Feminist philosophy of science

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The feminist philosophy of science summarizes feminist- inspired research approaches in the field of science research and theory . Many of their concepts aim to create a new understanding of science based on feminist knowledge. In addition, she asks how gender relations and gender images come about in science. It is regarded as a branch of feminist philosophy , but so far only as an established discipline at US universities, and it also often transitions into feminist sociology of science and the history of science . The beginnings of the feminist philosophy of science lie in a Marxist- feminist-oriented critique of domination, which in science and technology constituted an instrument of male hegemony. Its representatives mostly came from scientific research and tried, against the background of second wave feminism , to subject their disciplines to ideological criticism. Towards the end of the 1980s, new approaches emerged that also questioned the uniform category of the feminine and painted a more optimistic picture of science and technology. At the same time, there was also an increased exchange with other approaches in Science and Technology Studies (STS), which had emerged around the same time in Great Britain and France.

The feminist philosophy of science is assigned great importance in the context of general feminist theory formation, since a critical examination of human science categories is central to an understanding of gender concepts. Feminist approaches are also discussed in general philosophy of science, as they address general epistemological issues. This is how the general question of the value neutrality of the sciences or of the need for a criticism of science is raised with reference to feminist theorists.

Approaches to the feminist philosophy of science

Critique of the freedom of value judgment

In all approaches of the feminist philosophy of science there is a criticism of the claim to freedom from value judgments . Proponents of this claim state that the sciences have value judgments as their object and people can show the necessary means for their purposes, but can never themselves dictate to people what the right action would be. Scientific knowledge must be visible to everyone in the same way, which is not the case with value judgments. Within the scope of this claim, no space can be given to a specifically feminist view of science, since feminism has explicitly political goals and therefore cannot be regarded as free of value judgments. Feminists counter such criticism by rejecting the claim that the sciences are free of value judgments. One can distinguish between two forms of criticism of the claim to freedom from value judgments. On the one hand it is pointed out that the practical consequences of the sciences are in fact not free of value judgments, on the other hand it is argued that the claim to work without value judgments is in principle irredeemable.

Practical criticism

The practical criticism relates to the fact that the claim to value neutrality is not fulfilled in the sciences. It is pointed out that today's scientific research is also in a social and historical context and is therefore always influenced by the interests and prejudices of the environment. In addition to individual examples, references are often made to the history of science. From today's perspective it can be seen that past scientific theories have adopted the prejudices and value judgments of their epochs. Since prejudices against women and men also prevail in today's societies, it can be assumed that these prejudices will also be found in the empirical sciences. From this criticism it is concluded that one has to critically monitor the real scientific world in order to uncover and criticize scientifically unproven prejudices and value judgments.

The feminist program of a practical critique of value neutrality also includes reference to pseudoscientific arguments in public. In the opinion of many philosophers of science, such a pseudoscience is practiced when gender-specific behavior in bestsellers or television documentaries is to be explained by simple evolutionary considerations. The same applies to many popular scientific publications by specialist scientists. Often the feminist criticism of science is transferred to the project of evolutionary psychology or sociobiology with simplistic evolutionary explanations . The transsubjective philosophy of science, on the other hand, explains that no feminist philosophy of science is necessary to identify a statement about the sexes as true or false.

Criticism in principle

In the context of the fundamental criticism , however, an attempt is made to show that it is fundamentally not possible for science to act in a purely value-neutral manner. It is pointed out that in research certain material inevitably has to be assessed as interesting and relevant, while other facts are excluded. In addition, it is argued that criteria are needed for general scientific terms that are by no means inevitable and given by nature. If, for example, classifying terms such as intelligence , gender , ethnicity or illness are used, the criteria are not mandatory and are created by people according to certain values. For example, the concept of intelligence can be used in very different ways, a certain concept of intelligence always arises from the ideas and interests of the researcher.

The critique of the claim to value neutrality is therefore central to the feminist philosophy of science, since it enables the detection and criticism of values ​​in scientific research on gender. Even if there are very different philosophical traditions that emphasize the permeability of factual judgments, this idea is mostly discussed in feminist theory with reference to the point of view theory .

The biological gender concepts

One focus of feminist philosophy of science is the investigation of biological gender concepts . Here, too, the aim is to show that the current gender classifications are contingent products of scientific research and in no way prescribed by nature.

The argument here is on the one hand with the multitude of possible criteria for biological gender affiliation. While the genetic sex is defined by the chromosomal makeup of the individual, the hormone-producing gonads determine the hormonal sex . According to the genital gender, on the other hand, the external sexual characteristics are used as the defining criterion. It should now be noted that people can belong to different genders depending on which criteria are used. The question of what gender a person really is may therefore be pointless, since this question is not decided by the world, but by the system of terms that one chooses.

In the opinion of many theories, the fact of the different biological gender concepts also indicates that very different phenomena are hidden behind the apparently uniform gender principle of nature. For example, genetic sex cannot be applied to all living beings .

Importance of intersexuality

As intersexuality , refers to the phenomenon that some people have ambiguous sexual characteristics. This ambiguity can occur with any of the gender criteria mentioned above. So there are people with ambiguous chromosomes, gender characteristics, and ambiguous hormone production. According to many feminist theories, the phenomenon of intersexuality shows that the human-made gender categories often fail because of the diversity and complexity of biological reality. Although the categories produced unambiguous classifications for most people , they also proved inadequate for other people.

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The consequences that feminist philosophy of science draws from the ambiguity and variability of gender concepts are quite different. Many theories do not call for a fundamental revision of biological gender concepts. Rather, it explains that the phenomena described can contribute to a better understanding of, for example, intersexuality. It is often assumed that intersex people must have a real gender . This assumption is rejected by the epistemological side with the argument that there is no reason to assume that the general terms / criteria invented by humans always produce a clear result. This can also be explained by the function of other general terms such as “table” and “cabinet”. As a rule, it is very easy to determine whether an object is a table or a cupboard. But is now an object created, the table and is cabinet, it is not reasonable to argue that this object either table or his cabinet must . By analogy , it makes no sense in the case of a person with ambiguous gender characteristics to claim that in reality he must be either a woman or a man .

While many theories are limited to emphasizing these ambiguities, other approaches try to fundamentally change or even abolish the gender concepts. Such theories mostly arise in the context of philosophical postmodernism . They state that gender concepts have done so much damage that it is best to abandon them.

Postmodern approaches

Many approaches in feminist philosophy of science, as well as feminist philosophy in general, are strongly influenced by philosophical postmodernism . This can be understood as the most radical interpretation of the linguistic turn . The central thesis of the linguistic turnaround, based on Ludwig Wittgenstein , is that access to reality is only possible for people through language . Since a linguistic system always goes hand in hand with a certain perspective , it is often assumed in the context of the linguistic turnaround that a purely objective access to the world that excludes any subjective perspective is not possible. Ultimately, one cannot step out of one's own human and linguistically conveyed perspective. From the postmodern side, this assumption is now being radicalized in that it is claimed that the idea of ​​a specified reality beyond any human-subjective perspective is meaningless.

The postmodern feminist philosophy of science now draws the conclusion that the assumption of genders beyond conceptual orders is also meaningless. One could therefore not invoke a pre-lingual gender order; rather, the genders were constructed in linguistic practices. But this also opens up the possibility of deconstructing the old gender order. The aim is to construct an alternative or to abolish any gender order. Such approaches are not limited to the philosophy of science, but extend very far into feminist theory and practice , especially in the context of queer theory .

literature

  • Gudrun-Axeli Knapp : In conflict. Feminist theory in motion . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2012. ISBN 978-3-531-18267-4
  • Anne Fausto-Sterling : Prisoners of Sex? What biological theories say about men and women , Piper Verlag, Munich, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-492-03129-3 Influential theory of biological sexes from a feminist perspective
  • Evelyn Fox Keller : Reflections on Gender and Science , Yale University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-300-06595-7
  • Donna Haraway : Reinventing Nature. Primates, cyborgs and women , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / Main, New York 1995, ISBN 3-593-35241-9
  • Sandra Harding : Feminist philosophy of science. On the relationship between science and social gender , Argument Verlag, Berlin, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-88619-384-5 The classic of the feminist philosophy of science
  • Helen Longino : Science as Social Knowledge , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-691-02051-5
  • Elizabeth Potter: Feminism and Philosophy of Science. An Introduction , Abington, Routledge, 2006.
  • Katharina Rowold: Gender and Science (Key Issues) , Thoemmes Press, 1996, ISBN 1-85506-411-1 anthology, also contains sociological, historical and political texts
  • Heinz-Jürgen Voss : Feminist criticism of science. Using the example of natural science biology . In: Ulrike Freikamp et al. (Ed.): Criticism with method? Research methods and social criticism (Texts 42). Karl Dietz Verlag 2008, pp. 233-252, ISBN 978-3-320-02136-8 (online as PDF )

Feminist Epistemology

  • Linda Alcoff / Elizabeth Potter (eds.): Feminist Epistemologies , New York: Routledge 1993.
  • Louise Anthony / Charlotte Witt (eds.): A Mind of One's Own : Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1993.
  • Lorraine Code: What Can She Know? , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1991.
  • Lynn Hankinson Nelson : Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism Temple University Press, 1990, ISBN 1-56639-007-9

Feminist method discussion

  • L. Alcoff: Justifying Feminist Social Science , in: Hypatia, special issue 2 (Feminism and Science), 107-27.
  • Ruth Bleier: Feminist Approaches to Science . New York: Pergamon Press 1986.
  • G. Bowles / RD Klein (eds.): Theories of Women's Studies , New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1983.
  • L. Code / S. Mullett / C. Overall (eds.): Feminist Perspectives : Philosophical Essays on Method and Morals, Toronto: University of Toronto 1988.
  • Margrit Eichler: Nonsexist Research Methods , Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin 1988.
  • MM Fonow / JA Cook (eds.): Beyond Methodology : Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 1991.
  • Sandra Harding: Feminism and Methodology : Social Science Issues, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1987.
  • Evelyn Fox Keller / Helen E. Longino (eds.): Feminism and Science , Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996.
  • Evelyn Fox Keller: Reflections on Gender and Science , New Haven: Yale University Press 1985.
  • Micaela di Leonardo (ed.): Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge : Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era, Berkeley - Los Angeles: University of California Press 1991.
  • Helen E. Longino: In Search of Feminist Epistemology , in: The Monist 77 (1994), 472-85.
  • JM Nielsen (ed.): Feminist Research Methods : Exemplary Readings in the Social Sciences, Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1990.
  • S. Reinharz: Feminist Methods in Social Research , Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992.
  • H. Roberts (Ed.): Doing Feminist Research , London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1981.
  • Joan Rothschild (ed.): Machina Ex Dea : Feminist Perspectives on Technology. New York: Pergamon Press 1983.
  • Dorothy Smith: The Everyday World as Problematic : A Feminist Sociology, Toronto, Ont .: University of Toronto Press 1987.
  • L. Stanley / S. Wise: Breaking Out : Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1983.
  • W. Tomm / G. Hamilton (eds.): Gender Bias in Scholarship : The Pervasive Prejudice, Waterloo, Ont .: Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1988.
  • Nancy Tuana / Evelyn Fox Keller (eds.): Feminism and Science , New York: Oxford University Press 1996.

Web links

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  1. ^ Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, entry in the Stanford Enzyclopedia of philosophy , 2000
  2. ↑ For example: Londa Schiebinger : Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science , Rutgers University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8135-3531-X
  3. ↑ The classic here is: Max Weber The 'objectivity' of sociological and sociopolitical knowledge Reprinted in: Schriften zu Wissenschaftstheorie , Reclam, Stuttgart, 1991
  4. ↑ A well-known goal of such criticism is: Allan Pease, Barbara Pease: Why men don't listen and women don't park well , Ullstein, Munich, 2000
  5. ^ Sandra Harding : The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader. Intellectual and Political Controversies. , Routledge, 2003, ISBN 0-415-94500-3
  6. ^ Anne Fausto-Sterling : Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality , Basic Books, 2001, ISBN 0-465-07714-5
  7. ↑ Peggy T. Cohen-Kettenis et al. a .: Transgenderism and Intersexuality in Childhood and Adolescence: Making Choices (Developmental Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry) , Sage Publications, 2003
  8. ↑ Richard Rorty , for example, is important here : Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature , Princeton University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-691-02016-7
  9. ↑ The starting point here is also for the feminist philosophy of science: Judith Butler : Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity , Routledge, 1990, ISBN 0-415-90043-3