what the fundamental project is all about and how we are to make the most
charitable sense of its formulating thesis.
I may be in full agreement with arguments for a level playing field. I may
even have a tendency to appreciate a wide range of the more radical
conclusions the fundamental project would propose, if not the premises used
to reach those conclusions.
FUNDAMENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY 105

But, as an epistemologist of science, I am bound to respond to the feminist

project, that is, to feminist theory as it moves out of humanistic studies and
extends itself to science and the foundations of knowledge, by which I mean:
to assess the validity and the soundness of the arguments for the conclusions
feminists purport to show. Conclusions may be grand, but one ought to
accept conclusions on the basis of good arguments only. And my remarks are
directed, in the first instance, against the arguments. But it would be
impossible for me, in the scope of a single essay, to assess the full range of the
feminist project, or even the complete array of feminist arguments concerning
science and knowledge (but for a wider treatment see Pinnick 1994, 2000a, b).
So I propose to limit my remarks to the best arguments. By best, I mean to
pick out arguments based on two criteria:

(1) Arguments which are well-formulated. (This rules out a certain swathe
of the feminist critique, namely feminist contributions that self-con-
sciously eschew argumentative form.)
(2) Arguments that present a serious or a radical challenge to the epistemic
foundations of knowledge. (After all, if not a serious challenge, i.e., if
not genuinely different and demonstrably better, then why bother?)

Based on these criteria, I focus on Professor Sandra Harding’s argu-

ments, particularly as found in her recent book Is Science Multicultural?
Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies (1998). Harding’s arguments
have the benefit of being prominent among those arguments most often cited
by feminists themselves as evidence for the thesis that this fundamental project
will make a significant contribution to philosophical foundations. In other
words, what I am trying to do now is an initial step, namely, to motivate the
fundamental project. This requires proponents to show evidence of the alleged
distortions and perversions. If we cannot establish first that there are distor-
tions and perversions, then this fundamental project is a non-starter.
As we will see, Professor Harding’s ideas about the foundations of
knowledge range from the sociopolitical to the high arcana of haute episte-
mics. At the moment, we are concerned with the latter end of the spectrum.
This is to say that at this end, or in this mode of argumentation, Harding
questions the very rationality of knowledge claims in the ‘hard core’, and so
her work is a fitting place to begin.

2. The Feminist Challenge

Harding’s arguments about the very nature of science and rationality concern
me here exclusively. In other words, I want to emphasize the disclaimer: I am
not considering any range of Harding’s arguments that may serve to garner
fair play for women. This is important, but it is not my brief here.
106 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK

Given the impressive range of Harding’s publications (which began to

make their mark by the 1970s), my concern is narrow, but justified, on the
basis of Harding’s own insistence that she intends to address fundamental
epistemic categories at the hard core, and to do so in a manner she takes to be
friendly to science and rationality. By this, Harding means to say that her
argumentation is a friendly critique that aims to improve the ‘hard core’ of
knowledge.
Harding contends that the feminist project will do better than extant
methods to achieve common cognitive aims. By way of an example, the
particular cognitive aim that is a steady focus in Harding’s critique (and in
her replacement epistemology) is the cognitive aim for beliefs and theories
that have high evidentiary warrant based upon objective standards of
rationality.
The feminist project then, at least for Harding, does not question either
the possibility or the desirability of scientific rationality. The project does
question the notion that philosophy of science has embodied or can embody
rationality, unless those aims and epistemic goals associated with the feminist
project embody the fundamental nature of the epistemology of science.
Expressed in this way, as a dichotomy, it is plain that Harding intends to
argue that the feminist project provides necessary conditions for science and
rationality. And, I will try to show that Harding intends also to state suffi-
cient conditions (namely, being a woman, and thus having a woman’s
standpoint on nature).
To begin to assess matters, let me scale down the ambitions of the grand
feminist project. Let us focus the discussion solely on Harding’s express aim
(and promise) to improve science. As I take it then, with respect to this
slightly streamlined goal, the feminist project makes two promises:

Promise (1): The feminist project will provide a comparatively better the-
ory for the justification of scientific belief. Thus, we ought to expect the
feminist project to have a distinctive and demonstrably improved means
for warranting sentences that purport to reflect features of the world.
Promise (2): The feminist project will provide a distinctive and demon-
strably better methodology aimed to guide future inquiry toward its epi-
stemic aims. Thus, we ought to expect the feminist project to retain and
satisfy the epistemic and methodological value placed on a normative role
for any theory of knowledge.

This reminds us to invoke a criterion of minimum adequacy: that the

theory gives standards that justify what is believed and what should be
believed in science. We – epistemologists of science – want more than merely
correct descriptive accounts of scientific belief and method. Correct
FUNDAMENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY 107

descriptive accounts surely are necessary, but they are not sufficient to fill out
the epistemology of science.
With this backdrop of epistemic desiderata, here are important points for
consideration, that are made in Harding’s 1998 book:

Women and men in the same culture have different ‘geographical’ locations in
heterogeneous nature, and different interests, discursive resources, and ways of
organizing the production of knowledge from their brothers. Here [in this book] the
focus is on gender differences, on the reasons why it is more accurate and useful to
understand women and men in any culture as having a different relationship to the world
around them. (p. 90)
The issue is. . .about the resources that starting off research from women’s lives can
provide for increasing human knowledge of nature’s regularities and the underlying
causal tendencies anywhere and everywhere that gender relations occur. (p. 90)
In many ways they [women and men; or perhaps I should say, persons of different
gender] are exposed to different regularities of nature that offer them different possible
resources and probable dangers and that can make some theories appear more or less
plausible than they do to those who interact only with other environments. (p. 96)
When science is defined in terms of these linked meanings of objectivity and
masculinity,…science itself is distorted. (p. 139)
Standpoint approaches can show us how to detect values and interests that constitute
scientific projects…Standpoint approaches provide a map, a method, for maximizing a
‘strong Objectivity’ in the natural and social sciences. (p. 163)

Based on these passages, I take it that Harding hypothesizes that women

have a special insight into causal regularities, the very bedrock of science,
which can improve science by boosting objectivity. As we read, it is ‘more
accurate’ to understand persons of different gender as ‘having a different
relationship to the world’. This different relationship, in the case of women,
‘can provide for increasing human knowledge’, and we are told specifically
that the kind of knowledge Harding has in view is ‘nature’s regularities and
underlying causal tendencies’. So, the different relationship to the world
enjoyed by women and on the basis of which knowledge can be increased is
set in a different causal nexus where women are ‘exposed to different regu-
larities of nature’. And, finally, we are told that the different, gendered
geography, will ‘detect values and interests’, presumably otherwise not
detected, and this in turn will produce ‘a strong Objectivity’, ‘in the natural
and social sciences [emphasis added, for the reason that many interpreters of
Harding say that Harding’s hypothesis does not encompass natural science,
yet here Harding directly belies claims to narrow the scope of her project]’.
There are many interesting issues embedded in the hypothetical expressed
here (that women have a special insight into causal regularities in virtue of
their geography/gender), and the arguments that surround it. The point I
want to call attention to, is that throughout these passages Harding’s
108 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK

substantive content asserts an empirical hypothesis about women and

knowledge, or – because the fundamental project is about science – about
women and the epistemic goals of science. (For the purpose of this essay, we
will have to not raise the question of how it is that the fundamental feminist
project speaks for women or for feminists. It is a murky issue to understand
how the categories of women and feminists do, or do not, overlap.) After all,
as Harding writes, if we start off research from women’s lives, then the
promised result is ‘knowledge of nature’s regularities and their underlying
causal tendencies’. It seems only right to assess these theory-linked events as
an empirically testable, hypothetical statement about a means-to-end rela-
tion, that asserts there to be an emergent, epistemic boost, to be gained by the
feminist project. And mark carefully: the scope of the hypothetical (linking
women, insight, causal regularities, boosted objectivity) is not across any-
thing so narrow as ‘women’s issues’, but instead to nature’s regularities
across the natural and the social sciences. This is an ambitious project. But,
any challenge to traditional epistemology ought to be.
Recall that, as we understand the feminist project, the cognitive aims of
science, are not in question. However, the feminist project questions the
efficacy of traditional methods to achieve these aims. Harding is explicit
about this: the feminist project will change methods, doing so by an infusion
of ‘women’s standpoints on nature’. To consider how the feminist project
fares then is to assess the strength of the claim that women’s standpoints
promote a (comparatively) better methodology to achieve just those cognitive
aims that traditional epistemology itself values. Understood in this manner,
that women’s standpoints promote a comparatively better methodology –
Harding’s arguments are impressive for the methodological promise they
make that the very goals and values enunciated by traditional epistemology
are better served by the feminist project.
So then, how fares this project? There is just one point to make. The sole
point is that we must remain agnostic about its evidentiary merits or
demerits. This is because we are without evidence to test the hypothesis:
certainly, we have no data that would test the strength of the hypothesis as
asserting a causal relationship between women and cognitive ends. Thus, any
self-respecting epistemologist who places a premium on evidence-driven
belief and justification ought not to accept the hypothesis. By extension, there
is no reasoned basis to draw any definitive conclusion about the project itself.
No matter how self-evidently correct or right-headed the project may appear,
epistemic propriety demands that doxastic commitment be delayed, one way
or another, until there is data. At this time, there is none. (Querying exactly
why adherents to the fundamental project have not engaged in empirical
trials that might provide support for the thesis that feminist epistemology of
science should replace traditional epistemology of science is not an easy task,
and a task made all the more difficult when, as too often is the case, feminists
FUNDAMENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY 109

claim to provide such support when, in fact, purely descriptive narratives are
all that are provided. Given the time frame, some argue that the complete
lack of normative support for the thesis is sufficient to reject it. At any rate, I
prefer to maintain the moderate, agnostic stance toward the thesis and
toward Harding’s hypothesis.)

3. Special Cases
So far, my reservations concerning the feminist project may appear to be
selective, based on a too narrow range of feminist argumentation. Or, my
reservations may appear too broad, in that I have not taken into consider-
ation what is said to be a rich, widely ranging spectrum of particular argu-
ments that either individually or as a programmatic group prove the
hypothesis that underlies the fundamental project and, doing even more,
trace the new, and improved, epistemology that the fundamental project
makes possible.
I surely have no intention to give short shrift to the argumentative
strength of the full range of feminist critique of science, in so far as arguments
are provided. And it is argument that we need, not either anecdotal report or
historical narrative (which is not to deny that in the long run anecdote and
history are important elements of a philosophy of science; but these elements
must not substitute for the usual apparatus of epistemology that supports
methodological advice and a means to justify belief). So to forestall the
charge that I fail to do justice to the feminist critique, let me now cite noted
feminist contributions other than Harding’s.

4. Lorraine Code and New Epistemological Categories

The first set of arguments I wish to examine are those by Lorraine Code
(1991). Here we get something slightly different from Harding.
As long as ‘epistemology’ bears the stamp of the postpositivist, empiricist project of
determining necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge and devising strategies to
refute skepticism, there can be no feminist epistemology. [These conditions] are inimical
to feminist concerns on many levels: ontological, epistemological, moral, political. Ideals
central to the project-ideals of objectivity, impartiality, and universality are androcen-
trically derived. Their articulation maps onto typical middle-class white male
experiences. (Code 1991, p. 314)

This of course is blatant heresy, in its implicit recommendation for a

nearly unrecognizable theory of knowledge. But that does not mean it is
wrong. (Nonetheless, I am reminded of a remark that if science is andro-
centric, then this is the best endorsement for androcentrism that one can
find.) In any case, noting that Code’s view audaciously rejects pretty much all
110 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK

that is near and dear to the heart of epistemologists, does not duly respond to
the implicit challenge Code makes as against traditional epistemological
categories. So, let us now look with seriousness.
If Code’s reasoning intends to support the conclusion that the episte-
mology of science ought to be based on feminist categories (for now, let us
leave this to be defined as the negation of whatever belongs to white male
categories), then Code’s reasoning commits a patent non sequitur. This is
because, even if epistemology is exactly as Code says it is, it does not follow
that feminist epistemology must or can replace it; perhaps astrology ought to
replace it. But Code has more to say:
I contend that mainstream epistemology, in its very neutrality, masks the fact of its
derivation from and embeddedness in a specific set of interests: the interests of a
privileged group of white men. (pp. ix, x)

There is no arguing against the claim that men, in general, are guilty of
oppressive practices as against women, in general. But from this truism, how
are we to demarcate a ‘white male point of view’ regarding either women or
epistemological principles? We can state facts about white men as a group,
but where is the evidence to warrant assertions about white men and epi-
stemic categories, or about white men, epistemology and women? We would
be better off looking to link members of identifiable economic groups with
corresponding ideologies, although even success in this kind of project
notoriously falls short of showing causal connections. Still, overall, socio-
economic categories are better predictive factors than gender.
A point in Code’s favor is that she rejects any turn to essentialism, because
to do so, she writes, ‘would risk replicating the exclusionary, hegemonic
structures of the masculinist epistemology…’(p. 316). However, here too,
Code’s reasoning moves to an irrelevant conclusion. For where is the evi-
dence to show that a single theory of knowledge, even hegemonic male
epistemology, does always and will always exclude real alternatives to it?
Instead, science or its history seems to be punctuated by white males as
agents of scientific change, if not progress.
Perhaps Code’s remarks are intended to be a call for sensitivity to various
kinds of knowers (what Harding, for example, calls a multicultural stand-
point). Perhaps women have distinctive capacities (such as, as some have
suggested, a generalized, special sensitivity to distress calls), unique devel-
opmental circumstances that we are able to show are not shared by males.
(These developmental circumstances would map nicely onto Sandra
Harding’s concept of ‘different geographical locations’ as between genders.)
Gender differences may be a significant mark in human knowing: (some)
women may exemplify a distinctive mode of knowledge. But how distinctive?
Is this what it says it is, women’s way of knowing, or may men aspire to it? Is
its presence, or non-presence, uniform across gender categories? The
FUNDAMENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY 111

difficulty is this: how do we know? which is to ask: how can we test, one way
or the other? One looks in vain for an answer.

5. Helen Longino and Communitarian (Intersubjective) Epistemology

Now, let me next turn to arguments by philosopher and historian of science
Helen Longino. I would want to make clear that my remarks are directed to
Longino’s contributions to philosophy and epistemology of science only, not
to her involvement in any historical projects concerning science, where she
has contributed a rich, and richly done, variety of materials.
Helen Longino’s recent book, The Fate of Knowledge (Longino 2001), is
advertised as proceeding on the premise that philosophers downplay social
forces, whereas sociologists emphasize them, but that both assume mistak-
enly that social forces are solely a source of bias and irrationality. As all
philosophers of science know, it is sheer caricature to presume such a
dichotomy, as between philosophers and sociologists, although I have not the
time in these remarks to argue this point. (It is worth noting that philoso-
phers have themselves been the ones to spill much ink over the role that may
be played by arational factors in science.) However, more importantly, the
book is advertised to do far more than rehearse a potted story about
philosophy of science:
Helen Longino challenges this assumption [that is, the propriety of the questionable
dichotomy, not that there is a dichotomy], arguing that social interaction actually assists
us in securing rationally based knowledge. This insight allows her to develop a new
account of scientific knowledge that integrates the social and cognitive. (Princeton
University Press advertisement, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 69 No. 1, March 2002, p.
171)

I want to focus my remarks on the putative insight, viz. ‘that social

interaction actually assists us in securing rationally based knowledge’ and
that this insight allows Longino ‘to develop a new account of scientific
knowledge’. If successful, Longino will satisfy one of the early adequacy
conditions we placed on the fundamental project. There are two claims here.
In the first instance, Longino appears (as stated in the quote from the blurb)
to have resolved the question that most vexes me, namely, how, if at all, do
social factors boost our efforts to justify scientific belief? But let me delay
discussion of this point for a moment and turn to the second instance.
Let me make a brief interjection. I hasten to say that not all communi-
tarianisms in science are a bad thing. Francis Bacon made a valiant effort to
incorporate community into the new learning with his New Atlantis. And
even Charles Sanders Peirce placed special epistemic and methodological
emphasis on the community of scientific believers.
112 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK

Returning to the blurb. In the second instance, we have the assertion that
Longino develops a new account of scientific knowledge. Just as before (when
we considered Harding), we want to know how the new epistemology does a
better job of justifying science and its practice. This is to ask questions such
as, what old problems does the new epistemology resolve? what compara-
tively better predictive force does the new epistemology have? and so forth
through the familiar range of questions about science and its practice.
However, in this book, it appears that Longino continues to work with a
communitarian epistemology, or what she calls an intersubjective basis for
the methodology of belief justification. This is to say that, in her view, the
ultimate justifier for any claim to know is the community of believers. The
difference to remark upon is that Longino’s epistemology of science is one
where consensus is community-driven, whereas the epistemology that
Longino’s arguments aim to replace is one where consensus is evidence-
based. This ought to bring into sharp contrast the difference. For, regardless
of how a communitarian style epistemology may be dressed up, in the end,
the community is the final arbiter of belief. There is, even in the long run, no
objectively compelling ground for belief, only grounds for a particular
community. In her own words: [ justification is] ‘dependent on rules and
procedures immanent in the context of inquiry’ (p. 92). This stance evades a
pernicious relativism (if, in fact, it does) not by appeal to normative episte-
mology, but by appeal to normative sociology.
In any case, does Longino show that social interaction assists us in securing
knowledge? To say, merely, that social interaction contributes to the success
of science is an idea that is neither new, nor the special provenance of persons
outside philosophy (cf. Laudan 1984; Hull 1988). David Hull, and others, all
have worried about the ways in which sometimes grubby motives produce
scientifically noble ends. This is to say that over and over again, philosophers
of science such as Hull, Laudan, Lakatos, and even Feyerabend, all worry the
question of how historical and cultural contexts have contributed to the
development, evaluation, and acceptance of theories. (Indeed, in 1984, only
one year apart from the ‘fundamental project’ manifesto, Richard Boyd
dubbed this kind of philosophy ‘social constructivism’ (Boyd 1984)).
But if we want to understand ‘contributes to’ in the sense of providing an
epistemic boost, then we need to show that we do (or can do) better science
by means of this intersubjective deliberation. And we would show this on the
basis of isolated and tested-for social factors. In other words, we have to once
and for all place this idea, that there is some new epistemological category,
into our epistemic cross-hairs, and then see what the testing process reveals.
It has not been done.
Let me mention briefly a recent effort to argue that social interaction
contributes in a positive way to science. This is K. Brad Wray’s essay, ‘The
Epistemic Significance of Collaborative Research’ (Wray 2002). Here Wray
FUNDAMENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY 113

attempts to test the causal role that collaboration plays in science, by testing
the epistemic effect that collaboration has in accessing the scarce resources
that are needed to carry out research. Wray’s test thesis is that collaboration
ought to demonstrably boost realizing epistemic goals over scientists or
teams that do not collaborate. (This is, in addition, a nice take on a com-
munitarian thesis.) Wray intends to show that by collaborating as research
teams, scientists have greater success in accessing scarce resources needed to
carry out research and this success in turn enables them to realize the epi-
stemic goals of science more effectively than scientists who do not
collaborate.
Wray’s arguments bring together a vast array of research. To summarize
the aim of his project, he writes:
Ideally, it would be useful to have information on specific research groups, showing
increased productivity after collaboration, followed by greater funding, which in turn
would be followed by continued collaboration. Unfortunately, at present, such data are
not available. (Wray 2002, pp.158–159)

So, in the end, Wray is able to trace a social trend in the practice of science,
but not able to show an epistemological effect based on the trend. He admits
that he finds no evidence for boost due to collaboration. Indeed, despite
valuable insights brought together in this essay, Wray’s conclusions float
completely free of the epistemology of science. While Wray makes a fairly
interesting case that there is an identifiable, and even well-tracked, causal
connection between a rise in collaborative research and funding success, this
conclusion does not run to the epistemic import of collaboration and
scientific aims.
Let me recapture now the focus on Helen Longino’s arguments. Longino
provides a pretty good case study for feminist epistemology of science. And
here I do not want to be misunderstood: for on one hand, we have Longino
qua philosopher of science, on the other hand we have Longino’s philo-
sophical arguments qua feminist. Considered in the latter guise only, how, if
at all, do Longino’s arguments boost the epistemic success of science?
Longino’s focus is on evidence and the concept of objectivity. She rela-
tivizes evidence to background beliefs and on this basis says that she shows
both the opportunity and need for a feminist critique of evidence. In other
words, Longino argues (1) that background beliefs are tainted with bias, but
(2) if we were to use better background beliefs, then we will likely have better
science.
But, how is it peculiarly feminist to decry (distorting) bias in background
belief? Everyone allows that our beliefs are warranted against a back-
ground, and everyone aims for this background to be unbiased to the
extent possible (or, of course, if the bias boosts, then to maximize its
presence and impact).
114 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK

Moreover, the history of philosophy of science simply does not support

the claim that feminists, or women, have any special claim on ‘rooting out
sexist bias’ in science.
Along with other feminist philosophers of science, Longino needs to show
what remains still not done: that our scientific understanding of objects in the
world is improved (boosted) when voices from a specific political or social –
or gendered, or marginalized-position participate.

6. Conclusion: A Plea for Methodology

Despite volumes written in the name of the feminist project, and conclusions
drawn on the strength of the hypothesis that the feminist project will boost
progress toward cognitive aims associated with science and rationality (and,
one might add, policy decisions enacted in the name of these aims), the whole
rationale for the feminist fundamental project remains (after 20 years, plus)
wholly unsubstantiated.
Since that time when advocates of the feminist project claimed to discover
that ‘there is precious little reliable knowledge’ at the ‘hard core’, and they
then began to advance what I have called the boost hypothesis, no tests have
been made to support the hypothesized connection as between women and
the cognitive ends of science.
Without question, there is a wealth of anecdotal reportage, and a whole
lot of desire to promote women’s involvement across all fields of inquiry, in
particular within science. But anecdote and desire do not provide the kind of
evidentiary warrant that should be relevant to an assessment of the feminist
project. As matters stand, the hypothesis rallies only those already converted
to it – a situation that is no boon to rationality!
More, reliance on anecdotal reportage represents a step back by way of
testing hypotheses. And, as for the sociopolitical gains made to secure a level
playing field on behalf of women, these gains were achieved on the basis of
compelling data. It would be nothing short of a self-defeating maneuver for
women to advert to standards of proof that undercut the reasoned grounds
for these past gains.
I return again and again to questions about methodology and justification,
and raise and re-raise objections about lack of empirical support, just because
feminist philosophical arguments make empirically based assertions about
science and women or gender.
In one sense, my refrain is made in the interest of a simple concern for
good scholarship: if any author makes an empirically based claim, then the
author is bound to provide supporting evidence. I fail to find substantiating,
empirically based evidence, anywhere in this literature.
FUNDAMENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY 115

But, so what? Why ought this to be of any great concern? The reason is
this: Science is not so much a particular subject matter as it is a kind of
methodology for obtaining reliable knowledge. And it is when we are con-
cerned with methodology: ‘what methods ought we adopt to achieve our
aims?’ that the fundamental feminist project is so unimpressive.
On its face, there is a whole lot of common sense to the notion that more
women doing science will make science better. But intellectual history is
riddled with commonsensical notions that careful scrutiny reveals to be
misguided. And, even worse, intellectual history includes an encyclopedia of
public policy decisions, taken on the basis of misguided common sense or
skewed evidence, most often to the detriment, the peril even, of society.
For myself, I have the usual level of self-interest: I delight at the prospect
that public policy be rewritten to encourage and to privilege women in hard
core disciplines. However, my self-interest is tempered by a sense of epistemic
value, namely the value of evidence-based public policy. So, before endorsing
public policy that would flow logically from the feminist fundamental pro-
ject, the evidence base that would undergird the fundamental project must be
available to be assessed. Yet, it is not.
And so, we are back to our starting point. If it is correct to view science as
a methodology, then it follows that this fundamental project is a dismal
failure, for the reasons that there are no results unique to it (which is to say
that there are no new facts) and that there surely is no new, even different,
methodology that is correctly said to be uniquely feminist.

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116 CASSANDRA L. PINNICK

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